What this paper is:
This exercise is designed to allow you to express your thoughts about a short story. For example, you may discuss a theme found in one of the stories we have covered or discuss an author’s use of symbolism. You may make a point about the historical context of a particular writing, or how a particular author deals with a topic or relationship. You may compare the way two authors deal with a topic, or type of character, or make an argument about a particular story’s meaning.
You must make a claim about the story and support it with quotes and paraphrases from the story itself. Outside research is optional but it may help.
What this paper is not:
This paper is not a book report nor a simple summary. While you should plan to summarize parts or the whole of the story, do not simply tell your readers what happened. Make a defendable claim about it.
While you may start with an opinion about the work in question, you should make provable points (backed up with quotation or paraphrase from the text) rather than relying on guess work, or first impressions.
Avoid using phrases like “I think” or “I believe” as these weaken your writing by making your reader think you’re not sure.
Proposals
In class we will discuss proposals for topics for this paper. You should try to come up with a tentative thesis statement in to discuss in class.
Examples of Topics: (you are not limited to these)
Discuss the obsessive need for June’s mother to find a way for June to be a prodigy in “Two Kinds” and what that might do to a child’s self-esteem.
Compare Harry to the dead Leopard from the first lines of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”. What are each of them symbolically or actually climbing? Does the image of the hyena come into play here?
Think about the life of Mrs. Mallard in “The Story of an Hour” and consider how her life might not have been as free as she might have imagined it should the ending have been different. If her husband had in-fact died, and she had lived, would she actually be as free as she think she would? Why or why not?
