Investigation (Dream Jungle)

While we often talk about a novel in terms of its broad themes, we can frequently discover important nuances simply by focusing on individual, highly “textured” words in the text—where these textured words appear, how they are used, what characters or settings are associated with them, what they represent and evoke outside of the text, and what they represent and evoke inside the text.

For this investigation you will analyze a single word (including various stems of that word) from Jessica Hagedorn’s Dream Jungle. Think of this assignment as an extreme sports version of close reading.

1. Pick one of the following words (or find a promising textured word of your own from the novel):

2. Use the Search Inside the Book feature on Amazon.com to identify all occurrences of the word and its various stems in the novel (stems refers to plural forms and other slight variations of the word). Note how often the words occurs, in what contexts, how it might be clustered with other words, and any thing else significant about the word’s appearance, prevalence, and relevance.

3. Address the following questions in a short 3-4 page essay, to be uploaded as a PDF to Blackboard by class time on Thursday, September 13.

What is the significance of the word in the novel? What patterns emerge from this word’s use? Is it associated with one character or context? Does its meaning shift throughout the novel? Are there exceptions to the pattern? Are there differences between the literal and symbolic use of the word? Are there tensions between the word’s use in the novel and its use in everyday, real life? What themes come into focus by concentrating on this individual word?

4. Because of the constrained nature of this assignment, there is no need to spend precious space on a lofty introduction or grandiose conclusion. Dig right in to the actual analysis of this single word (and its variants) in Dream Jungle.