Explain the disposability of laborers in an industrialized society.

Enough of you have requested further explication on your final written
assignments in this course, so here they are:

Modernism paper prompt:

Throughout the six texts we have covered so far, a variety of concepts
associated with modernism have emerged; some of these include the isolation of
the individual from others (existential loneliness), the disposability of
laborers in an industrialized society, and the overall rejection of ?universal
truth? and traditional art forms. Your assignment is to pick two of the covered
authors and illustrate how their works utilize one or more of these themes.
Just as a reminder, these authors are: Melville, Tzara, Marquis, Kafka, Huxley,
and Eliot. Be sure to incorporate support from the texts; in other words, you
will need to cite directly from these works.

Character analysis:

You are to write a 500 word analysis of a single character in The Stranger. As
we discussed in class, your best bet is to choose one of the major characters
in the novella (Meursault, Raymond, Marie, or Salamano). Simply put, your task
is to highlight the chosen character?s personality and how his or her actions
affect the plotline of the story. In an interesting and creative twist, one of
the sections has requested that George W. Bush be added to the list of
contributing characters. As such, I am offering up to five points of extra
credit to students who wish to write a separate ½ page, double-spaced essay
explaining how George Bush has affected the plotline of The Stranger.

Final paper:

For the final paper, you must choose one author from either the Democratic or
the Chaotic age in Harold Bloom?s Western Canon
(http://sonic.net/~rteeter/grtbloom.html). Once you have selected your author,
you are to then choose two works by that author and analyze them by a common
theme or critical approach (i.e. Mary Shelley and the theme of isolation in
Frankenstein and The Last Man or a Marxist reading of Charles Dickens). You
will want to provide some background information on the author as well as brief
synopses of the chosen works in addition to your ?common thread? approach. The
paper is to be 8 to 10 pages in length and have no fewer than 5 cited works for
support.