Assignment Two
Literary Analysis

Objective

To construct a persuasive argument for a particular interpretation of a work of literature.

Overview

In the first assignment, you considered very brief passages and examined them in minute detail. It is now time to apply those same skills to an overall literary work from this semester. Attention to detail will still be important, but now it will also be important to select the most useful evidence from this longer text.

In writing this paper, please avoid simply summarizing the work. You can presume that your audience has already read the text, so you should devote your energies to analyzing it. In other words, break the text down for your reader and only refer to those parts of it that contribute to your argument. Along these lines, do not let the structure of the chosen work determine the structure of your own argument. Structure the argument according to your thesis statement and the subtopics that will allow you to prove this thesis. Do not hesitate to take quotations from the work out of order in doing this.

Topics

Identify a literary work on the syllabus for this semester's class. With this work in mind, choose from among the following topics or choose one of your own (after discussing it with me):

Gender—Women have it better now than they did in the past. That, at least, is our typical understanding of the history of the twentieth century as employment and other opportunities once denied women have now opened up. Choose a work that provides a sense of what it means to be a woman in a particular time period and consider what has changed between then and now.

The Individual and the Community—We often associate rebellion against the larger community with youthfulness, and sometimes we even glamorize this rebellion. At other times, we condemn the rebels in our midst as unhealthy sociopaths. Presumably, such judgments hinge on how we define our community. Choose a work that addresses concerns about the often-strained relationship between individuals and their communities.

Overcoming the History of Slavery—We have covered a time period in the aftermath of slavery and the war that brought that systemic injustice to an end. Choose a work that tries to offer guidance to America as it seeks to redress the numerous wrongs that slavery perpetuated. Are this work's suggestions still useful? How does a changing historical context change the applicability of these suggestions?

Realism—Can we claim that one work of literature is more realistic than another? Consider the factors that shape our understandings of realism. Choose a work that tests the limits of literary realism in one way or another. What are the advantages of "keeping it real," and what are the advantages of warping reality into new seemingly unreal shapes?

Tradition—The modernists celebrated and mourned a rupture with tradition resulting from the trauma of global wars and rapid industrialization. Choose a modernist work and explain how it either revels in the freedom of a new age, bemoans the resulting confusion, or manages to do both of these things at the same time. How does the writer's stance on this question influence the structure of the work in question?

Choose a Topic of Your Own—But consult with me about it in advance.

Procedure

1. Choose a topic from above and one work from the syllabus that genuinely interests you and that will allow you to elaborate the most effectively on the chosen topic.

2. Read through the work again and take notes on the salient points as well as similarities and differences between related works.

3. Choose a topic and develop a thesis statement that makes an argument pertaining to that topic.

4. Break the argument down into between two and four subtopics that are likewise arguable (three, of course, is the standard number of subtopics). Think about the most logical arrangement of subtopics for the structure of your argument.

5. Write a draft of your argument. Go back and reconsider your thesis statement. Revise it.

6. Bring the draft to class on April 15th, 2019 for peer-editing. If you cannot attend class on that day, let me know. You can regain some of the points lost to an absence on peer-editing day if you can exchange papers with another classmate and edit it before turning in the final draft.

7. Be sure to include a Works Cited List on the last page of the paper.

8. Be sure the paper is at least five pages long. Five pages is the absolute minimum length, and papers under five pages will lose some points. That is, please write five full pages of text (not five pieces of paper with some writing on them).

9. Revise and proofread the paper in the following week and turn in the final draft on April 24th, 2019. Please turn a peer-edited working draft in along with this final draft, so your peer editor can receive credit for peer-editing work.

Writing Tips

I have based many of these tips on my comments on previous papers. They address problems that often come up for students when writing papers.

1. In most cases, your first thesis statement will not be arguable enough. Keep revising it until you have a statement that truly arguable and truly interesting. Do not hesitate to revise it after you have written a complete draft of the paper. The thesis statement should directly address your two chosen works.

   Examples:

   FIRST TRY: American society is regulated by two separate justice systems.

   SECOND TRY—NOT THERE YET: Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson includes two separate justice systems.

   A GOOD THESIS: In his analysis of slavery in Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain identifies two separate, conflicting systems of justice in the American South that operate against each other.

   Notice the evolution from an overly general, though accurate, statement about the two works to a statement about the difference between the two works to a precise explanation of how these books compare.

2. Organize your paper around the thesis statement and be sure each part of your argument bears some clear relationship to the thesis statement. Do not leave it to your reader to figure out what each subtopic is doing in your paper. Consider the following outline for an argument supporting the above thesis:

   THESIS: In his analysis of slavery in Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain identifies two separate, conflicting systems of justice in the American South that operate against each other.

   1. Pudd'nhead Wilson is a novel-length critique of slavery and its aftermath.

   2. The seemingly unrelated conflict in the argument between Tom Driscoll and Luigi reveals the presence of two separate, contradictory justice systems in Wilson's community.

   3. The conflict between competing notions of justice explains the persistence of racism in the post-Civil War American South.

   Turn each of these subtopics into a unified paragraph with supporting evidence in the form of quotations. If a paragraph gets too long, break it down into two paragraphs, but make careful use of transitional phrases to keep the logic clear to the reader.

3. Follow MLA format when using quotations or paraphrases to support the argument:

   1. Use blended quotations for quotations under four lines and block quotations for quotations over four lines. Remember the punctuation rules for each type of quotation. If you have questions about this, ask me or look it up in a style such as the Online Writing Lab at "http://owl.english.purdue.edu/".

   2. Write a list of Works Cited at the end of the paper. The last name of the author comes first, then the title of the selection. Then, if applicable, the title of the book in which you found the work (i. e.: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 9th ed., vol. D). Notice that you should italicize the name of a book whenever you mention it in your paper. Titles of poems and short stories go in quotes instead of italics.

      Examples:

      Bishop, Elizabeth. "The Armadillo." 1965. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 9th ed. Vol. E. Eds. Robert S. Levine, et. al., W. W. Norton, 2012, pp. 64-65.

      Hurston, Zora Neale.ÊTheir Eyes Were Watching God. HarperCollins, 2006.

      PLEASE NOTE: Indentation in the above two examples is inaccurate because of the challenges of formatting for web-pages, so please consult the hard-copy assignment guidelines. (Or, just remember that the first line of each entry is flush-left, and every subsequent line in each entry takes a 0.5-inch indentation.)

      Alphabetize works cited according to the author's last name. The year of original publication after the work's title in the above two examples is optional, but the year of publication after the publisher is required. There are many other rules for MLA format for peculiar instances that will come up, but the above two examples should serve as useful models for the vast majority of cases for this class. Do not hesitate to look these rules up in a style manual.

4. Grammar issues:

   1. Refer to events in a work of literature in the present tense. This may sound strange at first, but it is the convention for addressing literature. Notice that we tend to follow this rule in class discussion.

   2. Avoid using the passive voice whenever it is possible to do so. When writing in the passive voice, you remove the subject from the sentence or at least de-emphasize it. This makes writing less engaging to most readers.

      Example:

      ACTIVE VOICE: Huck befriends Jim.
      (Note structure: subject/verb/object)

      PASSIVE VOICE: Jim is befriended by Huck.
      (Structure: object/"to be" verb/past participle)

      ACTIVE VOICE: Huck befriended Jim.

      PASSIVE VOICE: Jim was befriended by Huck.
      (Passive voice can exist in any verb tense.)

   3. Avoid contractions when writing college papers. Replace they're with they are and don't with do not (these are just a few examples of the numerous possible contractions.

   4. Transitions. These are words that serve as signposts pointing out the direction of your argument to your readers. Some of these transitions are like "One Way" signs leading your reader on to the next point. Others are like "U Turn" signs indicating a reversal of direction. There are other more subtle transitions that alter the tone or indicate approval or disapproval of what you are discussing.

      Examples:

      One Way Signs (leading from before to after or from cause to effect)

      Janie's marriage to Stark ends when he dies. Subsequently, Janie meets Tea Cake and begins a relationship with him that her neighbors find scandalous.

      World War I caused many young artists to question the very basis for their systems of belief. Consequently, their art depicts a world of disorderly and, at times, indecipherable fragments.

      W. E. B. DuBois was an early supporter of Booker T. Washington. Thus, his public disenchantment with Washington's educational programs surprised his readers at the time.

      U-turn Signs (establishing a contrast between ideas)

      Whereas T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land is extremely complex and allusive, Langston Hughes's poems are straightforward and accessible to a wide range of readers.

      Henry James's unnamed protagonist thinks the Monarchs want him to paint their portraits for a fee. However, they actually want to sit for him as models for his book illustrations and receive a fee from him.

      These are just a few examples of the numerous transitions out there that can help you arrange your ideas. Most style manuals will give you a more exhaustive list of options and fuller explanations of how to use them. Your best resource, however, is your own experience with written and spoken language. You undoubtedly hear and use dozens of these transitions per day. Integrate the appropriate ones into your writing.

      Keep in mind also that these transitions are often the most important as you move from one subtopic in your paper to the next. Very frequently, the first sentence in a new paragraph needs to provide the reader a clear transition between ideas in the previous paragraph and ideas in the new one.