Pondering a possible thesis or two...

Hmmm. What do I want my term paper to be on? I can't really think of just one thing because, as is inevitable, that topic leads into another and another. Intertexuality at work my friends. In fact, maybe I'll look at Intertextuality. Northrop Frye talks about it in his "Educated Imagination" and I feel like I notice it everywhere I look. Just today in fact, I was reading a book called Reading Lolita in Tehran and the author, Azar Nafisi, started talking about fiction in real life, Shaherezad, and fairy-tales. I was excited. Interestingly, I think that intertextuality and weaving can be easily pieced together because of the care and forthought that go into both to make good things. One cannot just throw in an allusion to Philomela without a carefully reasoned and ingenious connection behind it, just as in weaving one must always know the next move to get the desired end product. Also the relationship between signature and archetype is lost without the connections between and the evolution of texts. I don't know how a good thesis will come out of all of this...oh, well.

I also was thinking about some of my ponderings on Catcher in the Rye. I had been questioning Holden's last few statements regarding the act of telling and the subsequent act of missing someone. Does that mean that the one missed is forgotten? or just that once a story has been told, a representation made of that person in story, that the real memory can never be rekindled. I don't know how I'd argue that because I'm not sure what I'd use for evidence for or against...plus, I'm not sure of my own stance.

I was also quite intrigued by the concept of nostalgia and "home" within The Wind in the Willows. Grahame's language itself makes me feel nostalgic even though I've never been to the places that he is describing. I want to go there. Maybe desire is key here too.

Those are just some initial thoughts...I'll try to get a good thesis out by the 30th.