English Case

1. Discuss the theme of change or metamorphosis in An Imaginary Life. How does this theme relate to Ovid's experience of exile?

2. Language is central to Ovid's experience. Describe Ovid's changing relationship to language and explain what he has had to learn about language.

3. Much of Ovid's experience in An Imaginary Life is communicated through dream. Focus you analysis on the dream sequences and explain how they contribute to the novel's themes.

4. What is Mistry trying to tell us about Canadian identity and multiculturalism in "Squatter"? What is Sarosh's real problem and how and why is it presented as a particular physiological problem?

5. Does the final positive word of Van Camp's "Mermaids" overpower the negative elements of the story? Is this story, in the final analysis a redemptive one? On a related point, does the story as a whole overcome what some may see as an exploitation of every negative Native stereotype?

6. In Nadine Gordimer's "The Moment Before the Gun went off," is Marias at all guilty? If it is a kind of euphemism to call Lucas's death an "accident" then what is the nature of the guilt in this story? Find further evidence of his guilt or innocence in the text. You might, for example, analyze the voice and diction in the description of the funeral? What does this scene tells us about the community described and the relationships within it.

7. Develop your own topic. Run it by me before you begin writing.