Choose either of the following topics and write an essay of about four pages in standard MLA format.

  1. Discuss how a single work of fiction represents a specific literary movement (if you choose to analyze short poetry, you will want to look at a handful of poems). You may certainly select a work (or works) from out text, but do not select works that are on our reading list; those works have been discussed. After you select a work and determine which movement it represents (romanticism, realism, existentialism, theatre of the absurd, magical realism, etc.), locate details of plot, subject matter, theme, social issues, style which are common to that movement. If, for example, you were discussing Ibsen's Ghost's as an example of naturalism, you would point out the taboo social issues (most notably the devastating effects of veneral disease), the realistic language, and so forth.

    This analysis will be a mixture of your own observations and supporting material (quoted and documented in standard MLA format) from the text and from sources which describe the basic characteristics of the literary movement; in most cases, you will find material on literary movements in the sections of our textbook introducing each section; for example, there is a lot of information on charactistics of Romanticism in our text.

    Here is a possible organization for your paper:

    • an introductory paragraph with a narrative hook
    • a paragraph which includes your thesis (be sure this has the title of the work, the author, your idea about what movement the work falls into); also discuss the central qualities of the literary movement
    • Several paragraphs supporting your thesis (each paragraph could focus on a specific characteristic and would include both your observations and actual quoted material from the work of fiction to back up those observations
    • possibly a concluding paragraph, but rather than just re-stating your thesis (dull) end with an example or some thoughtful ideas about the work or the movement

    The finished paper should be about four to five (full) pages; if you include a Works Cited page (you must if you use sources outside our textbook), that does not count as a page.

    Here are some general tips:

    • The easiest way to approach this assignment is to take a work from the text; the work will already be categorized by its litarary movement, and the characteristics of that movement are discussed in the introduction to that section.

    • You certainly may wish to look at a work that is not in the text. If you do, you may choose any work from the 18th century to the present as long as it's not a work from either the U.S. or Great Britain (there are separate survey classes which cover American and English literature).

    • If you are going to write about a work not represented in our text (let's say you want to write about Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart or Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano), you will need to locate information on the movement your work fits into. If it is a major movement (such as theatre of the absurd, as in the Ionesco example), that's not a problem. You can locate information in the reference section of any decent college library (including the LAHC library). Often these works have excellent introductions that can help as well.

  2. Write an analysis of any modern (from the 20th century to the present) literary work from a country either not represented or under-represented in our text. Consider works from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, Oceania, The Caribbean, etc. DO NOT select work from North America or Europe for this category.

    For this analysis you will concentrate on theme or style or some issue or idea that is suggested by the work, or you may want to explore how the work is characteristic of the area from which it comes or characteristic of a specific literary movement from that country. Develop your essay with your observations which are supported with several documented quotations from the text. Feel free to include secondary source material (reference material from the library, etc.) to add even more support to your analysis (if you do use reference sources, be sure they are properly documented as well). Since the work will not be from our textbook, you will also want to have a Works Cited page including bibliographic information for the literary work you've chosen and for any research material you may use (this does not count as a page of the body of your essay).

    Note: you may want to get the work and your thesis approved by me before you go ahead and write the essay.

For some tips on writing about literature, go to

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