“The Prussian Officer” by D.H. Lawrence
“The New Dress” by Virginia Woolf
“The White Circle” by John Bell Clayton
“The Time, The Place, The Loved One” by Susan Welch
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin
“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
In an essay of approximately 4 pages, address one of the following prompts:
1. Pretend you are a psychologist. Your goal is to diagnosis one of the main characters from any of the stories discussed in class, identifying the specific psychological condition(s) from which they suffer, offering examples of this behavior from the pages of the story. Further, explore their history and the events represented in the story, their actions, and contrast what they say with what they do; and attempt to uncover what it is that contributed to (or still contributes to) and/or caused this condition. Further, discuss the effects of this condition on their lives and interpersonal relationships. Finally, if all this is the case, what message or lesson is the reader to take away from the story? What is the theme that underlies this specific behavior? How does this character, this theme, contribute to and support the story’s meaning? What is the story’s meaning?
