I have been putting this blog off because I am not sure of what I'd like my research topic to be. As of yet, I haven't found a thread in my books that is concise enough to write a paper on. At first I was playing around with the idea of "hope." In almost all of the books there has been a theme of hope and hopefulness in the main characters. For example, Esperanza hoped for a better life in America, Harry hoped to make friends and live well at Hogwarts, Bella hoped to marry Edward and live in love forever, and Ameri hoped to escape slavery. The books that I have read independently for my book reviews have shown this theme as well: in "Oh The Places You'll Go" there is a hope to achieve greatness in the future, in "New Moon" Bella still hopes to marry Edward, in "Terabithia" Jesse hopes that the imaginative land and Lelie will last forever, and in "Part-Time Indian" there is a hope that prejudice will end and Indians can be seen as equals. There are more instances of hope in each of these, as well as specific lines and situations that refer to the theme directly.
It seems that "hope" is a favored theme in the Young Adult genre of literature, perhaps because it directs the many developments of main characters. In a religion class I took last semester, the professor often stated that "religion is the vehicle of hope." In many works belonging to the literary canon, religion is the common thread. In real life, too, religion can be a common thread among people. For many people, religion is the way that they can find reasons for things that happen and still hope that life will work out as they planned. I may try to tie "religion" into my research paper topic along with "hope." But as of now, nothing is set in stone.
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The theme of hope is prevalent in so many books, and I think it would make an interesting topic. What you might do is talk about how hope relates to resilience. For example, in the case of Esperanza, the hope is what propels her to be resilient. It is more evident in that book than in some of the others, but it still exists in others. For example, Bella's hope that she and Edward will eventually be together is key; when she loses hope, she gives up on everything and becomes self-destructive. I think that religion is an important component of hope in some books. You might use it as a way to discuss how the theme of hope plays out differently in those books. For example, you might look at how hope propels the main characters in Chronicles of Narnia to keep fighting, especially when Aslan is resurrected.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good topic and look forward to reading your paper!