How is the supposedly marginal or feminine actually central to the story?

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How is the supposedly marginal or feminine actually central to the story?

Option 5 (Heng essay): How is the supposedly marginal or feminine actually central to the story?

Background.  Geraldine Heng’s essay can be described as one of gender criticism.  It reads Sir Gawain closely, but in the context of a movement to re-consider male bias in the interpretation of texts and even in the gendering of texts themselves.  She responds to earlier critics’ views that women are marginal in Sir Gawain, arguing instead that Guinevere, the Virgin Mary, the Lady of the Castle, and of course Morgan le Fay are central. She further argues that the Lady’s girdle, long seen as a symbol in contrast to the Pentangle (the one is knotted and unknotted; the other is supposedly an “endless knot” but is undone, in a sense, by Gawain’s acceptance of and lying about the girdle) can be seen as undoing and thus feminizing the tightness and unity of the text, which in itself has been considered gendered male.
What to do.  Read Heng’s essay and discuss a passage in Sir Gawain that Heng does not address in which what might be considered marginal or feminine is, in fact, quite central.  Address as well Gawain’s misogynistic rant (lines 2414-2428).  What is his blame of all women doing in this text, and how does that affect the text’s unity, discussion of women, or ‘gendering” itself?

In your essay, you will need to summarize relevant points from the Heng essay in order to establish your own argument.  Use specific detail from Sir Gawain, including at the level of quotation, to support your argument.  See Reading and Writing about Literature for how to format and quote verse with line numbers in MLA citation.

Relation to course objectives.  Completion of this assignment accomplishes the following objectives as they appear in the syllabus:

• Recognize and articulate literary-critical arguments as discussed in class or assigned readings.
• Formulate written and spoken analyses of the works on the syllabus with original, arguable premises.
• Support written and spoken analyses of the plays and performances of them with specific evidence from those texts (quotation and reference to specific passages and scenes).
• Support written and spoken analyses of the works on the syllabus in reference to published peer-reviewed works of literary criticism.

Completion of this assignment also meets the following university-wide student learning objectives:

• Students will become active learners by finding, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information.
• Students will demonstrate the ability to build logical and persuasive arguments, cases, reports, and/or responses.
• Students will communicate clearly and effectively in both oral and written forms.
• Students will interact and collaborate effectively in groups and teams.

Rubric.  See next page.  This rubric is very similar to what future essay assignments will ask you to do.