ENG208.501 Topics in Early British Literaure: Into The Wild

Summer 2013

SHORT RESPONSE #1

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight & Apocalypse Now

Figure 1. Marlon Brando as Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979)

Please respond to the following 2 prompts with at least one double-spaced, typed page per response, and BE SURE to include in your responses very specific details from the works under discussion [specific scene and plot details, direct quotations, etc.]. There are no right or wrong responses to the prompts below, but whatever your interpretations of the narratives you discuss, you MUST ground that interpretation in a very CLOSE attention to the small details and language of the works under consideration.

1. The narrative of Gawain and the Green Knight seems to indicate that in order to really test one's moral-chivalric code, one has to leave one's comfort zone [civilized society, i.e., Camelot] and enter the wilderness. Why do you think this is the case?

2. How would you describe both Capt. Willard's and Gawain's journies/adventures as classic heroic quest narratives? [Be sure to revisit these two links: Monomyth: The Hero's Journey + The Generic Romance Plot: Themes of Ascent and Descent]

This Short Response #1 is due to the Instructor by midnight on Saturday, June 8th; please type your Response as a Microsft Word document, saving it with either a .doc or .docx file extension, and send it to Eileen Joy as an email attachment: eileenajoy@gmail.com. It's a good idea to cut and paste the Exam questions and prompts from here into your Word document and then fill in your own responses after each one. Please save your file as: Response 1_YourLastName.