Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Barriers Between Readers and the Other
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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper discusses the way in which the myth of the Other keeps readers from learning everything about other people, cultures and societies too quickly. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVmthoth.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
a certain barrier between the reader and the subject of the literary work. It considers how this myth-barrier works in the novels Frankenstein and The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith.
Discussion The prompt for this paper is the quote, "Literature keeps open the relation to the Other by preserving myth as a barrier against the premature claim to know everything
about other people, cultures and times." This is difficult, but translating academic-speak to English gives us the idea that literature keeps us from thinking we know everything about the Other
by putting a barrier between us and the object were considering. That barrier, which is partly mythological, keeps us from assuming that just because we know something of another culture,
we know everything. It also means that certain myths have to survive in order to leave some aspects of the Other hidden. The Other in this context is usually understood
to mean the outsider, the "not-one-of-us"; the person or thing set apart from the "norm" of a particular society. The Other is a useful concept, because by declaring someone as
not belonging, it becomes easy to denigrate and if necessary, exterminate them. This is the thinking applied by white settlers in the American West, who defined the native American tribes
as "savages"; and by so doing, made it possible to justify killing them (in self-defense of course) and taking their lands. This sort of thinking is common in any conflict;
this is what makes Germans into "Krauts"; the Viet Cong into "slopes" and the Iraqis into "turbanheads." The Other, then, is defined by the dominant culture to suit its own
ends, though many times such "classification" may be done subconsciously. Whether deliberate or not, the effect is the same: once we identify someone as being Other than what we are,
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