Critical Essay

*Task
Write a critical essay (1200-1500 words). Refer to two relevant journal articles – these may be critical essays on the authors and texts or relevant articles on themes or contexts that are directly relevant to your argument and study.

1. “Never again will a single story be told as if it’s the only one.” This is the epigraph to Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things. Write an essay explaining what you see as the significance of this epigraph, and then showing how it is played out in the content and form of the novel.

2. Who is the “God of Small Things” in the novel of the same name? Explain the process by which you came to understand who the name referred to? Why do you think this name was chosen for this character, and how is this particular name significant
to the meaning of the novel?

3. Write an essay explaining the function of capitalisations in The God of Small Things. Choose three, or more examples and trace how they are used over several chapters. What
is the effect on the reader of using these?
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“Making meaningful reference” | This essay task is a little more complex than what we asked of you for Haruru Mai, because it is asking you to also engage with literary criticism. What do we mean, then, by “making meaningful reference” to two critical essays?
• The inclusion in your essay of a paraphrase and/or quotation from each essay that is appropriate to your discussion
• The integration of that paraphrase or quotation so that it clearly and appropriately supports or complicates that discussion.
In other words, we’re not expecting a full summary of two whole critical essays—instead, if writing a critical essay is like prosecuting a case in court, we’re asking you to use these essays as “expert witnesses.”
Selecting your critical essays | A selection of appropriate critical essays has been made available on Stream, so that you don’t spend your valuable time searching for essays (and worrying if they’re appropriate). You are in theory welcome to select an essay that isn’t included in our selection, but if you do it’s your responsibility to ensure that it’s on an appropriate topic and of an appropriate standard (that it’s been peer-reviewed).
Primary and secondary texts | Please remember that, even though we’ve asked you to engage with literary criticism, your focus must remain on The God of Small Things. The novel is what we call our our “primary text” and therefore needs to be at the centre of our attention—whereas we describe literary criticism as “secondary.” Put another way, we still want your main focus to be on the close reading of specific parts of the novel, and for your discussion to be supported by a thoughtful and wide-ranging selection of textual evidence.
Citing critical essays | The link to each critical essay will also present you with sufficient information to accurately cite it, but it won’t be in MLA format—and it is up to you to format it correctly. To do so, you can either refer to your tutorial/study notes where we explored what is necessary, or you can find appropriate templates via the link in the Additional Resources part of the “Assessments” section of the Stream site. Remember that we are allowing you to cite your essays as if they have been found in print journals—this will make it simpler for you!