World Literature Survey II Essay 2
Double space
Include a Works Cited page with the specific author cited. For example,
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Trans. Michael Hofmann. Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd. ed. Vol 2. Ed. Martin Puchner. New York:
W.W. Norton, 2013. 1204-35. Print.
It is not sufficient to just cite “Norton Anthology” without specifying the author and text name. You must include translator’s name when a work is translated.
Incorporate quotation from the text to support your argument.
Use approximately 500-700 words. Please don’t stress over word count. I don’t.
Italicize play and novel titles. Use quotation marks for titles of short stories. Do stress over these details.
Sample World Lit Essay
Use the 9th edition of MLA.
We have looked at a number of 20th century texts where the form of the text becomes the content of the text. To what extent is that the case for the magic realism in Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel? In what ways is the magic in Esquivel’s novel “psychologically realistic”? How does the form of the novel (the recipes, the association of various plot points with annual holiday meals, etc.) affect how the story is told? Write an essay that illustrates this.
In other words, if I asked you to summarize Esquivel’s novel, you would say that a girl falls in love with a man but can’t marry him because of her mother. But that would leave out so much of the novel’s artistic quality. Explain how the way the novel is written becomes part of the content of the novel. For example, you might consider the following questions:
Why do you think Esquivel fragments time the way she does?
Why does she begin each chapter with a recipe?
Why does she follow the calendar and focus so many of the chapters around annual holidays and family celebrations such as weddings?
