Extra Credit: Tracing an Object in The Inheritance of Loss
Due: Wednesday, April 2nd at midnight
Length: Half a page, single-spaced
Note: This is extra credit, but I will only count it if you engage seriously with the text. If your response shows careful attention to Desai’s language and makes a genuine argument, it will help your grade.
The Assignment
Choose a single object or material detail that appears more than once in the first half of The Inheritance of Loss. Some possibilities: the house (Cho Oyu), the judge’s dining table, food and meals, the stolen rifles, the fog or mist, a piece of clothing. You are not limited to these.
Write half a page in which you do three things:
- Identify at least two moments where your chosen object appears.
- Describe how Desai presents the object differently in each instance, paying attention to the specific language she uses.
- Make an argument about what the object is doing in the novel beyond furnishing the scene. What does it carry with it? What histories, relationships, or tensions does Desai load into it?
This is not a summary exercise. Do not retell the plot around the object. Instead, look at how Desai writes about it and ask why she returns to it.
What I Am Looking For
A close, specific engagement with Desai’s language. If you find yourself writing sentences like “this shows how colonialism affected India,” slow down and get more precise. What exactly does the object reveal, and how does Desai’s presentation of it do that work? The best responses will notice something in the text that a casual reader would miss.
Submit Here Alternate Link