Essay One Information As promised under item number two (“Writing”) of the Requirements portion of the course syllabus, here are the guidelines for how to complete the first essay assignment. First and foremost, I expect your essay to be argumentative or analytical. So while it may be necessary to remind your reader of certain portion(s) of the text(s) you’re writing about, I don’t expect your essay to consist of pure summary of the readings. Instead, I want you to engage some genuine issue and argue it. Thus, the kinds of writing skills you learned in English 1A and/or 1B certainly apply here: I want a good, clear thesis; specific references to the text in question to back up that thesis; and a well-structured argument. Primarily, I want to see evidence of thought on your part. It’s not enough to merely answer the question; you have to justify your answer as well. And what might that question concern? One of the basic tools in studying literature is explication, or close reading and explanation of passages. For this assignment, I would like you to work with this tool. This assignment will give you practice in close reading of a text and incorporating that reading into your own essay. Select a passage from one of our novels that embodies the traits of the Gothic that we’ve been studying and explicate it. What does that passage mean? How do you know? How does it typify the Gothic genre? How does it tie in to a larger point that the author is making? A successful essay will focus on a specific passage from one of our novels and explain how that passage supports or subverts the genre conventions of the Gothic. A less accomplished essay may be too broad (trying to tackle the entire novel), or not be specific in addressing how that particular passage represents Gothic conventions. Potential Topics: The Castle of Otranto: shadow/anima; villain and vulnerable victim; curse/prophecy; haunted house (castle or mansion); isolation; preoccupation with the past; repression; sublime; abjection; insanity. Frankenstein: doppelganger; fated wanderer; magus; Titanic in nature or Man; journey into the unconscious mind; isolation; sublime; abjection. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: doppelganger; shadow/anima; magus; villain and vulnerable victim; transformation; Titanic in nature or Man; journey into the unconscious mind; repression; insanity. Dracula: fated wanderer; villain and vulnerable victim; curse/prophecy; transformation; haunted house (castle or mansion); isolation; preoccupation with the past; repression; abjection; insanity. The Turn of the Screw: shadow/anima; villain and vulnerable victim; haunted house (castle or mansion); journey into the unconscious mind; isolation; preoccupation with the past; repression; insanity. The Phantom of the Opera: villain and vulnerable victim; haunted house (castle or mansion); isolation; insanity Given the repetitions of these themes across our readings, you may want to touch on how the Gothic convention you’re addressing is evident in another work as a way of better explaining your chosen passage. If doing so, make sure that your initial work and passage remain the primary focus while the second work is being used to support your point about the first work. Format: Please follow MLA format. For citations from our textbooks, simply give the page number; you do not need a separate works cited page unless you use material from outside our textbooks. Write in the literary present tense, and block quote any passage of four-plus lines of text.
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