Researched Argument
DUE DATE: Friday, April 22
PURPOSE: You will submit an original researched argument developing a narrow, clear, arguable, and worthwhile thesis related to at least one work of literature covered in our class discussions. You will demonstrate that you are thoroughly familiar with a text or texts and can weigh scholarly claims and evidence for competing interpretations. You will advance your argument in dialogue—agreement, disagreement, or some combination—with scholarly sources.
FORMAT: MLA.
LENGTH: Five (5) full pages to six (6) full pages, not including the Works Cited page.
ORGANIZATION: Your paper will include the basic elements of the classical argument structure: an introduction with a thesis, a body of evidence, and a conclusion. A separate Works Cited page must follow the essay.
SOURCES: Your argument will be supported through dialogue with approved scholarly sources. Such sources will include university-press books or peer-reviewed articles searchable through the scholarly databases made available through our library (e.g., JSTOR, EBSCO). Sources searchable through a simple Google search, including but by no means limited to Wikipedia and SparkNotes, will not be acceptable. Sources must be summarized, paraphrased and quoted correctly and appropriately.
A minimum of five (5) separate scholarly sources must be used.
Suggested Topics
1)John Updike explained in an interview (1995) that Sammy is a boy “full of good impulses,” and that quitting his job is a form of “feminist protest.” Do you agree?
2)Write an essay that discusses gender and young adult issues in Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” and John Updike’s “A&P.”
3)Several of the statements made during the testimony are based on flawed arguments and assumptions. Write a paper in which you discuss the presence of logical fallacies in Glaspell’s work. Do these statements bear more influence on the outcome than the neutral and factual statements? As a reader, were you biased by the flawed arguments, or able to make an objective evaluation of the accused?
4)Write an essay analyzing the use of the southern setting in “A Rose for Emily” and in “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” and/or “Why I Live at the P.O.” What vision of the South and of changes within Southern society does each story offer?
5)Write an essay analyzing the treatment of societal values in “A Rose for Emily.” Does “A Rose for Emily” ultimately affirm the values of Jefferson society? describe them objectively and noncommittally? treat them ironically or critically? nostalgically? some combination of these? Do we need to distinguish between “the story” (i.e., Faulkner, or even the reader) and the narrative voice? Is the reader obliged to evaluate the narrator’s values and those of the society he represents? If so, how?
6)Write an essay discussing the function of point of view in “The Cask of Amontillado” and in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
7)Write a research paper that contrasts “Welcome to Hiroshima” to historical accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima. Be sure to address the ways in which the poem focuses upon smaller details and identify any instances where the speaker may deviate from, or closely follow, accounts of Hiroshima after it was hit by the atomic bomb.
8)Write an essay either supporting or refuting the following thesis: “Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest strictly as entertainment; any attempt to find a moral is misguided.” (You could use many of the play’s lines to build either case. A couple of examples: Does the behavior of Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble suggest anything about the values of conventional moralists? Do the canon’s remarks about his sermon on “the meaning of the manna in the wilderness” have a serious implication about institutional religion?)
9)After reading The Importance of Being Earnest, research Oscar Wilde’s life and literary career. Then read the play again and write an essay showing how your research changed your reading. How does the play seem different after you have learned about the playwright’s troubles with the social strictures of Victorian England?
10)Many different poems in the Introduction address the themes of time and mortality. Choose one that you have read (for example, Shakespeare’s “[Not marble nor the gilded monuments]” or John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”), and write an essay that compares it to Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” What does each poem say about time? About mortality? About art, sculpture, and poetry? How are death and time related to art in each poem?
11)Oedipus the King contains a number of references to blindness and sight and to light and darkness. Find some of them and write an essay examining the role of this group of images in the play. Consider questions like these: With what kinds of enlightenment and darkness is the play concerned? Why is it significant that Apollo, the sun god, is also a god of prophecy? Why is Tiresias, a prophet inspired by Apollo, presented as blind? What is the relation between his blindness and that of Oedipus?
12)Write an essay about the function of the Chorus in Oedipus the King. Consider questions like these: Why does the Chorus consist of the elders of Thebes? Does the Chorus consistently express a point of view different from that of any major characters? If so, why does the play need to have such a point of view expressed? Why by a group rather than an individual? What part does the Chorus play in the action? How is the content of the choral odes related to the action that precedes and follows each ode?
13)Compared with his younger contemporary Euripides, Sophocles in his best-known plays seems generally to favor the status quo and the powers that be. Choose one of the following options: a)Read a play by Euripides (The Bacchae and The Trojan Women are good choices); then compare and contrast it with Oedipus the King in terms of political conservatism and subversiveness. b)Using only the text of Oedipus the King, write an essay demonstrating how it either conservatively controls a potentially subversive response by the audience (such as anger at the gods for their cruelty and perhaps anger about authority in general) or subtly invites such a subversive response.
14)Are Aylmer’s attempts to cure his wife’s deformity unethical? Gather research on popular culture’s fascination with plastic surgery today, and how this has led to problems with self-image and self-esteem. Write a paper that discusses ethics and the obsession with physical appearance in both Hawthorne’s work and contemporary society. If this couple were living today, would you advise Georgiana to have her birthmark removed?
15)Montresor is telling his story fifty years (“half of a century”) after committing murder. What do you believe motivated him to share his tale so long after the events? Is Montresor a sociopath, or does he possess a conscience?
16)Compare the portrait of marriage in “The Story of an Hour” with that in “A Jury of Her Peers.”
17)Most fairy tales are designed for a didactic or moral purpose; in other words, they are shared with the purpose of educating listeners on a topic or on how to behave properly. What is the moral of Byatt’s “The Thing in the Forest”? Incorporate some research on the historical events and culture that may have inspired Byatt to write the tale, as well as citations from the text to support your points.
18)Gilman integrated some biographical elements in this story: she had committed herself to treatment at the asylum mentioned in this story, and divorced her husband afterward, claiming herself cured of a mental illness that resulted from their marriage. Write a paper in which you examine the husband-wife relationship in this story. Make sure to look closely at the narrator’s explanations and her direct quotes from her husband. Is he controlling, loving, overbearing, or condescending?
19)Discuss the element of “unreliable narrator” in this story. As readers, we want to take the woman’s account at face value—is the credibility of her story compromised as a result of her mental illness? Can we trust the narrator to give us a reliable and objective account of her home life?
20)Some writing about tragedy talks about the concept of hamartia, the notion that the central character’s fate is brought about by a tragic flaw or failing of character. Hamlet’s speech beginning “So oft it chanceth in particular men” suggests something similar. Does Hamlet have such a tragic flaw? If so, name it and write a paper supporting your contention.
21)Another idea common in writing about tragedy is that the hero is guilty of hubris, an overstepping of the bounds of his destiny and the destiny of humanity. This suggests some universal moral principles beyond the control of human beings. Write an essay that discusses the play’s handling of such principles.
22)In 1600 (the approximate date of Hamlet), Queen Elizabeth I was sixty-seven and had no direct heirs. England had been subjected to wars and rebellions over the succession to the throne for the preceding two centuries. Write an essay showing how these historical circumstances may be reflected in Hamlet.
