This topic should be identified within the title of your essay. That subject and whatever contention you wish to make regarding that subject should be clearly defined in the introduction of your essay. The remainder of the essay should work to support that contention. As you do so, be sure to stay on topic and avoid unnecessary meandering and digression in your writing.
Your papers must be thesis-based. Thus your work must be scholarly in both tone and content, i.e., your work should reflect an appropriate degree of critical engagement and awareness of the text you are working with. As this assignment asks you to compose a scholarly piece of writing, you should avoid using this essay for the purpose of personal expression, or offering personal anecdotes about things unrelated to your primary text and/or the course. Keep in mind that literary criticism represents your contribution to a larger discourse regarding whatever subject you are writing about.
Requirements:
Trace a particular theme you see in a text;
Address the ways and means by which an author works to develop a particular character or the dynamics that exist between certain characters within a text;
Investigate the literary technique(s) an author uses;
Research the literary criticism relative to a text; compare your perspective to that of the existing criticism regarding the text you would like to work with, and explain the reasons for those differences.
