College Writing II: ENWR 106 Unit IV Paper: Drama and Other Genres
Instructions: Write 3 full to 5 page (750 to 1250 words) analytical, argumentative essay on either Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” or Suzan-Lori Parks’s drama, The America Play. You will not receive any points for draft work on this assignment, but you must submit at least one draft in order to pass this assignment. This draft must show the process of your work (suggestion: start a new document every time you do a major revision on the paper).
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Choose one of the following topics:
1. Choose 3 to 5 lines rich with symbolism and metaphors from either Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” or Suzan-Lori Parks’s drama, The America Play. The basis of all literary criticism is the analysis of data, in our case the literary text (see list on opposite side). This topic asks you to present a close reading of a passage from either of these works and to outline the themes, motifs, symbols, and philosophical issues this passage embodies about the rest of the novel. The argument for your essay will be based on this close analysis; you might consider arguing why the passage you choose (above all others) is important for understanding a theme or issue in the work.
2. What is Gabriel Garcia Marquez trying to say about “outsiders” in his short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”? How does the community treat outsiders, and what moral is Garcia Marquez trying to impart? And why does Garcia Marquez use fairy tale elements to get his moral across to readers?
3. What myths about America and American history does Suzan-Lori Parks attempt to debunk in The America Play? Consider what the dramatist tries to say about being an outsider in America. Your argument could side with or disagree with a portion of Alvin Klein’s review in The New York Times: “Ms. Parks’s ideas are so crammed and arbitrarily unfolded that her play—her play as a play—is neither fathomable nor cohesive. But her unanswerable questions are freeing; the verbal and temporal leaps, even the vastness of her intentions, are invigorating” (30 Jan. 1994, CN17). Does Parks have a message, or is the moral of her play that history itself is filled with contradictory messages?
4. Rewrite a scene from Suzan Lori Parks’s America Play in the “traditional” play format (e.g., not as a postmodern piece) or as a short story. Include a cover letter (at least 1.5 pages) that analyzes your own creative work and draws attention to your changes. If you change a scene into a short story, how does this shift in genres (from drama to fiction) change the impact of the piece (theatrical audience vs. reading audience). How does your creative adaptation change the moral or message of Parks’s play? In addition to the cover letter’s articulation of these analytical issues, responses will be evaluated on their ability to mimic Parks’s linguistic style.
5. Write the next “missing” scene from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, either from the Very Old Man’s perspective, a second-person narrator (someone involved in the world of the story), or a third-person narrator. Include a cover letter (at least 1.5 pages) that analyzes your own creative work and draws attention to your changes. How does your creative adaptation change the moral or message of Garcia Marquez’s story? In addition to the cover letter’s articulation of these analytical issues, responses will be evaluated on their ability to mimic Garcia Marquez’s linguistic style.
Plagiarism, cheating, and pretending another’s words are your own are unethical practices subject to academic sanction and failure in this course. Please cite all consulted material, from websites, books, articles, to the backs of books, as critical engagement with and acknowledgment of others’ words is part of the larger academic conversation and ethic. Late papers will not be accepted.
Overt meaning = Plot Analysis (definition from Dictionary.com):
1. The separation of an intellectual or material whole into its constituent parts for individual study.
2. The study of such constituent parts and their interrelationships in making up a whole.
3. A spoken or written presentation of such study: published an analysis of poetic meter.
Subtext = The meaning beneath the plot that can be uncovered through literary elements such as:
Keywords: What have you underlined? Which words jump out as important? Which terms are repeated or stressed by the author?
Allegory: A narrative technique in which characters representing things or abstract ideas are used to convey a message or teach a lesson. Allegory is typically used to teach moral, ethical, or religious lessons but is sometimes used for satiric or political purposes. Ex.: The allegory of blind justice holding scales teaches us that justice should be objective and impartial.
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity
Setting: The total environment (time, place, historical milieu) for the action of a fictional work.
Symbol: Something that on the surface is its literal self but which also has another meaning or even several meanings. May be universal (generally applicable) or specific to the way an author constructs it.
Simile: A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as
Tone: The writer’s attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view.
The success of your paper will depend on linking the ways in which these details relate to the larger picture, your analysis and interpretation of the work.
