For your first major paper you will be writing a literary analysis. Unlike a research paper, a literary analysis does not ask you to work with information outside the primary text (this means that you cannot use any outside sources). Instead, a literary analysis is an intense and thorough investigation of the primary text for the purpose of understanding and conveying to others the internal complexities of that text. This exercise requires you to pick and expound upon the importance of specific attributes of your text. You will need to make a claim, or argument, about an attribute and how it relates to the overall text. This claim will then be support by a wealth of specific evidence from the text demonstrating why your claim is valid.
Your paper will need to be between 1000-1250 words (about 4-5 full pages) and be formatted in proper MLA format and must include a Works Cited page (which does not count towards your page count). If you are unfamiliar with MLA format, you need to go to the MLA module and read over how to do this. There are also numerous videos on YouTube that you can watch.
You need to pick one of the short stories listed below to read and write your literary analysis on.
-William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”
