ENGL 1302 Thompson 2021 CAMPUS
ESSAY THREE: Literary Analysis on Cultural Contexts
with Works Cited and Annotated Bibliography
Purpose: You will examine the connections between a literary work’s cultural setting, culture, and/or societywith the literarystory (or work) itself—in other words, what was happening outside of the literary work during the time of the setting or publication, and how does that inform the inside of the story itself, through characters, plot, setting, theme and/or language?
- You could analyze a character’s social class, cultural influences, or racial background, and/or noteworthy events that occurred during the time when the story, poem, or play was written.
- In literature, a character is limited or inspired to act by his or her race, class, gender, social movement, or a particular event (like war, gender, or racial inequalities).
- By exploring the cultural context of a literary work, you enhance your own understanding of the literature, as well as the social environment of the time.
- You will also use reliable library resources, including those from the TCC library databases, for your research and will provide an annotated bibliography on these sources.
- Above all, this essay is a literary analysis, not just a historical research paper.
I. THE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY SHOULD BE THE PREPARATION WORK FOR ESSAY THREE
Requirements:
a. Minimum three academic journal sources–peer-reviewed sources, all passing the CARP test, found in our TCC literary databases. One more source should be the literary work in your textbooks, so you need a minimum of four sources for your research. Feel free to use more sources. Minimum implies minimum effort.
b. Once you decide on what primary source, or story/poem, to write about, you should FIRST go to the literary criticism articles to see what is available, what the critics are writing about, and what you could pull from the criticism to use as your own discussion.
c. These sources should be the same that you use in your Essay Three, including your textbook citation.
d. Each source will include a brief summary and anevaluation no longer than one paragraph: two to three sentences for summary and two to three sentences for evaluation, give or take.
e. The formatting for your annotated bibliography includes double spacing of the (1) source citation in MLA format; (2) summary of the source; and (3) your own evaluation of the source:
Citation (in hanging indentation and correct MLA formatting)
Summary:
Evaluation:
f. Your Works Cited page will evolve out of this annotated bibliography—these are not identical documents and they have different purposes, even though they are redundant. The Annotated Bibliography includes the source citations and a summary/evaluation for each. The Works Cited is only the list of source citations without the annotations. You must submit BOTH or lots of points will be deducted.
g. I have provided groupings of critical articles from the literature databases for many of our stories. Scroll down to findModules of lit crit for our works.
h. Your Essay Three draftshould include a minimum of the first two essay paragraphs and one source citation.
II. THE CULTURAL CONTEXTS ESSAY
Requirements:
1. Choose a literary work or works in our textbook or Canvas and examine the connections between the work’s cultural setting and the work itself, by considering how particular situations and events influence characters’ actions.
2. To continue your research, your annotated bibliography should already focus on reliable literary critical interpretations of the work’s cultural period, as well as maybe some historical documentation. Hopefully, you have already compiled your research for this essay.
3. Begin your essay with an overview of the literary work’s background. But you do NOT need to provide a full summary as you did in your first essay.
4. Explicate the work (close analysis of the text) by exploring specific parallels between the cultural setting and the characters/plot/or themes.
5. Include character, plot, themes, language, and any other relevant literary elements in your essay. For example, you might focus on one particular character by examining how that character is shaped by events or conventions of a particular cultural period.
6. Your essay should include a minimum of 1,200 words, a minimum of four sources: three academic journal sources and one source as your story/primary work, and correct MLA documentation (double spacing, hanging indentions, etc.) including in-text citations and a Works Cited page.
7. UACCEPTABLE SOURCES: The Wikipedia online encyclopedia and Google search engineare not HU43reliable/acceptable literary analysis sources and should NOT be written on your Works Cited page. Your essay grade will be docked to zero points if these show up on your Works Cited. That includes GOOGLE SCHOLAR—If you find articles there, they are in one of the literary databases, so go there, instead. You can begin your brainstorming with these search engines, but do not finish your essay with them! Find more credible sources! DO NOT USE ANY RANDOM SOURCES FOUND ON THE WEB THAT ARE PART OF STUDY SITES OR BLOGS LIKE ENOTES, CLIFF NOTES, SPARK NOTES, INTERESTINGLIT.COM, OUTSCHOOL.COM, SUPERSUMMARY.COM, 123HELPER.COM, SCHOOLWORKHELPER.COM, ETC. They are NOT reliable and peer reviewed articles. If you DO use any of these, your essay will be deducted 50 points and you won’t have a chance to revise. You may ask why I am writing this in all caps… because every single semester, SOMEONE fails because they use one of these sites in their essay, and it’s obvious that they haven’t read the instructions carefully, or at all! (I’m finished ranting…lol)
8. How do you develop your thesis statement? Consider it as your mini plan that will tell your readers what you will discuss in each section/paragraph. Based on your essay length, you’ll need at least three main claims to discuss. Each claim should be developed in its own paragraph. Consider various templates for your thesis:
A. By examining <claim one>, <claim two> and <claim three>it is clear that <opinion>.
B.1. The <story title> reflects critical cultural incidents during <name of author’s>time period; for example, the <author’s> portrayal of <claim one>, description of <claim two>, and incorporation of <claim three> allude to the use of American Gothic writing <or another form of writing>.
B.2. Real example: “The Fall of the House of Usher” reflects critical cultural incidents during Edgar Allan Poe’s time period; moreover, Poe’s portrayal of (claim one) the maddening characters, (claim two) description of the dreary and dilapidated of the house, and (claim three) incorporation of various supernatural aspects allude to the use of American Gothic writing.
C.1. In <title of work>, <author> uses <an important part of work> as a unifying device for <one element>, <another element>, and <another element>. The number of elements can vary from one to four.
C.2. In “Youth,” Joseph Conrad writes a partly autobiographical narrative that uses (claim) the sea as a unifying device for the dangerous setting, (claim) the story’s tightly-organized structure, and (claim) the main theme of the protagonist’s innocence to experience.
III. General Prompts for Writing about a Work’s Cultural Context:
1. Is a particular famous event (or series of events) an important influence on the work?
2. Is a cultural movement an important influence on the work?
3. Can you summarize and explain the relevant cultural background of the literary work?
4. Can you use examples and quotations from the literary work/text to illustrate specific parallels between the literary work and its cultural context?
IV. Suggested Outline of Essay:
1. Para One: Introduction of the literary work and your thesis statement
2. Para Two: Overview of the work’s cultural background and brief plot summary (might take two separate paragraphs)
3. Para Three, Four and Five: Explication of the work by finding parallel concepts between the history, setting, social, psychological, or any other culturally relevant concept and the work—and you relate these concepts to any of the literary elements of character, plot, setting, theme, etc.
4. Final Para: Conclusion that synthesizes the work itself with the major points from your research.
V. Possible Topics:
1. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and American teenage life/culture of the 1960s.
a. Contrast Connie with teens of any generation, even today. Or discuss the naïve female teen in the context of abuse, neglect, rape, and/or victimization.
b. Make parallels between the lifestyle and environment of the real killer, Charles Schmid, and Oates’ characters, including Arnold Friend, Ellie, Connie, her friends, and family.
c. Analyze the use of fairy tales in Oates’ story and their symbolism.
d. Analyze the prevalence of music in the story background, including the connections (like the dedication) to Bob Dylan.
e. Analyze the Biblical allusions and connections between Arnold Friend and an evil spirit/devil.
2. “The Things They Carried” and the Vietnam War soldiers of the 1960s and early 70s.
a. Cultural context includes real soldiers’ experiences during the war and coming home after the war. b. Focus on Lt. Cross’s experiences and how they reflect soldiers’ combat and war challenges.
c. Compare and contrast soldiers of then with now.
d. Consider themes of coping with death; a unit’s camaraderie; language to hide the “terrible softness”
3. “Everyday Use” and African American family life, art, and community in the South.
a. Explore the burgeoning American black power movement in the 1960s.
b. Analyze Dee in the context of her views of family heritage—African vs. American Southern.
c. Explore the African American folk arts movement or African American Art in relation to quilting or other art genres.
4. “The Lottery” and its New England setting (and history).
a. Analyze the allegorical elements that Jackson used in this story which connect to historical events in either the US or the world—sacrifice and stoning, Nazism, McCarthyism, etc.
5. “The Storm,” “Story of an Hour,” and the Louisiana bayou (Creole-Cajun community) country.
a. Explore the cultural mores and lifestyles of these particular French descendants who also had settled New Orleans. Research the Napoleonic Code and restrictions on married women.
b. Focus on Louise Mallard’s or Calixta’s behaviors and how they represent women’s lives of that culture.
6. “Greasy Lake” and youth discontent/rebellion/explorations of the 1960s.
a. look at any or all of the allusions Boyle presents and their purpose: Vietnam War, Westmoreland, Sabine Women, Anne Frank, various movies and music, Andre Gide, The Naked and the Dead….
b. Consider the contrasts (and inequities?) between the story’s characters with the real young men fighting in Vietnam during this time.
c. Consider the possible reasons why young guys desired to pose as bad characters—what might have been their sources of inspiration? Films? Authors? Philosophers? Societal expectations? Family lives?
7. “A Rose for Emily” and Southern society after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Consider the effects of mental disability on families and tight-knit communities during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
b. Consider the theme of modernization upon the town, Emily’s response, and historical post-Civil War changes in southern towns like Emily’s.
c. Consider real Southern traditions as portrayed in the story, like having a servant despite one’s poverty, dish painting, visiting clergy, family secrets, gossiping townspeople, and other story elements.
8. “The Cask of Amontillado” and Italy during Carnival season OR Poe and the religious symbols.
a. Why did Poe explicitly set this story in this country? Why is it set in Italy, with a wealthy French family, and the focus is on a Spanish sherry.
b. Focus on Montresor, Fortunato, the perfect crime, the revenge, and/or the mystery with focus on cultural context.
c. Analyze the other important story symbols: Masons, Montresor’s coat of arms, the catacombs, the Amontillado, a Spanish sherry, the trowel, and the bricks.
9. “Two Kinds” with the struggles and triumphs of immigrant women and/or families.
10. “The Yellow Wallpaper” and latter nineteenth century medical practices, such as the “rest cure” proposed
for women with mental illnesses.
a. Consider medical treatments for postpartum depression as manifested in this character’s condition and behavior. Don’t go too far away from the story with this! Keep the character in your discussion as exemplifying certain conditions/effects.
a. Explore why Author Gilman was compelled to write this story in response to restrictive male-directed medical practices on women, including herself.
b. Yellow connotations: yellow journalism, yellow peril, yellow in art and as aesthetic
11. Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” and issues of disability today, including stereotypes and (lack of) access.
a. How do the characters play out stereotypical, or preconceived, roles and attitudes around the blind character and how do these persist societally and culturally today?
b. What about the story theme that blindness is symbolic of all of humanity? Consider that the narrator is on a spiritual quest, as well, while the blind man is able to guide him to salvation.
12. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is an allegory also exploring salvation, sins and evil.
a. Loaded with symbols and cultural connections, you could look at the biblical elements (stranger as the devil; wife Faith as goodness);
b. Explore the historical relevance and Puritan theocratic influences found in Young Goodman Brown;
c. Explore story connections to supernatural beliefs and the Salem Witch Trials and hysteria (1692).
13. In the play Trifles, consider the reasons why Minnie Foster Wright’s female acquaintances decided to remain silent about evidence in the kitchen because of the nature of courts and juries during that time period; specifically, the law was stacked against any abused wife like Minnie. Author Susan Glaspell was a journalist who wrote this story based on real events of her day.
14. In the play Fences, research and explain more about the sports world and racism during Troy’s younger days with the “Negro Baseball League,” and the color barrier of Major League Baseball.
15. In the play Death of a Salesman, consider the 1940s in New York City, and the working-class struggles of Willy Loman. Consider the misperceptions of the American Dream as manifested in this play.
16. Any other works—poems and plays, too–in our textbook, which convey strong cultural contextual elements and enable you to develop a good thesis. If you choose a work that we haven’t gone over, please let me know. Please don’t do a one or two-page story; it does not offer enough context to write about for this essay. Our drama works and poetry also offer a wide array of contextual topics, too.
VI. Writing conventions and rhetorical points to help build your essay:
- make an argument or illustrate an engaging perspective on the work;
- includea thesis which lists the key points the essay will discuss (like a mini plan);
- provide reliable evidence to support your claims;
- refer to the author(s) and the work(s) in the opening sentences. Use the author’s full name the first time and the author’s last name throughout the essay. NEVER refer to the author’s first name only;
- use literary present tense to discuss events in fiction, poetry, or drama.
For information on this convention, see: https://style.mla.org/literary-present-tense/ - use strong verbs in the thesis statement and throughout the essay, such as: demonstrates, uses, develops, underscores, accomplishes, strengthens, illustrates, shows, reveals, serves, emphasizes, identifies, suggests, implies, conveys, etc.;
- use formal rather than informal language (avoid things, stuff, start to, got); although, I do allow you to use the first-person point-of-view in your essays. But do choose more formal than informal language; and
- do more than simply summarize the work. Understand the difference between summaries and analyses. Remember your Essay One!
VII. IMPORTANT WEBSITES THAT WILL HELP YOU RESEARCH AND WRITE THESE ESSAYS:
http://libguides.tccd.edu/content.php?pid=110181&sid=830796