Specifically analyze or interpret (make some specific point about) one or more works of fiction (Pride and Prejudice, The Hero of our time, Siddhartha, The big Sleep) written/translated in English. Secondary sources will be optional; however, if you use them, of course you must document them appropriately, using MLA formats. Although no borrowing from secondary sources is necessarily required, you nevertheless should make at least a half-hour’s “good faith” search on Google (or another engine) to determine whether your thesis or main idea is sufficiently original, and whether any secondary source or sources should be credited in your essay. Some class time will be spent discussing thesis formulation and development, the researching of a topic, and the incorporation and documentation of secondary information.
You may approach the paper from any of several perspectives: religious, philosophical, psychological, sociological, political, literary, feminist, and so on. Of course all these suggested fields and disciplines offer gigantic stores of information to consult. Regardless of the “perspective” you’re assuming, remember that a secondary source need not address your topic specifically; it needs only to be usefully relevant to your topic. For example, if a Daily Beacon article on alcoholism contains information or insight that you find relevant to a discussion of some aspect of Chandler’s The Big Sleep, you might choose to “borrow” from that article even though it makes no literal reference whatsoever to Chandler’s novel (or to any other work of fiction, or to nonfiction, or to the written word, period).