For Essay 2, you will do a character analysis of one of the short stories from the We Live in Water. The goal of this analysis is to provide an argument about a how character addresses a theme. You will want to make sure that your character analysis creates a compelling and original argument about the work that you selected.
You may select your story from any of the following:
“We Live in Water” (p. 17-40)
“Thief” (p.41-52)
“Virgo” (p. 57-68)
“Helpless Little Things” (p. 69-82)
“Don’t Eat Cat” (p. 85-106)
Important: “Anything Helps” is NOT one of the stories that you can write about for this essay. That story is written about too heavily in our Overviews for this unit.
Essay Style and Structure
Introduction: In your introduction, you will want to introduce the author and the title of the story. You will also want to provide a very brief plot summary. Then, you will introduce the character and provide some biographical details about them for context. Finally, you will want to end your introduction with a thesis statement that clearly argues your perspective about how this character illustrates a specific thematic argument.
Body Paragraphs: Each body paragraph must begin with a topic sentence that argues one aspect of your argument and be directly related to your thesis. Each body paragraph should also include appropriate cited textual evidence that supports the topic sentence. Additionally, you must provide clear analysis of that textual evidence to explain it to your reader and tie that evidence to your topic sentence and thesis.
Conclusion: Your conclusion should wrap up your supporting points and demonstrate why your argument and thesis have wider significance. (Hint – you will want to address why your argument about this particular theme impacts our understanding of your chosen story and hypothesize why the author would decide to represent this theme through the character that you analyzed.)
Works Cited page: Your essay will include a Works Cited page that features ALL outside sources cited in the essay. (Please make sure that you use in-text citations for all outside sources featured in the body of the essay as well.)
Please note: An outside source is any print, electronic, online, auditory, and/or audio-visual source that you reference or use in your essay.
Audience
The audience for your essay is your instructor and the other students in this class. Because of this, you need to make sure that your essay does not merely summarize the story (we have all read them). Instead you need to focus your essay on arguing a point about the stories that illuminates our reading of the story or provides a unique perspective about it. Make sure to be very specific and draw our attention to parts of the stories that we may have overlooked or would benefit from looking at again in new ways. Essays that only summarize the story will not earn a passing grade.
Submission of Essay
Both your Rough Draft and your Final Draft must be typed in 12-point Times New Roman font, formatted with 1-inch margins, and double-spaced. In the upper left-hand corner of the first page of your essay, you must include the following information:
