Length: 1500 words (+/- 150 words), Times New Roman, 12 pt. font
Write a comparative essay about it. Your essay should have a thesis making a claim about the two texts, and paragraphs advancing your argument. You should demonstrate familiarity with the stories chosen by referring to particular details of the texts; the textual evidence you introduce should then be analyzed in detail.
Your argument should reflect your own original approach to the topic.
Essays should follow MLA style.
You are required to use two scholarly secondary sources—for example: a literary critical article, a scholarly book, or a dictionary of literary terms. You may choose to use more than two secondary sources, but no more than 4 in total.
You may NOT write on the same story that you chose for Essay # 1.
Short stories invite us to pay attention to the details of life. Compare how the ordinary details of everyday life are depicted in two short stories. What is the significance of seemingly ordinary events and/or characters?
ARGUMENT: answer why are you comparing the two stories, why two stories could go together, (
MAIN POINTS: use quotations from stories.
To substitute an argument using evidence → back up what your point / argument is.
To define terms (like literary of dictionary term) – larger issue (race or space)
To substitute an issue within a certain historical and political context (back up some claim (support) to situate a story within a context
To join a conversation
What to do with your sources:
Use it to define your terms
Read in more detail about setting, narrative points of view, omniscient narrator, realism,
Use them with integrity (i.e. do not misquote sources, take quotations out of context, misattribute quotations, or misplace quotations)
Quote, paraphrase, or summarize them. Use quotation marks if quoting verbatim. Reference them.
What to do with your sources (cont’d)
Use them to strengthen your argument – by agreeing
How to use a dictionary of literary term
Recommended: M.H. Abrams’ A Glossary of Literary Terms
How to use an article or book
Use it to advance your argument
Use it in your introduction to situate the story historically or culturally.
Refer to it 2-3 times throughout your paper.
Grounds for comparison:
Why did you choose these 2 texts?
Do they extend, reinforce, complicate or contradict one another?
Why are the similarities/ differences significant to a better understanding of the issues raised in the two texts?
How the examples are building to one another – or in the conversation with one another
Topic:
Often short stories focus on individuals facing a crisis or struggling against societal pressures. Discuss what two short stories tell us about the individual’s struggle against larger forces.
Two stories:
Alistar MacLeod “In the Fall”
James Joyce “Eveline”
Some key points Story:(Eveline):
The story is actually reflective of a lot of immigrant experiences.
Is there anything in her life that she was satisfied with? Her domestic life was not ideal even though she was 19 (her father was abusive) – her family situation was far from ideal.
That moment where Eveline tries to convince herself that her domestic life is not so bad and how her father can be nice sometimes reminds me of abuse victims trying to justify their situation to themselves because leaving seems so unknown and foreign.
Is there anything in her life that she was satisfied with? Her domestic life was not ideal even though she was 19 (her father was abusive) – her family situation was far from ideal.
That moment where Eveline tries to convince herself that her domestic life is not so bad and how her father can be nice sometimes reminds me of abuse victims trying to justify their situation to themselves because leaving seems so unknown and foreign.
Eveline’s inability to act
Maxwell Uphaus argues in “An ‘Unworkable Compound’(this article could be used as a secondary source): Ireland and Empire in ‘Eveline’” that “ ‘Eveline’ shows the modern Irish … the fact of their ‘semicolonial’ or ‘metrocolonial’ condition—their simultaneous, contradictory affiliation to both the subjugated Irish nation and the expansive British Empire” (30-31).
Eveline is trapped between her familial duties and the life her seducer promises.
The protagonist of Eveline is bound in a complex web of familial and social expectations.
In her journey: She does not make a choice she waits for the choice to be made for her
She has a choice to make but the decision is complicated because of her society
Eveline seems to think to herself that she has to go but when the time comes, she does not go because of her fear. (The duty that she has (her family) overweighs the happiness.
Somebody from a different culture could do other things → a different culture – the society that she was born in – (individualism and happiness ⇒ she may go away) – in Eveline given her social condition she decided to stay.
Eveline being helpless like an animal reminds me of the short stories that dealt with female freedom depending on men. With either possibility Eveline would be dependent on a man and fulfilling a role of domestic duty. Perhaps staying with her family is less of a societal expectation, because she is the only woman of her family home. Although that choice is not the best for her selfish desire “to live”.
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