M.R. James, ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to you, My Lad’, and ‘The Mezzotint’ (both stories available in the week 8 folder) Instructions: select 2 of the following 5 questions, and write 500-word essay responses to these. Word-process your mini-essays. Your mini-essays should be composed and referenced in line with the Essential Style Guide, including a Bibliography of works cited. 1. Which elements of these stories are clearly inherited from the Victorian ghost story, and which break with its conventions? 2. How does the class, age, gender and/or professional status of the narrators affect their reliability as narrators? 3. Consider the hauntings in James’s stories: what might the ‘crumpled linen’ ghost in ‘Whistle’ signify? What kind of haunting takes place in ‘The Mezzotint’? 4. Read p. 6 of ‘Whistle’, from ‘Whether it was the wind’ to ‘towards the groyne’: how might be read the significance of the ‘pictures’ in Parkins’s mind? 5. Note down the movements of the figures in the engraving in ‘The Mezzotint’: what story is being told? And for what purpose? This narratives Essay is due by noon on 14 July 2017.
