Expert: Samuel Noel - 5/11/2009

Question
Hi. I need to write a paper about any English novel of my choice but my teacher wants an original topic that was not discussed before!! Any sugesstions please?

Answer
Hi Rona,

I'm assuming that this course is an advanced literature course; otherwise it would have more structure.

The first step is to select a novel that you enjoy and re-read it. You should place Post-its in pages that you find interesting. Note the topic and the page number. At the end of your reading, take the Post-its and place them on a board so that you can see visually the interesting elements in that novel. At that point, you can select a topic that was not discussed in your class. I'm also assuming that this is not a graduate level course in which you must write a thesis on something that has not been written about before. For that, you would need to use databases such as JSTOR or MLA Bibliography to scan material written about your novel.

Another approach would be to select a literary critical theory to provide analysis of your work. Examples include:

1. Marxist literary theory
2. gender literary theory
3. race/ethnic literary theory
4. psychoanalytical literary theory
5. archetypal literary theory
6. historical literary theory
7. new historical literary theory
8. reader response theory
9. formalist literary theory
10. deconstructionist literary theory.

I don't know if you've covered this kind of material, but that's one way to go.

Try the following for more information: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/

I hope this is helpful.

Sam Noel