READINGS TO USE: CHOOSE ONE
Contemporary Fiction: A Very Short Introduction/ Robert Eaglestone
Bad Indians/ Deborah Miranda
Underground Railroad/ Colson Whitehead
Mexican Gothic/ Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A Study in Emerald (graphic novel)/Neil Gaiman
The Paper Menagerie/ Ken Liu
Brief Overview
Your final essay assignment is a 7-8 page literary analysis.
In a literary analysis that requires secondary sources, you are encouraged to be aware of and to engage with the range and diversity of critical interpretations and contexts which exist in relation to particular texts, authors, and genres. Although the basis of your essay will be your own analysis about the text that you are studying, your ideas will be enhanced if they are informed by an awareness of what others have thought and written about those texts.
In addition, reading and using literary criticism in your essay is one of the principal ways in which you can develop your own critical skills and interpretative abilities. Your competencies as a reader and critic will be bettered by reading and dialoguing with others that analyze and understand literature, and you will be better able to enter into literary discussion.
-A literary essay is a type of argumentative essay.
-You are being asked to explain how literary devices in a narrative create specific effects and convey ideas.
-Although you might notice numerous interesting details as you read, not all of those details will help you to organize a focused argument about the text.
-When you close read for a thesis, you will need to be selective about what you choose to consider in your essay. In the case of a novel, you might analyze a repeated scene, image, or object (for example, scenes of train travel, images of decay, or objects such as typewriters).
Essay Requirements:
minimum 7-8 page literary analysis of ONE literary text from our class (poem, short story, novel)—you cannot focus on multiple novels in the essay, and you will lose points if you turn in anything less than 6.75 pages of your own writing. The Works Cited page does not count towards your page number.
MLA formatting with in-text citations and a Works Cited page
A thesis statement towards the end of the introduction that cites how one motif of the novel/short story/poem bolsters one theme. Review the lectures on theme and motif and thesis statements for more information.
Three peer-reviewed secondary sources that touch upon either theory, literary criticism, or historical/cultural contexts.
Excellent form and structure, such as strong paragraph organization with a solid topic sentence, direct evidence from the text, and analysis. Review the “Writing Resources” module for more.
Submitted on Canvas as a single PDF or Microsoft word doc (no hard copy)
Your short essay may be revised into your final essay. However, this privilege does come with a caveat: you can’t simply “add paragraphs” to your short essay to convert it to a final essay. Because this is a research essay and a longer assignment, you will have to: find secondary sources and weave research into your paragraphs; add paragraphs in the beginning, middle, and end of the essay; and revise and expand your final essay based on the feedback I gave you in the first essay. For example, if your topic sentences needed editing in the short essay, you need to edit all of them and work on the new topic sentences in your new body paragraphs.
Tips
You’re looking at both what the text says (its content) and how the text says what it says through imagery, figurative language, motif, and so on. If you don’t refer to a literary term in your thesis—imagery, setting, metaphor, symbol, genre, etc.—you are not making an argument about language and its effects.
Your essay should be composed mostly of evidence as direct quotes and analysis with limited plot summary. Essays whose body paragraphs are mainly composed of general summary do not meet the requirements of this assignment and will immediately drop a letter grade or more.
Any historical/cultural context provided needs to be supported with an in-text citation of a secondary source.
Essay prompts below are NOT meant to serve as a thesis–prompts are meant to inspire a line of inquiry that you then use to craft a thesis.
Review the sample essays.
I welcome any and all topics appropriate to the texts, whether that be investigations of setting, character, class, genre, race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, unique literary tropes, rhetoric, etc.
What to Avoid
Avoid author biographies: while looking at the way a text reflects the life of the author is a valid type of literary interpretation, please keep biography background to a minimum for this essay. We are focusing on writing about literature and literary techniques.
Show rather than tell: showing what the text says with a direct quotation is always more powerful than telling the reader what the text says through summaries. Mixing your words with a potent phrase from a text is a strategic way to do this without needing to quote full passages. For example: The titular Snow Man of Wallace Stevens’ poem is described as having “the mind of winter” and having “been cold for a long time.”
Using quotations from the text without interacting with them: if you quote a sentence or two from a text as evidence, make sure to talk about what it says for at least 2-3 sentences of analysis.
Being overly general: Avoid thesis statements that could be said about any number of texts, such as: “This story discusses gender roles,” and “This poem is about the cruelty of war.” This broad of a thesis statement indicates that you aren’t paying close enough attention to your particular text’s language and need to narrow your argument. Paying attention to the specific details of a text also gives you things to say and tends to make for a more interesting essay.
Essay Prompts
1) Setting is an important component of any story. Choose one repeated detail of the setting–a geographic place (the beach, for example), a built structure (a house), a force of the weather, a color that dominates the story setting–and analyze its integral role in the narrative. How is this detail of the setting integral to the story? Does the protagonist conflict with the setting or have particular interactions with the setting? How does the protagonist’s relationship with the setting connect with his/her development as a character? How does the setting give structure to (or bolster) a theme?
2) In many stories, characters come into conflict with the culture in which they live. Often, a character feels alienated in his/her community or society due to bias against race, gender, class, or ethnic background. How does the author–using rhetoric, symbols, motifs, actions and dialogue–represent a character as alienated from community in the story? And likewise, how does the author represent the character responding to society? What does that character’s alienation say about the surrounding society’s assumptions, morality and values? In what way(s)do literary elements reflect how that society defines race, gender, class and/or ethnicity? How does this create conflict for the character?
3) A character’s nostalgia for the past (or attempt to recapture the past) is a recurring device in plays, novels, short stories, and poems. Choose a character who views the past with such feelings as reverence, bitterness, or longing in one of our course texts. Show with clear evidence from the text–using quotes, symbols, objects, etc–to show how the character’s view of the past or nostalgia for a past event is a motif used to develop a theme.
4) The meaning of literary works is often enhanced by sustained allusion to myths, the Bible, or other works of literature. (Intertextuality is the shaping of a text’s meaning by another text.) Select a literary work that makes use of such a sustained reference. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain the allusion that predominates in the work and analyze how the allusions function as a motif that gives structure to a particular theme.
5) In literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose one of the course texts that confronts the reader with repeated scenes of violence and explain how the violence is a motif that constructs a particular theme unique to the story. In a well-organized essay, explain how the particular scenes of violence contribute to the meaning of the overall work. Avoid plot summary.
6) Some works of literature use the element of time in a distinct way. The chronological sequence of events may be altered or time may be suspended or accelerated in the tale. Choose a novel, short story, etc. and show how the author’s manipulation of time throughout the story contributes to and bolsters a theme. Do not merely summarize the plot.
7) Choose a course text that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the representation of the parent-child relationship and its conflicts through the author’s choice of dialogue, actions, symbols, etc. Explain how the parent-child conflict propels the plot and bolsters a particular theme of the story. Avoid plot summary.
8) Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposing forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a course text that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents in the story, and how their contrast functions as a motif that bolsters a particular theme of the text.
9) In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. Choose a course text and write an essay in which you show how such a character functions in the work, using direct quotes, symbols, and more from the text. Also, discuss how this kind of character’s presence affects the action, theme, or the development of other characters. Avoid plot summary.
10) Novels and plays often include scenes of important social occasions, such as weddings, funerals, parties, to structure its plot. (The older film called Four Weddings and a Funeral comes to mind.) Such significant events reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a course text that includes two or more of such an event and, in a focused essay, discuss how the events give structure to a theme of the text.
11) Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures — national, regional, ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character’s sense of identity into question. Select a course text in which a character responds to such a cultural collision. Then write a well-organized essay in which you describe how the author depicts two colliding cultures and the character’s response through the use of symbols, dialogue, setting, etc.
12) In many works of literature, a physical journey – the literal movement from one place to another or even casual walking – plays a central role. Choose a course text in which a physical journey or even movement (such as walking, driving, etc.) is an important element and discuss how the journey gives structure to a unique theme of the work. Avoid plot summary.
