| For your third essay of the semester, you are to focus on either of two novels: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or Zora Neal Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Once again, your purpose is to create an argument--a thesis that states what you believe the writer is saying about one of the central themes of the novel you choose. This thesis should reflect the opinion that you are going to support throughout the essay. Remember that we are interested in your exploring what the writer is saying, not what you believe about the issue. Avoid a thesis that is obvious, and, of course, one that is factual. If you choose a theme that we have discussed in class, be sure to explore your ideas well beyond what we have stated in our discussions.
Support your views with three outside critical sources. By critical, I mean literary critics who write about Hurston's work. I don't consider dictionaries, encyclopedias, the Bible, fiction, and poetry appropriate to fulfill these requirements. Document your sources according to the MLA format found in your Diana Hacker text or on my web site. When you quote material, be sure to use in-text citations. This usually consists of the author's last name and the page reference. If you mention the author's name before the citation, then there's no need to repeat "Fitzgerald" or "Hurston" in the parenthesis. If you quote up to four lines in your paper, run them into the normal paragraph of your text. If you quote five or more lines in your paper, then indent the quotation ten spaces from the left margin. Unless there is dialogue within the quotation, an indented quotation requires no quotation marks. The indentation alone tells the reader that the passage is a quotation. One important caveat: Please do not devote a significant portion of your essay to a discussion of Fitzgerald's or Hurston's life. Focus on the novels as fiction, and analyze them as such. Some Suggested Topics 1. Throughout his work, F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on wealth and the characters who possess it, as if money were a kind of magic that separates the well-off from everyone else. Explore Fitzgerald's attitude toward wealth--and the characters who possess it--in the novel The Great Gatsby. 2. Point of view is central to The Great Gatsby. The entire novel comes through the consciousness of Nick Carraway, and in his narration he assumes two voices: the voice of the character who is experiencing the events at the time and the voice of the narrator who is filtering those events through the perspective of retrospect. What are the effects of these two voices in the novel, and how do they influence our perceptions of the events and the characters within the novel? 3. Jay Gatsby is often described as a romantic hero. Define what a romantic hero is, and then argue that Gatsby either is or is not a romantic hero. In your discussion, take into consideration what the outcome in the novel is for the romantic hero and what Fitzgerald might be saying through that outcome. 4. Zora Neal Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God departs from the angry tone of protest novels written by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin. About this difference, Hurston has said that her novel was not meant to be a protest against the African-American's plight in this country; rather, the novel was meant to be a celebration of African-American culture, a culture that she saw as not in need of elevation because it was already elevated. Apply Hurston's view to her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. In what ways does the novel celebrate African-American culture? 5. Some feminist critics argue that Zora Neal Hurston's novel dramatizes not the African-American's experience in America but a woman's coming to understand what it is to be an independent human being. Given Janie Crawford Killicks Starks Woods choice of husbands and her actions (some might even say passivity) in the novel, such an interpretation could easily be challenged. Argue either that Hurston's protagonist does achieve self-realization, or that in reality, she consistently defines herself through the men in her life. 6. Their Eyes Were Watching God has aspects of allegory within it. For instance, one obvious example is a Biblical-like flood scene at the end of the novel, the scene during which Tea Cake saves Janie from drowning but is bitten by a rabid dog and eventually dies of the effects of rabies. If you believe that the novel has aspects of allegory, define what allegory is, give examples of allegory in the novel, and then argue why you believe Hurston resorted to such allegory to tell her story. 7. Check your syllabus for the due date for this essay. |