ENGLISH 286 -- PAPER 2
Due Monday, October 29, 2007
Length:  Approx. 5-7 pages


Paper 2 will allow you another opportunity to analyze the fiction we have read, much as in Paper 1. You may work with any novel on the syllabus, and you may compare novels we have read. As with Paper 1, be careful to craft a relatively specific focus that will provide you with a workable topic for a shorter essay -- this is especially important if you plan to work with more than one novel.

Please do not write on the same novel you wrote about in Paper 1.

As before, avoid simply summarizing the work you decide to write about.  While your essay may begin with a short summary in order to set context, you should be certain to analyze rather than to summarize.  One way to avoid summary is crafting an argumentative thesis that takes an arguable point of view on the novel, a point of view that will require support from the text itself.  For example, a paper that begins, "William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is about a Southern family," does not promise to develop into an interesting argument about the meaning of the novel, while the sentence, "The three Compson brothers who narrate the first three chapters of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury represent three types of decay in Faulkner's South," suggests that the writer will focus her attention more specifically on the text.

ADVICE:

--When you write about literature, write in the present tense when discussing the text:
"When Jason attempts to harm Quentin in the third chapter of The Sound and the Fury, Dilsey steps in to protect her."
--Follow your direct quotations with the appropriate page number from the text in parentheses.  If you have used a text other than those listed on the syllabus, please include a bibliographical reference to this text at the end of your paper.

--Quotations longer than four lines should be presented in single-spaced blocks indented in the text.