Requirements:
Write 3-5 pages (double-spaced, 12-pt. font). MLA format.
The conventions of Standard American English should be observed.
Paper Heading: on the left side of the first page, include your name, class and class time, the date, and Essay#. Include a title for your paper.
Essay 1 (choose a text/topic)
"A Rose for Emily"
Write a fictional tabloid article about a famous person or couple; like "A Rose" your article should include some reporting of events and some speculation about what is going on.
Do a close reading (explication) of the last 4 paragraphs.
Write a traditional essay on how "A Rose" is an allegory about the tensions between the Old and New South. Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
"The Yellow Wallpaper"
Write a fictional journal which tells a story from your 1st person narrator's P.O.V.; it can be in any style or genre you choose, in other words it does not have to be gothic horror or an insane person's ramblings.
Do a close reading (explication) of the any or all descriptions of the wallpaper itself.
Write a traditional essay analyzing "The Yellow Wallpaper" from a feminist perspective. Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
"The Open Window"
Rewrite this short story from the girl's P.O.V. In your story focus on the girl's motivations and attitude. Is she amused, bored, malicious, or something else?
Do a close reading (explication) of one of these poems: "On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer"; "Bright Star"; "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Essay 2 (choose a text/topic)
Miss Brill
Write a short story about a lonely, middle-aged (or old) man; like "Miss Brill" the story should be from the old man's P.O.V. Note: As your are writing this consider how gender affects perspective and perception.
Do a close reading (explication) of this passage:
And now an ermine toque and a gentleman in gray met just in front of her. He was tall, stiff, dignified, and she was wearing the ermine toque she'd bought when her hair was yellow. Now everything, her hair, her face, even her eyes, was the same colour as the shabby ermine, and her hand, in its cleaned glove, lifted to dab her lips, was a tiny yellowish paw. Oh, she was so pleased to see him–delighted! She rather thought they were going to meet that afternoon. She described where she'd been–everywhere, here, there, along by the sea. The day was so charming–didn't he agree? And wouldn't he, perhaps? . . . But he shook his head, lighted a cigarette, slowly breathed a great deep puff into her face, and even while she was still talking and laughing, flicked the match away and walked on. The ermine toque was alone; she smiled more brightly than ever. But even the band seemed to know what she was feeling and played more softly, played tenderly, and the drum beat, "The Brute! The Brute!" over and over. What would she do? What was going to happen now? But as Miss Brill wondered, the ermine toque turned, raised her hand as though she'd seen someone else, much nicer, just over there, and pattered away.
Write a traditional essay about setting in "Miss Brill". How does the park and later the small apartment affect the story and flesh out the themes of loneliness and shabbiness and isolation? Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
My Last Duchess
Do a close reading (explication) of the poem.
Write a traditional essay about any of the character and motivation of the Duke of Ferrara. Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
De Profundis
Write a letter to someone who has disappointed, hurt, betrayed, or otherwise harmed you. Like Wilde's letter, your letter should focus on your experience and feelings and not on the wrong itself. Your letter can be real or fictional.
Do a close reading (explication) of this passage:
Many men on their release carry their prison about with them into the air, and hide it as a secret disgrace in their hearts, and at length, like poor poisoned things, creep into some hole and die. It is wretched that they should have to do so, and it is wrong, terribly wrong, of society that it should force them to do so. Society takes upon itself the right to inflict appalling punishment on the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness, and fails to realise what it has done. When the man’s punishment is over, it leaves him to himself; that is to say, it abandons him at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins. It is really ashamed of its own actions, and shuns those whom it has punished, as people shun a creditor whose debt they cannot pay, or one on whom they have inflicted an irreparable, an irremediable wrong. I can claim on my side that if I realise what I have suffered, society should realise what it has inflicted on me; and that there should be no bitterness or hate on either side.
Write a traditional essay about sorrow and pleasure in de Profundis? How do these two ideas/emotional states stand in opposition to one another? how are the related to each other? Do they have anything in common? Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
Essay 3 (choose a text/topic)
Do a close reading (explication) of one of these poems:
Tears, Idle Tears
Break, Break, Break
The Sick Rose
The Tyger
London
A Poison Tree
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Write a short story on any topic which focuses on a description of the setting; like Bierce did in "Occurrence" you should include vivid and precise details about the setting or what the main character sees.
Do a close reading (explication) of this passage:
He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf—saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon-flies' wings, the strokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat—all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
Write a traditional essay about Bierce's attitude towards war and the military. How does he feel about? Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
Tell-Tale Heart and Cask of Amontillado
Write a first-person narrative about revenge.
Write a traditional essay comparing and contrasting these two Poe short stories in terms of the narrators (their motives, their methods, or their reliability), the settings, the elements of horror, etc. Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
Essay 4 (choose a text/topic)
Do a close reading (explication) of one of these poems:
She Walks in Beauty
Remember Thee! Remember Thee!
Young Goodman Brown
Write a short story on any topic which focuses on the loss of faith in someone or something. Your story should focus on how the loss of faith changes the character of the protagonist.
Do a close reading (explication) of this passage:
It was now deep dusk in the
forest, and deepest in that part of it where these two
were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the second
traveller was about fifty
years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown,
and bearing a
considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in
expression than features. Still
they might have been taken for father and son. And yet, though
the elder person was as
simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had
an indescribable air of
one who knew the world, and who would not have felt abashed at
the governor's dinner
table or in King William's court, were it possible that his
affairs should call him thither.
But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as
remarkable was his staff, which
bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought
that it might almost be seen
to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of
course, must have been an ocular
deception, assisted by the uncertain light.
Write a traditional essay about Hawthorne's use of symbols and imagery in this story. You may want to consider how symbolic language is especially appropriate in texts rich with religious allusions and supernatural elements. Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
Essay 5 (choose a text/topic)
Do a close reading (explication) of one of these poems:
Sonnet LV by William Shakespeare
Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare
Sonnet CXVI by William Shakespeare
Sonnet 5 by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Rappaccini's Daughter
Compare and contrast Beatrice with one or more of the women from the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In particular you will want to consider these women in terms of their circumstances, the setting, and the men in their lives. Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
Do a close reading (explication) of this passage:
Nothing could exceed the
intentness with which this scientific gardener examined every
shrub
which grew in his path: it seemed as if he was looking into
their inmost nature, making
observations in regard to their creative essence, and
discovering why one leaf grew in this shape
and another in that, and wherefore such and such flowers
differed among themselves in hue and
perfume. Nevertheless, in spite of this deep intelligence on his
part, there was no approach to
intimacy between himself and these vegetable existences. On the
contrary, he avoided their
actual touch or the direct inhaling of their odors with a
caution that impressed Giovanni most
disagreeably; for the man's demeanor was that of one walking
among malignant influences, such
as savage beasts, or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which,
should he allow them one moment of
license, would wreak upon him some terrible fatality. It was
strangely frightful to the young
man's imagination to see this air of insecurity in a person
cultivating a garden, that most simple
and innocent of human toils, and which had been alike the joy
and labor of the unfallen parents
of the race. Was this garden, then, the Eden of the present
world? And this man, with such a
perception of harm in what his own hands caused to grow,—was he
the Adam?
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
A foil is a minor or secondary character that serves as a contrast to a major or primary character; think of a piece of foil, a shiny, metallic sheet, placed underneath a gemstone; the foil would reflect light upon the gem and magnify its brilliance. A sidekick is a character who serves as a companion, servant, or assistant to a protagonist. Sometimes, as in the case of Holmes and Watson, the role of the sidekick and the foil overlap. Write a traditional essay about Watson as Holmes's foil/sidekick. You may want to consider how Watson highlights Holmes's genius, makes him a more likable character, and helps to advance the plot. You can focus on just one of the Holmes' stories or do two or three. Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.
Compare and contrast "Speckled Band" and "Copper Beeches" in regard to the lead female characters. You will want to focus on what these women have in common both as characters and in terms of their circumstances. Use quotes/examples from the text to support your opinion.