A Short Story
You will write an essay of between 600 and 1000 words analyzing one of the short story you had to read for this class, (“Story of an Hour,” “Interpreter of Maladies,” “Everyday Use”, “A Wall of Fire Rising,” Everyday Use,” or “The Cask of Amontillado,”) in which you will make an argument about how the author develops a specific theme in the story, making sure to correctly state the theme. Do not cover all the ways the author develops the theme, just the most significant one or ones. It would be helpful to focus on a specific element of the short story such as symbol or character. You cannot use any outside sources in this essay. You must focus just on analyzing the story. Your essay must have a strong, clear, focused thesis. For instance, “Chopin uses symbolism in “Story of an Hour” to develop the theme of sexism” is not a strong thesis. A stronger thesis would be “Chopin uses the symbolism of Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble to show how the institution of marriage limits the freedom of women.”
This essay, and all of your other essays, should be in third person, 12 point Times New Roman font, double-spaced using MLA 8th edition format. You must include a works cited and in-text citations for this paper, but the works cited does not count toward the word count. DO NOT summarize the plot of the story. Assume that the reader of your paper has read the story and remembers it well. Don’t just tell the reader what happens in the story; instead, analyze how concrete evidence supports the argument of the thesis. You must use at least two quotes but can and probably should use more. Just make sure not to over quote and to always properly introduce and analyze them. You cannot use block quotes, quotes of three full lines or more.
