Prompt #1:
THE BARGAIN/THE QUEST TROPE. Answer all parts of this prompt in the proper order.
1. Explore either the Bargain trope or the Quest trope as a theme with a moral message, describing in detail at least two stories from different categories
(folktale/myth/fairy tale, novel, short-story, movie, TV series, graphic novel, or narrative videogame). At least one story must be selected from examples in
Chapter 2.
2. Describe the stories, emphasizing who does the bargain, what the expected outcome is, and what the actual outcome is.
3. Analyze the moral message, and evaluate it ( = do you agree that it is a valuable lesson? Why or why not?)
More in depth instructions to help guide you:
You can either choose to write the essay about the bargain trope or the quest trope. Whichever you prefer..
If you choose the bargain trope you need to describe two stories with the bargain trope. If you decide to do the bargain trope can be whatever show or movie
or book or etc that you choose and the other has to be about the story of Dr. Faust.
Faust is about an ageing scientist who makes a deal with the devil to regain his youth so he can have more years to do his research into alchemy, attempting
to turn base metals into gold–but at the end of his long life the devil will take his soul. And the devil promises him a long life and a successful career, on one
condition: that he remains committed to his work, without creating any ties to other human beings–because on the day that he does, and is willing to let his
heart rule his life rather than his mind, then the devil will take him. And of course that is what happens: Faust falls in love. So in the case of Faust, in Goethe’s
version, it is not only the moral issue of selling one’s immortal soul, but the implication that making a deal with the devil also means that one trades away
one’s humanity. This is from Lesson 7, for when you need to refernce where you got the story.
Once again, this is just a short summary that was listed by the professor to use as a refernce, so please do not copy any of it, just thought it would be helpful
to have. You can very easily search the story up on google and get a much more in-depth understanding of the story.
If you decide to do the quest trope instead, you can once again choose whatever story you’re familiar with as the story relates to the quest trope, but the
second story has to be about moby dick.
Moby Dick is about Captain Ahab and he is on a quest for the white whale, Moby Dick, who was the cause of him losing his leg years ago. He regards the
whale as if it were a human being with evil intentions, and not an animal acting on instinct, so he wants revenge by killing the whale. His profession is captain
of a whaling ship, for profit, but he sets aside his legitimate business for the sake of his revenge, endangering his crew and his ship. As you know from p.26,
in the end he does find the whale, but (spoiler) with the result that he and his entire crew perish, except for one person, the narrator Ishmael. This is from
lesson 9 for when you want to refernce the story.
Once again, this is just a short summary that was listed by the professor to use as a refernce, so please do not copy any of it, just thought it would be helpful
to have.
There isn’t necessarily a required way number of body paragraphs as long as you fulfill what is required in the instructions from the professor. I attached the
whole instruction document. I would prefer if it was at least three body paragraphs, but no more than five.