You may choose one of the topics below to explore in your paper, or you may come up with an idea of your own that you would like to pursue. However, if you would like to write about a topic of your own, please be sure to run your idea by me first. In this paper, you may focus on one of the works we have read, or you may compare/contrast two works.  Also, the questions listed under each topic are just meant to get your mental wheels turning; do NOT feel like you have to answer all of the questions listed.  Again, they are just meant to help you begin to brainstorm.  

POSSIBLE TOPICS

Take any one of the reading questions we worked on in reference to Room and develop it into a paper topic.

Take any one of the readings questions we worked on in reference to Twilight: Los Angeles and develop it into a paper topic.

Race.  Gwendolyn Brooks, Anna Deavere Smith, Langston Hughes.  All of these authors tackle the issue of race in America.  What do these authors have to say about race? What struggles do African-American face in America? What causes racism? What is the toll of racism? Is there any way out of the divides these authors expose?

Lives of Women.  Olds, Rich, Brooks, Smith, Gilman, Donoghue.  Many of our female authors (and some of our male authors) reflect on what it means to be a woman in contemporary society.  What challenges to women face? Do they overcome these challenges? How so or why not? What do women participate in, in terms of society? What are they barred from? How do they make their voices heard? (Try to avoid generalizations in this paper.)

Outcast/outsider.  O’Connor, Smith, Heaney, Hughes, Whitman, Kafka, Gilman, Carver, Donoghue, Eggers.  Many of these stories and poems feature an outsider who dramatically changes the lives of the characters in the stories.  What do the outsiders bring to these communities? What effect do they have? Why are these outsiders necessary? What do they challenge? What do they represent? How does society treat the outcast? What have these personas done that is so offensive to their culture? How does society use the figure of the outcast? What is the outcast’s relationship with the dominant culture? What does the outsider represent? What does he/she challenge? Is the outsider ever accepted by society? Does the outsider have a lesson or message to convey?

Change, Metamorphosis.  Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” Carver, Ferlinghetti, Heaney, Smith, Kafka, Marquez, Donoghue, Eggers.  In what ways do the protagonists change or fail to change in these stories/poems? Is this change meaningful and lasting, or is it only temporary? What causes these characters to change? What keeps them from changing? Is the change a positive or negative one? Why? What do these characters learn (or fail to learn) from their metamorphoses?

Social Change/Social Criticism.  Possible authors: Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”; William Wordsworth, The World is Too Much with Us”; Lawrence Ferlinghetti, The World is a beautiful Place”; Emma Donoghue; Anna Deavere Smith, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Kafka; Gilman; Eggers.  All of these works challenge society’s values in some way.  What do these works criticize about society? What is the general world like in these works, and what does the world fail to value or appreciate?  What in particular do they criticize? How has society failed these authors? What are these authors attempting to find in society? Do they find what they’re looking for? Are these writers outsiders, or are they a part of society? Do the authors’ attitudes toward  society change or remain the same?

Searching for Love/Belonging. Possible Authors:  Sharon Olds, Sex Without Love”; Seamus Heaney, Digging”;  Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”; Carver, Cathedral”; Kafka; cummings; Eggers; Gilman.  In all of these works, characters struggle to feel accepted, or try to find a connection to a mate or a family that in some way rejects them.  Why are these character rejected? How do they view love? Do they find love or connections in surprising places? What keeps these characters in solitude? Do they ever break out of this solitude? What does love provide, or fail to provide, these characters?

Roles of Men/Women.  Many of our authors explore what it means to be a man or a woman in society.  What roles to men and women occupy? Do men and women break out of or transform these roles? What happens when they do? Do characters always meet gender expectation or do they try to overturn them? Why do some characters insist that women occupy certain roles? What makes it so hard to break out of these roles?

Religion.  Carver, Kafka, Donoghue, and Eggers all use religious allusions in their works.  Write about spirituality in the modern world.  What is the modern world like? What does religion bring to this world? How does religion transform these characters? What damns or saves these characters? Are they capabale of change?

Vision/Sight/Blindness.  Cathedral” features a blind man as a main character.  Analyze the themes of sight and blindness in this work.  What can the blind man see that the sighted characters cannot? How does the blind man transform the other characters? What does blindness signify in this work?

Symbols and Imagery.  Analyze one or two of the major symbols in any of the works we read in this class.    Why is this central image or symbol so important? What does it reveal or suggest? How does it emerge or reappear in the work as a whole? What do these images mean to these authors? Does the significance of these images change? What different meanings do these symbols embody? (You could apply this topic to anything we have read in this course.)

Divided Worlds.  Carver, Smith, Donoghue, Kafka, Gilman, Whitman, Hughes, Olds, and Eggers all write about characters who struggle to negotiate the divide between worlds.  What are these characters split between? What causes these divisions? Are the characters able to heal this divide or must they forever live in divided worlds?

Names and Naming.  Authors pay special attention to names and naming in their works.  Why are these names (or lack of a name) significant? Why do these authors name their characters in the way that they do? What do they use names to represent? Do these names accurately represent their characters? How so or why not? What do these names suggest about the characters themselves or the worlds around them?

Views of American Society/American Identity.  Carver, Eggers, Whitman, Ferlinghetti, Brooks, Hughes, Donoghue, Gilman, and Smith offer a critique of  American society in their works.  What in particular do they criticize? What are these authors attempting to find in America? Do they find what they’re looking for? Are these writers outsiders in America, or are they a part of America? Do the authors’ attitudes toward America change or remain the same? What IS America, according to these authors?  What does it mean to be American?

Art.  Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” Room.

Greek mythology

Nature

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This bibliography should adhere to MLA guidelines (the version in our textbook) for documentation. See the bottom of p. 1648 for how to write a proper entry of a scholarly article located through a subscription database; you will lose points for not following the format on the bottom of p. 1648. If you’ve checked out a casebook of literary analysis essays by various critics, then you need to see the bottom of p. 1644 for how to write an entry for a piece in an anthology with an editor; it’s also possible you can locate more than one secondary source within a single casebook.
These sources may or may not be the same as for the Working Bibliography assignment. Because you are still actively engaged in evaluating resources and finding source material, it is expected that your topic and research will change during the process.
After studying all ten sources, write an introduction for your bibliography (3 to 4 paragraphs) that charts the connections among all TEN sources. In addition, consider these points

What information have you learned about your subject?

What trends in scholarship do you see emerging in your subject?

Do you still hold the same beliefs about your subject, or has the information you’ve gathered changed your outlook?

If your outlook has changed, how? If not, why not?

Then, for FIVE of the sources, provide a four- to five-sentence summary (annotation) of the work as described above. List each source in MLA format, followed by its summary.
For the remaining FIVE sources, state (in one paragraph total) how you might use these five sources in your paper or what you hope to find out from re-reading these five sources. (You do not have to annotate these five sources. Do list them in MLA format.)