Assignment:
For your final essay of the
course, you will analyze a universal theme that you find in
either Sula or The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Using
specific examples from your chosen text, you will show how each author
develops this theme in his or her work. Think of how this theme
continues to make a “universal” connection to readers, regardless of when the
novel was written.
|
Approach:
• Your first step is to pick a
text to work with: your choices are Sula or The
Reluctant Fundamentalist.
• Now think about what universal
themes or storylines this text seems to be exploring. You
might consider include relationships between siblings, parents and children,
friends, or men and women; education; adolescence or growing up; war; and
music as a kind of therapy or release. Ultimately, select one of
these themes to focus on for your essay.
• Your essay will be a discussion
of how this one particular “universal” theme plays out in the text, how the
work comments, for example, on mother / daughter relationships. What is
Morrison saying about this theme in Sula in her portrayals
of Nel and Helene,Sula and Hannah, Hannah and Eva, and
others? How could the American Dream be a theme in The
Reluctant Fundamentalist?
• For your essay, you will
also want to find specific examples from the text to support the theme you
have chosen. In addition to specific page references and in-text
citations from the text, you’ll want to include comments on other things we
have talked about this semester: narration, setting, and other literary
devices, any biographical information that you think is important to the
author’s presentation of theme, any cultural or political issues that may
have impacted the writings of the work, etc.
Think about how the author
presents a theme in his or her work, and also think about how this author
presents this theme differently from what other authors do
in other works. What specific experience is this author writing
about? Also, how can this specific
experience be connected more universally to the
text’s readers? Why do readers end up caring about the text and /
or relating to it? As we’ve discussed throughout the semester,
your own reader response is very important to your interpretation of this
theme.
• You should set out your claim
about a specific theme found in this text in a clearthesis statement at
the end of your introduction paragraph. You will use textual
evidence (direct quotations from the text) to support your argument
in the body paragraphs; each body paragraph should focus on one main idea and
begin with a clear topic sentence. Your essay
should end with a clear conclusion paragraph that sums up
your personal reaction and leaves the readers with “something new” – a final
connection to the story.
|
Tuesday, 27 May 2014
universal theme
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment