The Road of a Religion
... Hopkins, 1957. Waggoner, Hyatt H. The Presence of Hawthorne. Baton Rouge: LSU P, 1979. Keep in mind, however, that I have read all these books; I am much more interested in reading what you come up with than a rehash of all these authors. So don’t overuse your research. On the other hand, you may do as much additional research as you wish, but in any case, you will cite a minimum of five sources in your paper, one of which must come from JSTOR or NC LIVE. I expect proper use of the MLA system of documentation, both for quotations in your paper and for the Works Cited page. Remember that the assignment sheet I gave you for the Walden paper has reminders about the MLA conventions. Please schedule a rough draft conference with me. The more you have completed, the more helpful I can be. The final copy of this paper will be due anytime before the final exam day. Lateness will be penalized 10 pts./day. When writing a literary analysis, you are trying to explain some aspect of a poem, story, novel, or play to an audience that also has read the work your paper discusses. You may assume, therefore, that your audience has fairly good knowledge of the work. DO NOT SIMPLY SUMMARIZE THE PLOT OF THE SCARLET LETTER !!! Of course, you will need to summarize portions of the action from time to time, and you may need to quote brief portions to support an argument, but your own interpretation, analysis, or explanation of some particular problem or aspect of the work is much more important. Basically, in a literary analysis, you are writing an argument that says “such & such is a major theme (or controlling image or idea) in this work and here’s how I see it operating and what it all means.” There are six basic steps that can carry you through reading a literary work and writing an essay about it. 1. Make observations while you read. Make notes on action, language, character, and technique. Be especially clear about the plot. Even though your essay will not be a simple summary, you must be accurate about the incidents you discuss. 2. Ask questions about the work. This is where the idea for your paper can come from. Try to ask specific rather than broad questions. “Who is Arthur Dimmesdale?” is not as good a question as “How can I describe the relationship between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth?” or “Does Hester understand the load of guilt that Arthur carries around and what it’s doing to him?” or “Why is Pearl obsessed with the A?” 3. Establish connections between observations. Look for patterns and relationships. Oft-noted images in TSL include light/dark, reflective surfaces, the heart and hands, madness, village/forest, spirituality/witchcraft. Strive to understand the characters and why they act the way they do. 4. Develop inferences (informed interpretive guesses) based on these connections. What thematic interpretation...