Another Portfolio Option: Poetry Comparison

Another option for your portfolio is to find poems and/or song lyrics which clearly and meaningfully relate to the plot, use of imagery, or themes of Times Arrow. Be sure to discuss the relationship between the works of literature in several well-developed paragraphs.

Student Generated Portfolio Prompt

Ms. Kemp has posited the notion that the idea that "perception is reality" may well apply to Time's Arrow. If so, discuss how this concept relates to both Tod and the Doppleganger.

Purchasing a Book

Time's Arrow is available at Barnes and Noble in Newnan--which probably means you can order it from their website as well. If you are behind in your reading, you may want to consider one of these purchasing options.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre readers:

This article suggests that female artistry in Jane Eyre serves an integral purpose

in Jane’s individual psychic identity development and in her courtship

with Edward Rochester. It views Jane’s practice of and attitudes towards

artistry in light of various female models in the novel who are either artists

themselves or appreciators of art. Her art, either as storyteller or painter,

helps to serve her domestic artistry as she (re)imagines the domestic

life and landscape of Jane and Rochester’s life at Ferndean. Female artistry

functions to promote a feminist agenda of gender equality in Charlotte

Brontë’s text.

brontë studies, Vol. 35 No. 3, November 2010, 248–66

From the first article in Avdanced Placement via Galileo...certainly would provide an interesting analytic tool to help you examine the protagonist of your novel! Sorry for any odd spacing errors here...cut and pasted from Galileo.

Article

http://www.thepequod.org.uk/essays/litcrit/memory.htm

More info on the themes and plot sturctures of Time's Arrow. An easy page or two of your portfolio could be a discussion of several of the main points of this article as juxtaposed to your initial reactions.

Time's Arrow poem for portfolio

Another option for your portfolio would be to, using lines from the novel, create a poem that features as its central purpose one of Amis' themes: time as fluid, the nature of the human soul, the nature of evil, the quest for repentance, etc. 15 to 20 lines please.

Chapter One and Beyond

Just some suggestions for how to analyze rather than summarize plot:

Discuss the relevance of the subtitle of the novel.

Discuss chapter titles and how they relate to the novel as a whole (Gestalt).

Discuss how the “I” of the text seems more singular in the first few pages of the novel. When does the spilt between Tod T. Friendly and the doppelganger occur?

Describe the author’s use of ominous foreshadowing in Chapter One…where or how does the narrator seem to feel this journey will end? Discuss foreshadowing throughout the rest of the novel. How does foreshadowing seem ironic within the context of this particular novel?

Some have described the doppleganger as a parasitic creature. Is he? Why or why not? Explain by references to specific passages.

In chapter one, the author uses the simile “like a storm of human souls.” Keep this phrase in mind and discuss how it relates to the rest of the novel.

Discuss “mirrors” as they appear in Chapter One.

Create an on-going list of powerful, evocative, provocative, and/or meaningfully compelling images…how about…sentences 4-7 on page 10. If you ever need to remind yourself of what imagery is—this is it!

The narrative voice shows many sides to his personality—most of which are easy to see since his life is ironically going somewhat forward whereas Tod’s is going backwards.