Essay #3: Research Analysis Rough Draft Due: Mon. June 8 Final Draft Due: Wed. June 10
English 1B--Seligo Length: 2000 - 2500 words
Essay #3: Research Based Literary Analysis
ASSIGNMENT: Choose one of the topics below on which to write a research essay. In addition to using either of the two plays The Importance of Being Earnest or Joe Turner’s Come and Gone as a source, you need to find three additional sources to help you place the play in its historical context. I recommend that at least one of these sources be a piece of literary criticism about the play. Only one of these three can be an online source. (Note: if you research through the Foothill library web page, you are not getting an online source, but a print source that the library has posted online—that doesn’t count as an online source.) I recommend that you type the rough draft, because this will ensure that peer editors can read and respond to it, but both drafts must be double spaced--the final draft must be typed as well--and both must be turned in for you to earn a passing grade. When you turn in your paper, put the rough with peer review notes behind the final draft. Your paper must give some background information you have learned as a result of your research, have a clear thesis stated in the introduction (note an introduction can take more than one paragraph to write), evidence to support it throughout the body of the essay, and analysis of the significance of this reading to an understanding of the play. Evidence must include quotes and paraphrases from the play with page numbers noted in MLA style. Include a Works Cited page, listing all four of your sources (or more if you choose to use more), including the play. Research Ideas: Keep in mind that the research you do should be determined by your choice of topics and the needs that arise out of that choice. Some areas of fruitful research are: The playwright’s biography, the history of the time period in which the play is set: late 18th century England in The Importance of Being Earnest and a 1911 boardinghouse, Pittsburg Pennsylvania during the Great Migration in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone; African and African American Religious beliefs and practices referred to in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, the Juba (also called giouba or djouba), for example; any relevant history (JTCG: slavery, slave ships, the Middle Passage, post-slavery, Joe Turner, the Black Nationalist movement, the African diaspora or TIOBE: the late Victorian era, the well-made play, Aestheticism in England and Decadence in France, the history of the Farce, landed classes vs. the nouveau riche, the well-made play). Use at least one professional critical interpretation of the work or the playwright’s work in general (see Literary Reference Center at the Foothill Library online database). Both Plays: 1. Find a pattern, a theme or an issue raised in the play, establish its legitimacy by showing your readers how it can be found in the text and then analyze its significance in the meaning of the play as a whole. Remember to go out on a limb and answer some of the mysteries of the text using research to help you do that. Your work developing interpretive questions should help tremendously with this. A great interpretive question can be used to explore the text until you have a reasonable answer (your thesis).
The Importance of Being Earnest: 2. Jack closes The Importance of Being Earnest by claiming to have learned the vital "Importance of Being Earnest" but in fact his happy ending seems to be the result of a multitude of lies. Explore what the play has to say about the necessity of honesty, or conversely, the necessity of lying. Note that if we take the word “Earnest” here to mean simply the name, the phrase has the opposite meaning to that it has if it is taken to mean the adjective “earnest.” You can write about this topic without considering how Wilde’s own life might be reflected in this question, but a fruitful comparison can be made between his life and the moral paradox or dilemma illustrated in the play. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone 3. According to the critic Clive Barnes in his essay, “O’Neill in Blackface,” published in the New York Post March 28, 1988 August Wilson’s play “Is about separation. Separation from roots, separation from kith and kin, separation within one’s own psychic self” (CLC Vol. 63. 451). Write an essay in which you analyze what the play has to say about separation. Make sure you first establish how the play presents this theme by pointing to various ways it is emphasized. Then analyze what the play suggests or “argues.” The African diaspora or the Great Migration may be a good place to start your research on this theme. 4. Bynum Walker describes seeing a shiny man and has asked Selig, the people finder, to search for him. Analyze the meaning of this shiny man, doing some research to see if any such figure appears in African religious beliefs or if it resembles something from Christianity or some combination of these. Make sure you look at the ending of the play when shining reappears. 5. August Wilson has been a Black Nationalist for much of his adult life, which means that he values, not assimilating into white culture, but holding on to distinctly black beliefs, customs, values and ways of life as passed down to modern blacks through slave days and from African roots. Do you see these beliefs playing out in the play in any way? Do some research on August Wilson’s beliefs and the beliefs of the Black Nationalist movement in general and then incorporate that information into your analysis of the play. 6. Analyze the depiction of Herald Loomis in the play. What message is presented with his unfolding story and by the ending of the play? Make sure that you analyze the way that contrasting characters’ perceptions of Loomis help to develop our understanding of his character and be sure to analyze the scene where he has a “fit,” since it’s one of the most mysterious moments of the play. Research on Joe Turner, the Juba, the Middle Passage, African and African American religious beliefs will be helpful for this topic. Guidelines: 1. Reading and responding. As you read the play, be sure to take notes, annotate, mark pages, and do the assigned freewrites (two are assigned on the syllabus for The Importance of Being Earnest and two are assigned below for Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Also, it’s a play, so try to imagine how you would act the part of each character. This is a kind of interpreting and it’s very important to the understanding of any play.
Freewrite #1: After reading Act I of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, freewrite on the topic of separation. What do you notice about this theme so far? What does the play suggest about the causes and the consequences of separation among African Americans in the early 20th century and beyond? Freewrite #2: After reading Act II of Joe Turner, freewrite on the topic of healing. What does the play suggest about surviving and healing in the distinctly hostile and oppressive world described in the play? 2. Discussing: Engage in the class discussions and bounce ideas off of each other. Don’t be afraid to raise ideas that you might later reject. It’s just a way of thinking aloud with each other. 3. Do research to find at least three useful secondary sources that help explain for you elements of the play. Only one may be an internet-only source. (See above note about online library sources). Refer to Chapter 14 “Writing a Research Paper” (Fiction 684-709) 3. Rereading, Rereading, Rereading. Reread to find patterns and to test if there is contradictory evidence and to enrich your understanding of what the evidence means. The curve of events is very important in any narrative, so don’t ignore that, but also look at what the action feels like, how the setting contributes, how patterns of thought and behavior among the characters create issues, how patterns reflect the social situation depicted in the play and how the use of sarcasm, irony, paradox and ambiguity affect meaning. For The Importance of Being Earnest remember that the father and husband,Wilde, fell in love with Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas in 1891, so when he wrote this play he was a successful member of the upper classes, but had a secret life. And remember Wilson wrote at least one play for every decade of the 20th century with the distinct goal of depicting and explaining and grappling with African American life in the U.S. and what we can learn from these eras and how African Americans dealt with the social oppressions in their history and in their current lives. This means that we are to learn something about the African American situation and American history from this play, so try to think of what that might be if you write about Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, no matter which topic you choose. 4. Write a rough draft and bring it to the peer review session. Remember, you must have at least two reviews of your paper. You should double space and underline the thesis. There is a quick turn around from rough to Final draft, so be sure to basically have your whole paper written, as best as you can, before the peer review. 5. You must include an MLA style Works Cited page. Remember to type it on a separate sheet, title it Works Cited, Alphabetize listings by author (or title if a work has no known author), double space all lines but do not insert extra spaces between entries, and use a hanging indent to separate each entry. See also Fiction 698-707. 6. Turn in the Final Draft on the due date. Make sure it is typed, double spaced, has the appropriate heading as in the other 2 papers, has a title, a works cited, and that the rough draft with peer reviews is stapled behind the Final Draft.