In finding the first two entries for my annotated bibliography, I took the opportunity to review some previous essays of mine that touched upon the topic of national personification and the secondary sources I used for them. There are two main essays of mine that I returned to; one was written for a History class and was about Marianne, the personification of the French Republic, and when she was portrayed as a peasant woman versus as a more archetypal goddess, and one was written for an English class and was about the usage of parent-child metaphors of colonialism as applied to a reading of Anne of Green Gables and Canada in World War I. What I realized was that the secondary sources I cited in the latter spoke of the idea of national personification, and specifically of the parent-child metaphor of colonialism, as a given and as a piece in their argument rather then the crux of the argument--none of them were actually about personification. The sources I cited in the former were more directly about personification, but many were specifically about Marianne, who likely won't be relevant to my thesis, and none of them were about relationships--familial, romantic, etc.--as applied to personification. I will evidently need to do some more secondary source research to fill in the gaps and get a clearer idea of what has been done on the topic I'm studying.
As regards that topic--after presenting in class, I feel pretty confident in pursuing the topic of "national personification and colonial relations as parent-child relationships with regards to the US, Canada, and Britain". However, it also occurred to me in presenting that what I have in mind is less of a specific question and a way to find the answer then an idea for a new way to read history (analyzing the relationship of Canada/the US to Britain as a parent/child relationship and through the times when it has been characterized). I want to pursue this idea, because I think it's a very interesting one and will result in more significant conclusions. However, I don't know how to turn it into a more specific question. I also am a little lost as to what search terms to use to most effectively find articles on the topic I want, as it is so specific and yet all the keywords I could use for it can so easily overlap with other, unrelated subjects. To conclude, I have some preexisting work to build off of and I'm definitely not hurting for primary sources (I have a draconic hoard of national personification cartoons), but I need to refine my question and then use it to find relevant secondary sources.