Directions: Youll be writing critically about Black Mirror (San Junipero, Play Test, Striking Vipers episodes) or about Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, with a bit of The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
Please choose one of the following prompts for your essay:
1. One of the themes of San Junipero is circumvention. This episode features a technology that circumvents the mortality of our consciousness. Technology is made to alter a seemingly inexorable condition of human existence the finitude of bodily death and provide an alternate path. But is this circumvention desirable? Is it ethical? Humane? Write an essay that discusses circumvention in this episode. In circumventing these basic, presumed aspects of being human, what is it exactly that this technology enable the characters in the episode to attain? You could consider the circumvention of any of these, as they are represented in the episode: mortality, loneliness, grief, corporeality, mnemonic fallibility, the aleatory, senescence, time, finitude. Other points of circumvention may work as well; just run them by me first, please.
2. Albert Einstein once said that, It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. Black Mirror seems inspired in part by this idea, as it explores the limits of being human. Our inability to remember every detail of our experiences, from moment to moment, may create frustration, but its ultimately a frustration and condition that we all share. Our awareness of and nearness to death can be terrifying, but its arrival is certain. If these limitations and imperfections are common to all humans, what becomes of our humanity when these limitations/imperfections are negated? Does the very idea of being human change? Do we become more than human? Less than human? Write an essay that discusses the limits of being human or of humanity in San Junipero or Play Test.
3. Striking Vipers explores the liminal space between fantasy and reality. In particular, the episode presents a scenario where two characters are able to express and satisfy their desires in a virtual space, unencumbered by social and institutional barriers surrounding sexuality and gender. There is a transphobic barrier, which Karl is able to trespass as Roxette, his virtual avatar in the Striking Vipers online fighting game. He seems gratified by assuming a female form, but this is something he only does in the virtual space closeted away from his real life where he only dates women. There is also the matter of Karls sexuality. He is heterosexual IRL, but in the online game environment, he has homosexual encounters/experiences with his friend Danny (whose avatar is the hypermasculine character Lance). Ultimately, when Danny and Karl decide to see if there is romantic chemistry between them in real life, they discover that its only in the virtual game space where they feel attracted to each other. Or at least, this is what they admit to. The episode asks, then, whether virtual gaming environments augment, supplant, distort or complete our reality. I put reality in quotation marks because in this age of online social interaction and connection, reality has gotten harder to distinguish from virtuality. That is, the line once draw between them has either blurred or disappeared altogether. Write an essay in which you explain the tensions between fantasy and reality, as depicted in Striking Vipers. Be sure to define what those tensions are, how they affect the episodes central three characters, and how the episode comments on our current age of a blurred distinction between reality and virtuality.
4. Many Ibsen critics argue that A Dolls House is not a feminist play, and is more about asserting self, regardless of gender. Yet Joan Templeton, in her afterword to the Signet Classics edition of Ibsen: Four Major Plays Volume I, disagrees, asserting that Make (Nora) a man, and the play becomes not only ludicrous, but impossible. What do you think? Is A Dolls House a play about feminism or humanism? Explain.
5. There are a number of parallels between Edna Pontellier and Nora Helmer. Both undergo a process of self-discovery before making a large decision with their life. Both experience an awakening of a sort. Both can be read as feminist heroines just to name a few of the parallels. Write an essay that examines the differing circumstances that lead to each characters final act in the two narratives. Why are these endings in a sense necessary? What drives Edna to take her own life? What drives Nora away from Torvald and into an uncertain future? Are these characters in any sense driven by similar desires or impulses? What are they? Feel free to also discuss any noteworthy differences between the two characters.
Key Things to Keep in Mind:
-Include a proper thesis
-Close reading
-Use evidence
-Edit
-Outline your paper. Outlines must be submitted with your final drafts.
