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TOPIC 1: In Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion, and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, both authors play with narrative form and narrative perspective by offering multiple points-of-view within their novels. Sometimes this occurs in the use of multiple narrators, at other moments this occurs through the inclusion of alternate texts or forms into the novel (tangential stories, historical documents, etc.). Discuss one of the novels in terms of its manipulation of narrative form. How does these manipulations enhance the main themes or ideas expressed in the novel? What effect does the narrative form have on our understanding of the novel as a whole. As with the last essay prompt, this is a broad theme. You will need to focus your essay on a specific instance that occurs in the novel in addressing this topic.

TOPIC 2: One of the important aspects of postmodern historical fiction is its emphasis on viewing “history” from the perspective of the eccentric, misfit, or outcast figure often lost by the historical record. In Midnight’s Children, Saleem writers this about himself: “If I seem a little bizarre, remember the wild profusion of my inheritance . . . perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque. Choosing one figure from ONE of the three novels we’ve read recently (The Passion, Alias Grace, Midnight’s Children), discuss the unique perspective offered by that character as a result of his or her “misfit” status in the world. As always, this is an intentionally broad topic to give you space to move in these novels.IMPORTANT!!-* You must narrow the focus of your essay to one or two specific instances in the text that best illustrates the character’s “misfit” or “outsider” status and the perspective he/she offers on history.