As an 22-year-old American and aspiring graduate student, you have an interview at Oxford University in Thom Yorke’s hometown. Your interviewers are: (a) Sir Gordon Downton-Downs, a 45-year-old aristocrat who holds a Ph.D. in Classics (Latin and Greek) from Oxford. He is wary, shall we say, of your ability as an American to fit into the university, although he’s willing to be proven wrong. (b) Gillian Feathenan, a 23-year-old radical who’s just graduated from Oxford with a degree in English and lit Postmodern Culture. She, too, is la tad suspicious of you because she doesn’t believe you took a hard-line stand in favor of the striking students and farmers in New York State, where you grew up and went to undergraduate school. She also, to be honest, has a crush on you; she doesn’t want this to come up during the interview, but it does. Handle her flirtation carefully! (c) The final member of the interviewing committee is the ghost of Joe Orton. Before his every comment, the wooden windows rise up and a chilling breeze blows into the room. You find it somewhat refreshing.
[All of the Complications need to be included in the text.]
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The Complication, Part 1
$ 1010 me
Your current significant other, B.L..
.. is nervous because he or she is waiting for his or her
score on the Coral Gables Realtor’s Exam. He or she is five years older than you and doesn’t really like the idea of your moving to England for college. After the interview has started, he or she calls every five minutes to try to sabotage the interview. This has to be a part of your text.
The Interview
Each of your three interviews has three questions to ask you, with optional follow-ups.
(That’s nine questions total.) They are going to gauge your reactions to the reading, viewing, and listening list you have followed in preparation for this meeting (which happens to be all that we have studied this semester). Because they do not entirely trust you as an American, sometimes they are kind but sometimes they are cruel. Their questions range from the general (intended to let them know what stereotypes and preconceived notions you have of England) and specific (aimed to let them know how carefully you read the required texts). They will ask, and you will answer, specific questions!
The Format
The paper should be written in description and dialogue, like a play. Write yourself in the third person in italics, for example:
Eleanor sighs audibly. She realizes she had too many cups of English Breakfast Tea this morning at her bed-and-breakfast. She wishes she had also had some avocado toast.
he dialogue should look like this: Johnny Depp is now in his 168th week of his counter-defamation suit against his former wife, Amber Heard. You’ve been watching it for almost a year, and you can’t stop but watching it in your lap, hopefully unnoticed by your interviewers. For full credit, you must include excerpts from the actual 2022 legal testimony. You’re also waiting for the latest single to drop from. Lil Nas X, who’s recently dating your cousin from Nashville;
this single may or may not drop during your interview.
The Complications, Parts 2, 3, 4, and 5
At the three-minute mark, one of the interviewers asks a question that seems a tad too personal; your character gets upset, but eventually bounces back.
At the five-minute mark, an Olde English Sheepdog wanders in, creating a brief havoc.
She seems to have eaten something she shouldn’t have and feels demonstrably guilty.
At the seven-minute mark, you receive a call from a prominent American back in the states; his or her call changes your interview considerably, for better or worse.
At the nine-minute mark, a WWII-vintage RAF fighter plane crash-lands outside the classroom in which you are interviewing. A pilot with a handle-bar mustache and a bright yellow scarf wanders into the classroom to ask you the final question of your interview. write 5 pages
