Some thoughts on writing a paper

I still have not got going in earnest on my term paper which is concerning but I can really write quite fast. A problem I am having is that in popular 20th century literature I often feel like there isn't a lot going on worth discussing. In the case of this course it is really difficult to find an overwhelming theme that I care about. It almost seems like the historic cultural exchange between Asia and the Middle East would in some way be better since that is covered in Peony, In an Antique Land, and Midnight's Children.

It seems like if I make the thesis of the paper about the role of home in these novels it should not be that hard, since the characters are struggling to know what home is. I've been reading Daughter of Fortune really quickly and can easily finish it tomorrow but it will not be useful in the way that I thought it would. It is probably going to be significantly easier if I just write it in sections about each book and kind of put the essays together then I can at least maintain a coherent order without getting bogged down in what I am doing.

Well ok, here's what I'm thinking now. If I frame this in the sense of exile, i.e. "Can you find a home in exile?" Then Peony, Wide Sargasso Sea, Things Fall Apart. and Midnight's Children can all work together being as all of those themes deal with that pretty heavily. Depending on where Daughter of Fortune goes in the next 100 pages the Chinese character would be useful for this also.



Something like "Exiled: Social and Physical Displacement." This would really work for these books being as in Peony the Jews are arguably at home but are displaced from their ancestral lands, in Things Fall Apart and Wide Sargasso Sea the power structures change, and in Midnights Children they primarily move for religious reasons not unlike Jews.

I'm just concerned cause I feel like I don't have a lot to say about this. I can easily pull something out but I'm trying to think of what a worthwhile thing to write about would actually be.

This could also be arranged as like types of displacement. For example, an intro then sections titled things like

Social Displacement
Political Displacement
Physical Displacement
Emotional Displacement


that might actually work because it would bring everything together and then I could prewrite by categorizing quotes. Most of those come up in most of the texts and can be compared in interesting ways, for example the Mom in Peony longing to go to Israel vs Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea just needing to be where she feels at home.