Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman.
The best method is to put forward a thesis (agree or disagree with one of the propositions in one of the questions below) and then defend or attack it using examples from the text. You must quote directly but sparingly from the text in question. History, biography, and politics are not ordinarily relevant to the topics, so don”t bother to include them in your essays. Nor are these research papers, so the findings of the West Texas State Teachers College Hispanic Collective on OHYS will not matter much for your essay.

Select topic A or topic B, or combine elements from them without exceeding the 600 word limit. Do not append footnotes to your essays: This is a common trick designed to bamboozle the grader into allowing more words. You should add a list of works cited to your suite of essays, but unless you”re using an unusual edition of the works we”re reading, don”t bother to give anything more than page references. Never use ibid, op. cit.—just quote with page references, an author or title reference (Poetics,p.65), and an entry in works cited.

Never quote dictionary definitions. Avoid the passive voice ("it is seen"). Resist the temptation to quote at length [abbreviate: Peter sneered . . . Sally screamed.]. This includes critical texts: a short quotation with the critic”s name in parentheses following it, a full reference in the works cited. Refer to authors by their last name. Abbreviate titles to save words: OHYS, PMBC, PP Never, ever start an essay using the author”s name and the title of his book: In his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, the Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez . . . You may narrate in the first person if you feel impelled to do so, but, assuming you sign your work, the grader will know who wrote it.

Decorum (spelling, grammar [different from rather than different than], syntax) matters, please pay attention.

Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman.

a. Write an essay on the notion(s) of utopia in this text. What is Puig saying about the notion of utopia”define what you think his ideal society entails”and its chances of survival in the real world. We have seen examples of both utopias and dystopias during the semester (Rulfo certainly comes to mind): do any of these make reading this novel easier?

b. Discuss the role of seduction in this novel. How does
seduction”"leading away" in etymology”work? How is it related to the idea of morality? Is Puig trying to seduce us, the readers, in any way? What does he want us to think? You may recall Borges” cautionary remarks about language (ideology, religion, philosophy) in "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius": is this relevant to Puig?