Essay Writing: Tips and Topics on American Literature

The Structure of Your Essay

 Be sure to attach a “Works Cited” page, even if you have only cited the primary text.If  you  do  consult  secondary sources, you must document all of the consulted sources. Audience and Purpose: Your audience is your course instructor who has read the stories.This means that you should situate the story’s plot in the context of your argument.  Your audience will  be  interested  in  your  ability  to  read  the  stories  closely  and  convince  them  with  a  strong argument and relevant textual evidence.Structure: Your essay should include three main structural elements: •An introduction that introduces your topic, the text and author you are dealing with, and your approach to the topic, ending with your thesis that includes the major points. •As many body paragraphs as you see fit, remembering that you should devote one body paragraph to each major sub-argument of your thesis and that you should start each body paragraph with a topic sentence.•A conclusion in which you restate your thesis and openup the discussion to consider the broader implications of your argument.Style: Your prose style should be formal, professional, and academic.Here are some of the topics for your first essay:1.Poe explainsthat a “skillfulliterary artist . . . has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived , with deliberate care, a certain unique effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents –he then combines such events as may best aid him inestablishing this preconceived effect.”To what extent do you agree that despite Poe’s rational explanation of how a writer should compose a story, his own fictionis directed towards eliciting irrational explanationsin “The Tell-Tale Heart”?2.Poe believed in the existence of the “spirit of perverseness” within every person. To what extent do you agree that "The Tell-Tale Heart”includes many elements that suggest that it is not merely a story dramatizing the spirit of perverseness? Discuss the stylistic devices that support your stance.3.“The Yellow Wall-Paper” was originally seen by many as a ghost story, but more recently the critics have tended to interpret it from a feminist perspective. Formulate your own perspective on the story’s theme,and discuss the relationship between the narrator’s depression and the setting in the story.
4.To what extent do you agree that the journal-entry format in “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is particularly effective as a means of exploring the issues of mental illness and the situation of women in the nineteenth century? 5.Cynthia Griffin Wolff observes that before the 1960s, many critics viewed Chopin as a regional writer and had a tendency to dismiss her fiction as “little more than local color”. Other critics, according to Wolff, believe Chopin’s major contribution isher surprise or “trick” conclusions and endings. Many contemporary feminist critics argue that her work addresses the social injustices and inequalities faced by women in the second half of the nineteenth century. To what extent do you believe that “The Story of an Hour” has something more to offer beyond the clever plot twists and the setting with its local color?6.Discuss the effects that Chopin creates in “The Story of an Hour” by means of the narrative technique of internal focalization? You may discuss the effect of the surprise ending, if you wish, but your argument should not focus exclusively on that effect.7.In a letter to his publisher Joyce noted, “[M]y intention was to write the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to be the center of paralysis” (Robert S Ryf, 1962: 59). To what extent do you agree that Joyce’s innovative experimental mode of writing, that includes symbolism and narratology, succeeds in defining this state of paralysisin “Araby”?8.In what ways does Joycein “Araby”connect the boy’s situation with Ireland’s subjugation to England and the Catholic Church? Does anything change for the boy (and, by implication, for Ireland) by the end of the story?9.In “The Writer’s Goal” Maupassant remarks that “each of us makes, individually, a personal illusion of the world. It may be a poetic, sentimental, joyful, melancholy, sordid, or dismal one, according to our nature. The writer’s goal is to reproduce this illusion of life faithfully, using all the literary techniques at his disposal”. Discuss the relevance of some literarytechnique /techniques in “The Necklace” in the context of this statement.10.Discuss the ways Mansfield uses her experimental technique of narration in “The Garden Party” to transform a chance incident into a psychological drama. You may include in your discussion her use of concrete images to convey thecharacter’s feelings. 11.Discuss how and for what purposes binaries(synonyms: dualisms or dichotomies) are problematizedin one of the following stories:“The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Yellow Wallpaper,” or “The Necklace