Length: 5-7 double-spaced pages, with standard 12pt font and 1” margins, in MLA format
Topic: Choose one of the following and make a clear, convincing case for your response.
In “Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre,” the critic Susan Meyer finds in Brontë’s novel a critique of empire that is not itself free of racism. Using Meyer’s reading as either a springboard or a model for an essay of your own, what would you add to her argument or how might a similar argument be made about the novel’s feminism—a critique of the treatment and position of women in Victorian society that ends in marriage?
On the two endings of Great Expectations—the official version, in Chapter 59, and the earlier version, in Appendix A. Which version do you prefer? Which version seems truer to the thematic development of the novel?
Compare and contrast the use of first-person narration in Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Dickens’s Great Expectations. What does comparing these two examples of the Bildungsroman tradition help us see that we might otherwise have overlooked in either or both?
On aestheticism and The Picture of Dorian Gray: “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book,” Wilde writes in his Preface. “Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” Does the novel confirm this argument or contradict it? How does it affect your interpretation of the novel, especially its seemingly moralizing ending?
Tip: Be on the lookout for new-and-improved thesis statements lurking in your concluding paragraph. Once you’ve drafted your essay, you’re likely to have arrived at a sharper version of your main point (this is a big reason why we draft). In revision, be sure to move the strongest and clearest version of your thesis up into the thesis position – typically, the last sentence of the introduction.
