Prompts
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
- Use of Intertextuality in the Novel.
Intertextuality is the influential use of a text meaning using another text. The connection between the texts reveals the influence and easier interpretation of the text. In the novel, there is a similarity between the novel and the Ragtime novel in the first twelve chapters of the novel. There is an immense effect of love between characters in the novel. The character is John Wade, he is obsessive and especially to his wife, Kathy. Furthermore, it is believed that he is spying on her due to the obsession (Obrien, 2006).
The author occasionally tells the reader that John is doing bad things in order to know whatever Kathy is doing. John seems to have been obsessed and insane with the thought of losing Kathy (Obrien, 2006). It is interesting at this point because Kathy has already left, but the readers cannot understand why. Similarly, in the novel, Ragtime, mother’s little brother exhibits similar traits and actions as John did. He shows these actions towards Evelyne. He is so in love with the woman that he eventually begins to spy on her and keep tabs on everything she does (Doctorow, 1999). The novel occasionally uses the word stalking to show how much his obsession is. He even masturbates when he thinks of Evelynn in her closet.
In both these novels, there are two men who are all obsessed with different women and eventually fall in love with them. Similarly, they end up losing these women due to their obsessions, and the readers cannot comprehend why these happen. For instance, in the Ragtime novel, the mother’s little brother begins devoting his time to make explosives and other weaponry. Furthermore, the author attempts to show various forms of cruelty that happened in the My Lai annihilation and the suffering the American people meted on the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam war.
- The theme of adoption in Round House.
The Larks were businesspeople and thieves. Furthermore, they were self-deceived. Even though their individual moral standards were rigid to the world, they were always able to find excuses for their inadequacies. Nonetheless, they defied acts of abortion, yet during the birth of their twins, they were prepared to let go of the weaker twin since they did not want the deformed baby girl (Doctorow 1999). Similarly, the entire reservation knew about the twin since one of the nurses working at the hospital removed the deformed twin.BettyWishkob, who was a janitor, ended up adopting the twin, which shows the aspect of adoption in the novel and hence brings the novel to another case.
Wishkob and Albert enrolled as memberships of the Chippewa. They died and left four children Albert, Sheryl, Cedric, and Linda (Doctorow 1999). She was initially adopted by the family and was raised in the family as an Indian. During the time of death of her adoptive parents, the children agreed to let Linda live amongst them in their home, which brings another aspect of adoption by the children left behind by the Wishkobs. In 1986, the real mother of Linda filed a petition to allow her to take guardianship of Linda and consequently manage her affairs, which brings us to another aspect of adoption (Doctorow 1999).
Afterward,Grace, Linda’s real mother claimed that Linda had undergone a medical procedure that left her confused and depressed and therefore was not in a position of managing and developing the land that had been left behind by her adoptive parents, furthermore, Linda was not Indian by blood, and there was no physical and legal evidence that showed that Wishkobs had officially adopted Linda. Furthermore, Grace made no effort to reach out to the real children of the Wishkobs, and so she could not take control of the property left. The case was, therefore dismissed.
References
Doctorow, E. L. (1999). Conversations with EL Doctorow. Univ. Press of Mississippi.
Erdrich, L. (2013). The round house. Hachette UK.
O’Brien, T. (2006). In the Lake of the Woods. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.