WORKSHEET #5

 

DUE WEDNESDAY APRIL 16!

 

  As usual, chose ONE of the following and write a clear and complete discussion of it.

 

 

1. Define “heteroglossia.” How is heteroglossia related to centripetal and centrifugal forces in language, according to Bakhtin? Using the literary text of your choice, discuss how heteroglossia operates within the text.

 

2. What does Bakhtin mean by “monologic” and “dialogic” forms of speech or writing? Give an example of each. Do you agree with him? How does Bakhtin’s view of language agree with or differ from those of previous language theorists, such as Saussure, Lacan, and/or Cixous?

 

3.  Use  Foucault’s idea of the “panopticon” as a frame for reading either Edgar Allan Poe’s  “The Tell-Tale Heart” or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.”  How does the idea of constant surveillance create a subject position (for a character and/or a reader) in the story?

 

4. Do a close reading of the following quote from Foucault, explaining how the panopticon works and how power operates within it.

 

“Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary: that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers…power should be visible and unverifiable.”

 

NOTE: THIS QUESTION IS NOW OPTIONAL

5.  What is the “signifying monkey”? What does “signifying” mean in the context of Henry Louis Gates’ article? Give and explain an example of such “signifying” (other than the ones in the article).