EngL7322 English Question Assignments on Embedded Texts and Film
Question 2 – LU3 (optional) (Marks: 75)
With Bal’s points on ‘embedded texts’ below in mind, rewatch the reveal scene in Fight Club, also available on YouTube on the following link:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKVxKrrbz1E [Accessed 27 March 2025].
Mieke Bal (2017, pp.52–53) states the following regarding embedded texts:
“When the embedded text presents a complete story with an elaborate fabula, we gradually forget the fabula of the primary narrative. … Another possible relationship between the two texts presents itself when the two fabulas are related to each other. This structure has two possible meanings: either the embedded story explains the primary story, or it resembles the primary story. In the first case the relationship is made explicit by the actor narrating the embedded story;
in the second the explanation is left to the reader, or merely hinted at, in the fabula.”
Write an essay (2000 – 2500 words) critically discussing how the ‘embedded text’ of Fight Club’s homodiegetic narrator converges with the primary narrative of the film within this given scene and how this convergence is used to explain and enhance the film’s primary narrative.
In your answer, provide a structured argument that addresses/provides:
• an overview of what the embedded and primary narratives of the film entail.
• the ways in which the cinematography, editing, and/or sound design influence focalisation and the overall narrative in the given scene.
• the use and significance of postmodern themes and tropes for both the embedded and primary narratives in the given scene.
To support your argument, refer to relevant and sufficient evidence from the given Fight Club scene, Bal (2017), Kinder and Pender (2014), Klecker (2014), as well as from at least four additional credible secondary sources.
Question 3 – LU4 (optional) (Marks: 75)
The following conversation in The Road takes place between the father and the old man:
“…The man watched him. How would you know if you were the last man on earth? he said. I dont guess you would know it. You’d just be it.
Nobody would know it.
It wouldnt make any difference. When you die it’s the same as if everybody else did too. I guess God would know it. Is that it?
There is no God. No?
There is no God and we are his prophets.” (McCarthy, 2010, p.180).
However, earlier, when the father looked at his son sleeping:
“…The boy did not stir. He sat beside him and stroked his pale and tangled hair. Golden chalice, good to house a god. Please dont tell me how the story ends.” (McCarthy, 2010,
p.78).
Write an essay (2000 – 2500 words) critically discussing the father’s search for meaning in The Road and whether he succeeds in finding it by the end of the narrative.
In your answer, provide a structured argument that addresses:
• where, how, and why the father and other characters in the novel experience existential angst and hopelessness – and the extent to which this is mitigated, at least for the father, by the end of the narrative.
• the role and significance of syntactic and linguistic fragmentation, symbolism, and lost referents to the father’s search for meaning throughout the novel.
To support your argument, refer to relevant and sufficient evidence from throughout The Road, Gwinner (2011), Rambo (2008), as well as at least five additional credible secondary sources.
Answers to Above Questions on English
Expert Answer 2; The main focus of this essay is on analysing the reveal scene using Bal’s concept of embedded texts so that it can be possible to better analyse the scene restructures, depens connected focalisation and exemplifies postmodern storytelling. The analysis takes into consideration some of the important theoretical concepts such as focalisation, sound design and editing and also analyses past scholarly resources. The main focus of the primary narrative of Fight Club is on the narrator who seeks meaning through support groups and later develops an underground Fight Club.
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