Topics for Paper 2

October 31 Proposal for Paper 2 due (50-100 words).

December 2 Paper 2 due (7-8 typed, double-spaced pages); electronic copy due by 9 p.m. If you are handing in a paper copy, you must hand it in in class. The paper copy is optional; the electronic copy is mandatory.

Your assignment for Paper 2 is to write an analytical essay with additional sources on the literature we have read. The texts themselves, and your skills at explication and interpretation, will still be the focus; your use of sources should support the points you make in the paper.

Guidelines

1. For this paper, you will want to use either secondary sources (i.e., literary criticism in the form of books and journal articles) or additional primary sources--stories, poems, plays--beyond the ones we've read in class.

2. Remember, Wikipedia and "student help" sites like Sparknotes, eNotes, pinkmonkey, encyclopedia.com, and the rest are NOT legitimate sources for this paper. The phrase "secondary sources" means "journals and library books," along with some legitimate literature web sites. Ask me if you're not sure whether a site counts as a legitimate source.

3. Web pages are someone's intellectual property and ALL WEB PAGES MUST BE CITED just as journal articles must be. Copying without attribution is plagiarism, and you will receive an F for the paper even if your paper is only partly copied from a source without attribution. See the syllabus for more information on the consequences of plagiarism.

4. Style counts as well as substance, so edit and proofread your paper carefully.

5. Bring your paper to me before it is due if you'd like to discuss it.

Requirements

Topics

These are broad topics and are only suggestions; you will need to shape and to limit them.  I encourage you to stop in to see me well before the paper is due. If you want to write on a topic that does not fit under one of these topics, please let me know.

  1. Examine one or more of the works in the context in which it originally appeared, such as Harper’s or The Atlantic. Be sure to read other works in the same volume and discuss the ways in which the workyou chose does or does not fit the conventions you see. For example, what other kinds of stories appeared with The Country of the Pointed Firs in The Atlantic in 1896?
  2. If you have special knowledge of some aspect of the culture of this era (e.g., nineteenth-century painting, sculpture, fabric or decorative arts, or music; the landscape or vegetation discussed in the work; the architectural features; etc.), analyze one of the works in terms of this knowledge. You might find good information at the Library of Congress's American Memory Home Page, Harpweek, or other sites (see http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/sites.htm).
  3. Several of the works we’ve read discuss the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, or Native Americans in nineteenth-century American culture. In what ways do such writers as Chesnutt, Sui-Sin Far, Zitkala-Sa, and Johnson reflect on and criticize nineteenth-century American society? What features such as irony, inverting or reversing conventions and stereotypes, or complex systems of symbolism do they use to convey their message?
  4. The literature of this era is sometimes seen as furthering the nation's imperialist and expansionist aims; according to some writers, it implicitly promotes an agenda that is racist and anti-immigrant and that seeks to affirm the aims of white America. Write an essay in which you support or refute this idea using historical information as well as analysis of the works.
  5. What images of women are presented in late nineteenth-century American literature?
  6. Some of the works we've read make use of supernatural elements such as ghostly figures or superstitions, rituals, and folktales that turn out to be true. Choosing at least one of the works we've read--you may also use others that we haven't read, of course--discuss the function of supernatural elements in the work. Is it possible for a work to be considered realistic if it has supernatural elements? If you discuss folktales and the like, be sure to use a scholarly source to look up its origins.
  7. Look closely at one or more of the formal features of a work or works, such as point of view, structure, contrasting characters, and so forth. Here are some examples:
    1. How does the point of view from which the story or the character of the narrator is told affect the meaning of the story? Is the narrator reliable or unreliable? Can you compare the narrators of several of the local color stories?
    2. How is the work structured? Does it have a frame story? Parallel episodes? Contrasting characters? What effect do these have on the meaning of the work?
    3. How is a feature such as setting used in the story? How does the author use setting symbolically?
  8. The Damnation of Theron Ware is in many ways a novel of ideas in which a naïve minister confronts such turn-of-the-century movements as scientific rationalism, aestheticism, the emancipation of women, anti-immigration and anti-Catholic sentiments, and so on. Research one of these movements and write a paper showing how Frederic uses its ideas in the novel.
  9. Choose a particular theme, symbol, idea, or pattern of imagery that is significant in one or more works and analyze it. Some possibilities would include the following: