Your first 1400-to-1750-word paper will be on one of the works listed below. Your paper should be a critical analysis of some significant facet of the text—for instance, point of view, characterization, theme, symbolism/imagery, or issues concerning race, gender, politics, sexuality, or social constructions of these areas. Of course, you may focus on some issue relevant in terms of African American sexuality and/or sexual identities, but you’re not obligated to do so. Be sure to choose a topic which interests you but one that you also find provocative and not mundane or obvious. For instance, if I were writing on Hurston’s “Pear Tree,” a paper on the topic of “discrimination against black southern women” would be neither insightful nor original. However, a paper on Hurston’s depiction of southern black women’s creative strategies of resistance might yield far more astute insights (Actually, you MAY NOT write this paper on Hurston; this is just an example). The hallmark of a compelling essay is its contestability and uniqueness: this essay takes a stand and can be argued, stakes out a concrete, critical position and argues it thoroughly and passionately. It is imperative that your paper have a strong thesis, a central claim that your essay develops and substantiates with concrete examples and sustained, careful analysis. The format of your paper should be as follows:
Your name
ENGH 202—K01 or K02
25 September 2023
“De mule uh de world?”: Women’s Resistance Strategies in
Hurston’s “Pear Tree”
Begin first paragraph (indented five spaces)
Please follow the following guidelines in preparing your essay:
1. Be sure that your name, the class, and date—all double spaced—are in the upper-left hand corner: NO COVER SHEET IS NEEDED.
2. The title of your paper should immediately follow the heading. It should be double spaced as well and centered. THE ENTIRE PAPER SHOULD BE DOUBLE SPACED.
3. Again, your paper is due by 5:00 pm. via email on September 25th. Any papers received after that time will be considered late. After the deadline, I’ll accept papers until 5:00 on the following Monday—October 2–but a letter grade will be deducted. No papers will be accepted after that time.
Though I won’t require you to do so, I strongly urge you to make an appointment with me to discuss your paper. You may also visit the Academic Resource Center. https://masonkorea.gmu.edu/resources-and-services/academic-resource-center
a. Be sure that you begin with a concrete, substantive, workable THESIS. Do not allow vague, general statements or PLOT SUMMARY to substitute for a concise, analytical claim that clearly articulates your critical position. For example, “Capers explores a young African American man’s conflicted feelings about his identity” is neither focused nor necessarily critically engaging; it merely restates one of the story’s most obvious concerns. Remember, a core feature of a well-conceived thesis is that it argues a substantive point in convincing fashion; it doesn’t merely state a general point that anyone reading the story could glean.
b. Though it is necessary to cite specific, well-chosen examples, this essay should ultimately concentrate less on the examples and more on how they illuminate and substantiate your main point. Therefore, examples must be analyzed in exhaustive depth and related to your central critical claim. You should be careful to quote judiciously—that is, quote only those sentences/phrases that are absolutely necessary. In other words, don’t over-quote, because doing so tends to minimize your critical voice, thereby diluting the potency of your argument. Remember, this paper isn’t so much about Bennett Capers or Gayl Jones or William Melvin Kelley, but YOUR interpretation of one of these authors’ works. Therefore, DON’T MUTE OR STIFLE YOUR CRITICAL VOICE.
c. Be sure to use the MLA parenthetical method of documentation for when quoting from the text. If you’re unsure of what this is, you may visit http://www.dianahacker.com/student.html.
You may also visit this website for MLA citation guidelines:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html
d. Stellar essays contain AMPLE paragraphs with strong topic sentences. You can be sure that a paragraph containing two or three sentences is woefully underdeveloped and lacking in substance. Therefore, take great care in constructing your paragraphs, making sure that each is fully developed and supports your main point.
e. Remember, HOW you say what you say is as important as WHAT you say. There is no substitute for a well-written and clearly articulated paper that is meticulously organized, unified, and coherent. Therefore, pay careful attention to paragraph construction, grammar, syntax, word choices, punctuation, and spelling. Your prose should be as clean and as graceful as possible. Excessive errors in punctuation and grammar will weaken your argument immensely.
Again, you should feel free to consult me as you prepare to write, especially if you’re having trouble formulating a thesis. I’m available for virtual or in-person conferences. Each essay counts heavily towards your final grade, so take the time to write a thoughtful, well-argued paper. You may write on ONE of the following works:
Kelley, “The Only Man on Liberty Street”
Links for all of these works are on the course’s Blackboard page (“Course Readings” on the left side of the page)
PLAGIARISM: Please review the English department’s statement on plagiarism, which is included on your syllabus. Plagiarism is a severely serious offense. Because you’re not required to consult any sources for this paper (other than the work itself), I hope that plagiarism will not be an issue. However, I will not hesitate to turn anyone who cheats over to
the Honor Council, which handles such cases. Also see the ChatGPT/AI policy on the syllabus; using this to generate any part of your paper is also plagiarism.
Sample Prospectuses: These are actual prospectuses submitted by students from previous classes
Willis Richardson’s play The Broken Banjo can be read as a depiction of the struggles of black women during the early 20th century. Emma Turner, the protagonist, has to endure the difficulties of both her blackness and her womanhood. She is constantly restricted, stripped of her agency, and financially and socially dependant on her husband. The play is not, however, a catalogue of female strife, and Richardson is careful not to portray women as eternal victims. He counter-constructs an image of black women in which Emma Turner, even as a disempowered minority, is strong, resilient, and capable, maintaining a strong sense of independence while still living with and depending on her husband in an overwhelmingly patriarchal society.
The story’s [Arna Bontemps’ “A Summer Tragedy”] location in Louisiana, the unexplained loss of “five grown children within two years,” and their [the story’s protagonists, an elderly married black couple] condition as “black share farmers” remind us of the hardships southern blacks at the beginning of the 20th century. These were times of lynchings and neo-slavery disguised under the name of share-farming/sharecropping, where the farmers were eternally indebted to the landowner. And so Jeff and Jennie Patton’s suicidal journey not only takes them into the arms of death at the bottom of the river, but sets their souls free from a dead life tarnished by death and loss. Ultimately, their trip empowers them because they make their final exit on their own terms through which they achieve a sense of dignity.
The focus of my paper will be to discuss the ways in which Arna Bontemps uses descriptions of the physical condition of both the landscape and the protagonists in “A Summer Tragedy” to comment on the devastating effects that Southern tradition/racism had on the people who had to live there and endure the hopelessness attached to it. Bontemps describes the impact that the system has on people as individuals but also the dead-end future that will inevitably arise when people are unable to choose their own destinies and are subjects of an amoral and draining system. I am going to focus on certain points in the story that I feel carry the most weight in terms of getting the message across, which for me were things like the description of the road directly connecting the house to the river (running directly through the cotton fields) and the way the car Jeff is driving is used symbolically. I also want to focus on the way Bontemps manages to describe disaster and misery with a serene quality that mirrors the way many whites in the south attempted to portray their lifestyle: as something great that was obviously far from it.
In her short story “To Da-Duh, in Memoriam” Paule Marshall foregrounds the relationship between the grandmother and granddaughter, who are seemingly strangers when the story opens. But what causes their bond to grow so strong in such a short period? They are both from such different worlds and times, yet they are so much alike. Despite the age gap they compete with each other as if they are equals. An important dimension of the story is the evolution of this relationship so quickly. What causes the relationship to move from the terrifying, uncompromisingly disapproving grandmother and the timid grandchild, to a one where they both gain a mutual respect? Why does this elderly matriarch continue to influence her granddaughter into adulthood, even after Da-Duh’s passing? How and why is their bond so strong?