Choose one of the following questions:

1. Analyze Zora Neale Hurston’s treatment of race in “The Gilded Six-Bits” and “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” You will want to argue a central thesis or main point about these works and how they treat the theme of race. What does each work seem to be saying about “blackness” (and, by implication at least, “whiteness”), and how do those messages relate to each other?

2. In Flannery O’Connor’s essay “A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable,” the author writes:

I often ask myself what makes a story work, and what makes it hold up as a story, and I have decided that it is probably some action, some gesture of a character that is unlike any other in the story, one which indicates where the real heart of the story lies. This would have to be an action or gesture which was both totally right and totally unexpected; it would have to be one that was both in character and beyond character; it would have to suggest both the world and eternity. The action or gesture I’m talking about would have to be on the anagogical level, that is, the level which has to do with the Divine life and our participation in it. It would be a gesture that transcended any neat allegory that might have been intended or any pat moral categories a reader could make. It would be a gesture which somehow made contact with mystery (1673).

Identify the moment in O’Connor’s story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” at which this gesture occurs; explain how that gesture fits the above description, and why that gesture is so important to her story and its major theme(s). Draw on additional passages from O’Connor’s “A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable” to help make your point.

3. Analyze the use of setting, symbolism, characterization and narrative point of view in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” What do you think is the main thematic statement (or question) Hemingway is articulating in this story, and how does his use of these elements of literature work to convey that central message to his reader?

Grading:

Your essay will be evaluated based on your success in meeting the following standards:

1. Focus: The essay focuses directly on the issue defined in the assignment, clearly articulates an interesting thesis, and is sufficiently developed with specific elaboration, including details, examples, and quotes from the texts, and explanation of how these support the thesis.

2. Organization: The essay is generally unified and coherent. Ideas are organized logically in paragraphs, presented in an order that makes sense to a reader, and connected with transitions that clearly move the essay’s ideas forward.

3. Language: The essay shows strong command of the English language, especially in diction and variety of sentence structure.

4. Grammar and Mechanics: The essay demonstrates the writer’s facility with conventions of standard written English (though there may be a few minor flaws).

5. Synthesis and Documentation of Sources: The essay uses an appropriate amount of relevant source material (summary, paraphrase, and/or direct quotes), and smoothly integrates it with the writer’s voice while consistently and correctly using MLA citation format (both in-line citation and Work Cited) to indicate secondary source material clearly.

 An essay that exceeds these standards will earn a grade in the “A” range.

 An essay that meets these standards solidly will earn a grade in the “B” range.

 An essay that meets these standards, but only minimally, will earn a grade in the “C” range.

 An essay that approaches these standards, but does not meet them, will earn a “D” grade.

 An essay that does not approach these standards will earn an “F” grade.

PLEASE NOTE: As stated at the beginning of this document, the minimum length for this paper is 500 words. Essays that do not meet this minimum requirement cannot be seen as representing an “average” response to the assignment or as meeting the “sufficiently developed” aspect of Standard 1 listed above. Such essays are therefore not likely to receive a grade higher than C.