Response from the Professor to my proposal: I like the story you’ve chosen and your emphasis on empathy and transformation. As you wrote, “Through this encounter, the story explores the theme of human connection and empathy in the face of tragedy. The initially distant and impersonal baker is transformed by the experience and shows genuine concern and compassion for the grieving couple.” All of that is true. But your subject is not quite a topic, since the paper, as you’ve imagined its key scenes, would run about 20 pages. I think there are two things missing from what is otherwise an excellent proposal: 1) A focus on a particular character. Focusing on the baker, which is what you seem to suggest here, makes sense. Yes, he is largely an offstage character, but his contributions to the plot are significant. 2) Changing your list of key scenes. If, for instance, you were to focus on the baker’s behavior and eventual transformation, you’d have a different list of scenes. Of course, you’d have a background paragraph about the upcoming birthday, but you’d soon move to the scene where the baker enters the story. In effect, you’d be proposing a before-after transformation, since his brusqueness—what you call his “distant and impersonal” behavior—gives way in the face of a family’s profound loss. There’s a good paper here. Let me know what you think.
The Short Story we are using for this assignment is “A Small Good Thing,” pp. 88-104, From the book The Art of the Short Story.
