Overview
In this essay, you will apply a literary theoretical approach of your choice: either postcolonial criticism or new historicism. By reading the novels The Farming of Bones or The White Tiger through this lens and alongside research sources, you will critically examine the cultural ideologies surrounding these conflicts.
The Assignment
Choose one of the following two critical approaches to analyze either Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones or Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger in a 5-6 page essay, incorporating a minimum of 2 additional sources as well as quotations from the novel for support.
Critical Approaches:
NEW HISTORICISM:
For The Farming of Bones, you might research to find co-texts that describe:
information about the US/Haitian/Dominican relations in the 1990s
information about how the Parsley Massacre was memorialized or remembered in the 1990s
poetry written in the 1990s in reaction to the Massacre, such as Rita Dove’s “Parsley”
Consider: What kinds of literary and historical documents outside of the novel seem especially relevant for shedding light on the novel? How are social and political values contemporary to the novel/play reflected or refuted in the novel?
Writing the Essay
Draft a strong thesis statement to focus your essay. Your thesis statement should answer one or more of the questions posed in the Critical Approaches section.
Your essay should have an introduction paragraph, multiple body paragraphs, a conclusion paragraph, and a Works Cited page (does not count towards page total).
Support your claims in the thesis by including specific quotes and/or paraphrases from the novel AND your two research sources that illustrate each claim you are making about the novel through that theoretical lens.
Integrating quotes: Make sure each quotation is grammatically integrated into the sentence so that it flows naturally. Good sentence starters leading into quotes include:
Author tags: Danticat writes that “blah blah blah” (130).
Speaker tags: Amabelle argues that “blah blah blah” (Danticat 23)
Context about what is happening in the story when your example occurs, or about the larger context of the research source: When Balram
