In the unit on heroes, we read some additional critical interpretations of Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Man Is Hard to Find.” How do you understand O’Connor’s description of the grandmother’s “gesture” as being about grace? Does your interpretation of the story change if you read it as being about a literal moment of salvation? Compare your own interpretation of the story to O’Connor’s, explaining your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with her interpretation.
Is her interpretation helpful to your own understanding of the story, or does it detract from what you originally interpreted the story to mean? Why?
What does it mean about how literature works that a reader can disagree with a writer about her own work?
The Literary Analysis Essay is the culmination of your work in English 2045, where you demonstrate that you have learned the skills of literary analysis and interpretation that you have been working towards throughout the semester.
There are three goals listed on the syllabus, which your essays are supposed to accomplish:assess the relationships between literary elements in one literary work and those of other literary works;critically assess the relationships between literary elements in works and the cultures from which the authors come;evaluate relationships between themes in literary works and/or cultures from which works come and the student’s own values.
For this assignment, you will compose an essay in which you argue for your interpretation of 1-2 literary works you have read this semester. The Literary Analysis essay should consist of 1100-1500 words, NOT counting the Works Cited page.
The essay should be in 12-point, Times New Roman font, with 1-inch margins on all sides and an appropriate heading and title for MLA-style essays.Not only will this essay analyze 1-2 primary sources, which are the literary works about which you are writing, but you will also employ 1-3 secondary sources, which are research sources that you have found. These will include articles from VSCC Library’s databases, credible online resources, and any media sources that are relevant to your topic (such as the interview between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers). Some of these sources may be the ones you included on your topic proposal with annotated bibliography assignment, but you might need to do additional research in order to thoroughly explore the topic and inform yourself about the issue.
Review the feedback that your instructor has left for you on the topic proposal. These sources should be cited in the body of your essay and documented on the Works Cited page according to 8th edition MLA guidelines.
