Essay 2
Introduction to Literature: Essay #2 Guidelines
Please use the following prompts to develop an original essay consisting of five to six full pages (excluding the works cited page) based on one of the following:
· Walker’s “Everyday Use”
· Carver’s “Cathedral”
· Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
· Faulkner’s “ A Rose for Emily”
· Updike’s “A&P”
· O’ Connor’s “ A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
· O’Brien’s “ The Things They Carried”
· or on Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta.
General Topics:
· Choose to compare two characters or a common theme, subject, or symbol found in several works.
· Examine a single element in one or more works—for example, symbolism, point of view, setting, theme, style, or character development.
· Analyze the social commentary embedded in one or more works.
Questions to ask about literature: The following questions will help you generate ideas to use in your papers. Please do not simply answer them in your essay.
· Questions about technique:
· Plot: What central conflicts drive the plot? Are they internal (within a character) or external between characters or between a character and a force)? How are the conflicts resolved? Why are events in a particular order?
· Setting: Does the setting (time and place) create an atmosphere, give an insight into character, suggest symbolic meanings, or hint at the theme of the work?
· Character: What seems to motivate the central characters? Do any characters change significantly? If so, what—if anything—have they learned from their experiences? Do sharp contrasts between characters highlight important themes?
· Point of View: Does the point of view—the perspective from which the story is narrated—influence our understanding of events? Does the narration reveal the character of the speaker, or does the speaker merely observe others? Is the narrator perhaps innocent, naïve, or deceitful?
· Theme: Does the work have an overall theme (a central insight about people or a truth about life, for example)? If so, how do details in the work serve to illuminate this theme?
· Language: Does language—such as formal or informal, standard or dialect, cool or passionate—reveal the character of the speakers? How do metaphors, similes, and sensory images contribute to the work? How do recurring images enrich the work and hint at its meaning?
· Questions about social context:
· Historical context: What does the work reveal about—or how was it shaped by—the time and place in which it was written? Does the work appear to promote or undermine a philosophy that was popular in its time, such as social Darwinism in the late nineteenth century or the women’s movement in the mid-twentieth century?
· Class: How does social class shape or influence characters’ choices and actions? How does class affect the way characters view—or are viewed—by others? What economic struggles or power relationships does the work reflect or depict?
· Race and culture: Are any characters portrayed as being caught between cultures: between the culture of home and the culture of work or school, for example, or between a traditional and an emerging culture? Are any characters engaged in a conflict with society because of their race or ethnic background? To what extent does the work celebrate a specific culture and its traditions?
· Gender: Are any characters’ choices restricted because of their gender? What are the power relationships between the sexes, and do these change during the course of the work? DO any characters resist the gender roles society has assigned them? Do other characters choose to conform to those roles?
· Archetypes (or universal types): Does a character, an image, or a plot fit a pattern—or type—that has been repeated in stories throughout history and across cultures? (For example, nearly every culture has stories about heroes, quests, redemption, and revenge.) How does an archetypal character, image, or plot line correspond to or differ from others like it?
(“Questions to Ask about Literature” taken from Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers Writing about Literature (2011), Bedford/St. Martin’s.)
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Avoiding simple plot summary |
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In a literature paper, it is tempting to rely heavily on plot summary and avoid interpretation. You can resist this temptation by paying special attention to your topic sentences. The following rough-draft topic sentence, for instance, led to a plot summary rather than an interpretation.
As they drift down the river on a raft, Huck and the runaway slave Jim have many philosophical discussions.
The student’s revised topic sentence, which announces an interpretation, is much better.
The theme of dawning moral awareness is reinforced by the many philosophical discussions between Huck and Jim, the runaway slave, as they drift down the river on a raft.
Usually a little thought and preparation can make the difference between a plot summary that goes nowhere and a focused, forceful interpretation. As with all forms of writing, revision is key. To avoid simple plot summary, keep the following strategies in mind as you write.
· When you write for an academic audience, assume that readers have read the work. They don’t need a summary but are interested instead in your ideas about the work.
· Pose questions that lead to an interpretation or judgment of the work rather than to a summary. The questions in the chart on page L-8 can help steer you away from summary and toward interpretation.
· Read your essay out loud. If you hear yourself listing events from the work, stop and revise.
· If organizing your paper in chronological order is getting in the way of your own ideas, look again at your outline and consider other ways of arranging your material.
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Referring to literary authors, titles, and characters |
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When referring to the author of a literary work or a secondary source , such as a critical essay, you should give the author’s full name the first time you mention it: Virginia Woolf is known for her experimental novels. In subsequent references, you may use the last name only: Woolf’s early work was largely overlooked. As a rule, do not use personal titles such as Mr. or Ms. or Dr. when referring to authors.
When you title of a mention the short story, an essay, or a short or medium-length poem, put the title in quotation marks .
“The Lesson,” by Toni Cade Bambara
“Gender Gap in Cyberspace,” by Deborah Tannen
Italicize the titles of novels, nonfiction books, plays, and long poems.
The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
M. Butterfly, by David Henry Hwang
Refer to each character by the name most often used for him or her in the work. If, for instance, a character’s name is Lambert Strether and he is always referred to as “Strether,” do not call him “Lambert” or “Mr. Strether.” Similarly, write “Lady Macbeth,” not “Mrs. Macbeth.”
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Using the present tense to describe fictional events |
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Perhaps because fictional events have not actually occurred in the past, the literary convention is to describe them in the present tense. Until you become used to this convention, you may find yourself shifting between present and past tense. As you revise your draft, make sure that you have used the present tense consistently.
Octavia demands blind obedience from James and from all of her children. When James and Ty caught two redbirds in their trap, they wanted to play with them; Octavia, however, had other plans for the birds (89-90).
Consistent use of the present tense
Octavia demands blind obedience from James and from all of her children. When James and Ty catch two redbirds in their trap, they want to play with them; Octavia, however, has other plans for the birds (89-90).
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Avoiding shifts in tense when integrating quotations |
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Because it is conventional to write about literature in the present tense and because literary works often use other tenses, you need to exercise some care when weaving quotations into your own text. A first-draft attempt may result in an awkward shift, as it did for one student who was writing about Nadine Gordimer’s short story “Friday’s Footprint.”
When Rita sees Johnny’s relaxed attitude, “she blushed, like a wave of illness” (159).
To avoid the distracting shift from present to past tense, the writer had two choices:
1. to paraphrase the reference to Rita’s blushing and reduce the length of the quotation
2. to change the verb in the quotation to the present tense, using brackets to indicate the change.
When Rita sees Johnny’s relaxed attitude, she is overcome with embarrassment, “like a wave of illness” (159).
When Rita sees Johnny’s relaxed attitude, “she blushe[s], like a wave of illness” (159).
Using brackets around just one letter of a word can seem pedantic, so the writer chose the first revision.
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Avoiding confusion of the work’s author with a narrator, speaker, or character |
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When introducing quotations from a literary work, make sure that you don’t confuse the work’s author with the narrator of a story, the speaker of a poem, or a character in a story or play. Instead of naming the author, you can refer to the narrator or speaker—or to the work itself.
Inappropriate
Poet Andrew Marvell describes his fear of death like this: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near” (21-22).
Addressing his beloved in an attempt to win her sexual favors, the speaker of the poem argues that death gives them no time to waste: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near” (21-22).
The poem “To His Coy Mistress” says as much about fleeting time and death as it does about sexual passion. Its most powerful lines may well be “But at my back I always hear / Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near” (21-22).
In the last example, you could of course mention the author as well: Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” says as much…. Although the author is mentioned, he is not being confused with the speaker of the poem.
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Citing passages from short stories or novels |
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To cite a passage from a short story or a novel, use a page number in parentheses after the quoted words.
The narrator of Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O.,” known to us only as “Sister,” makes many catty remarks about her enemies. For example, she calls Mr. Whitaker “this photographer with the pop-eyes” (46).
If a novel has numbered divisions, give the page number and a semicolon; then indicate the book, part, or chapter in which the passage is found. Use abbreviations such as “bk.” and “ch.”
One of Kingsolver’s narrators, teenager Rachel, pushes her vocabulary beyond its limits. For example, Rachel complains that being forced to live in the Congo with her missionary family is “a sheer tapestry of justice” because her chances of finding a boyfriend are “dull and void” (117; bk. 2, ch. 10).
When a quotation from a work of fiction takes up four or fewer typed lines, put it in quotation marks and run it into the text of your essay, as in the two previous examples.
When a quotation is five typed lines or longer, set it off from the text by indenting one inch from the left margin; do not use quotation marks. Put the parenthetical citation after the final mark of punctuation.
Sister’s tale begins with “I,” and she makes every event revolve around herself, even her sister’s marriage:
I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy, and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared here in China Grove, taking “Pose Yourself” photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. (46)
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Avoiding plagiarism in literature papers |
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The rules about plagiarism are the same for literature papers as for other research writing. To be fair and ethical, you must acknowledge your debt to the writers of any sources you use. If you don’t, you commit plagiarism, a serious academic offense.
These acts are considered plagiarism:
· Turning in a paper that someone else wrote
· Failing to cite quotations and borrowed ideas
· Failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks and to cite the source of the quotation
· Failing to put summaries and para phrases in your own words and to cite the source of the ideas
· Failing to cite sources of data, images, or artwork
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Using quotation marks for borrowed language |
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If an interpretation was suggested to you by a critic’s work or if an obscure point was clarified by someone else’s research, it is your responsibility to cite the source. In addition to citing the source, you must place any borrowed language in quotation marks. In the following example, the plagiarized words are underlined.
Here again Glaspell’s story reflects a larger truth about the lives of rural women. Their isolation induced madness in many. The rate of insanity in rural areas, especially for women, was a much discussed subject in the second half of the nineteenth century.
—Elaine Hedges, “Small Things Reconsidered: ’A Jury of Her Peers,’” p. 59
Glaspell may or may not want us to believe that Minnie Wright’s murder of her husband is an insane act, but Minnie’s loneliness and isolation certainly could have driven her mad. As Elaine Hedges notes, the rate of insanity in rural areas, especially for women, was a much-discussed subject in the second half of the nineteenth century (59).
Borrowed language in quotation marks
Glaspell may or may not want us to believe that Minnie Wright’s murder of her husband is an insane act, but Minnie’s loneliness and isolation certainly could have driven her mad. As Elaine Hedges notes, “The rate of insanity in rural areas, especially for women, was a much-discussed subject in the second half of the nineteenth century” (59).
Source: Hacker, Diana. Writer’s Help. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011.