Final Essay
“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Melville and “Young Goodman
Brown” by Hawthorne
This essay must not use outside or
secondary sources of any kind. It is to be your own analysis, supported by
material from the assigned poems only. Do not use any form of internet search
or internet material in any way for this assignment.
This essay must adhere to the 500-800-word range for essay content (does
not include heading, header, title, or Works Cited page).
In both “Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Melville and “Young Goodman
Brown” by Hawthorne, the title characters withdraw from life. Consider
this as you read each story, and write a literary analysis essay answering the
following three prompts:
1. What similarities and differences do
you find in Bartleby’s and Young Goodman Brown’s withdrawal from society in
each of these stories? Cite and explain at least two pieces of evidence from
the text to support your claims.
2. What similarities and differences do
you find in the consequences of these two characters’ withdrawal in each of
these stories? Cite and explain at least two pieces of evidence from the text
to support your claims.
3. What point are they each trying to make
with their story? (What does each author seem to be telling readers through
their stories?) And how does the character’s withdrawal from society convey the
author’s idea/s? Cite and explain at least two pieces of evidence from the text
to support your claims.
4. Highlight the following key elements in
your essay:
·
LIGHT GREEN: Your essay’s
THESIS statement. 1-2
sentences at the end of your intro paragraph that introduce the main topics of
your essay and show your stance
on the prompts (either explicitly/directly or implicitly/indirectly, but I need
to be able to tell what your general answers to the prompt questions are just by
reading your thesis statement).
·
LIGHT BLUE: Your STANCE in response to each
prompt question—It is required that each essay body paragraph begin with a
sentence that provides your stance on the prompt question that paragraph will
address—this is what needs to be highlighted in blue in each essay body
paragraph. (Then, you will spend the rest of your paragraph supporting your stance/answer
to the prompt.)
·
YELLOW: The CLAIMS EVIDENCE you have
chosen from the assigned reading and your research to support your stance/answer
to the prompt and the claims you make in support of your answer. At least two
different pieces of evidence per body paragraph (that is, per prompt) are required,
and remember that MLA-style in-text citations are required each time you use source
material.
·
LIGHT GRAY: Your EXPLANATION
of the evidence in EACH body paragraph. You MUST EXPLAIN HOW the evidence
you provided supports your
answer to the prompt question (your answer is your stance). Your explanation
needs to be highlighted in light gray in each essay body paragraph.
·
LIGHT PURPLE: The PARAGRAPH CONCLUSIONS
your analysis of each prompt leads you to, at
the end of each essay body paragraph. The core of your analysis is your explanation of the evidence. Use these paragraph conclusions to
help formulate your essay conclusion paragraph at the end of your essay, which
needs to sum up the conclusions you have reached through your analysis
throughout your essay and reiterate how your conclusions support your thesis statement. Your thesis
statement should be restated (not repeated word for word) somewhere in your
conclusion paragraph. Your essay should “come full circle” in your conclusion paragraph
by connecting everything back to your thesis statement/answers to the prompts.
Use the conclusions you have reached through your analysis, which you will have
highlighted in purple at the end of each essay body paragraph, as the basis of
your conclusion paragraph.
__________________________________________________________________________
Your essay must:
·
be 500-800 words of typed analysis, covering
all of the topic questions/prompts (word count does NOT include
heading/header, title, or Works Cited page, etc.). (Work on making your writing
clear and concise to stay within the required word range)
·
be in MLA format
·
follow academic writing style criteria (see
Composition Tools folder in the Content area of iLearn)
·
Include MLA-style in-text citations AND a Works
Cited page
·
utilize claims evidence. You must follow
the 4 elements of a citation:
1.
Your Statement/Stance
2.
“Quotation” or Paraphrase to support your
statement/stance
3.
(Parenthetical) in-text citation
4.
Works Cited entry
Citation and
Works Cited Format:
The in-text citation
formats for this assignment are “Author named in a signal phrase,” “Author
named in parentheses,” and “Repeated citations from the same source.” Follows
these models in your Writer’s Reference textbook.
The Works
Cited entry format for this assignment is “Two or more selections from an
anthology or collection.” Follow this model in your Writer’s Reference textbook.