Question
Final paper Assignment
For this assignment, you will write two essays (5-6 pages each, 10-12 pages total) each of which should analyze one text (short story, film, music video, etc.) using a different theoretical approach. Both essays need to be about the same text, but you should use a different theoretical approach for each one. (For example, read the text once using a Marxist framework and then again using a post-colonial framework). Each essay needs a specific and debatable thesis of its own that draws on the theoretical lens of your choice. In each paper, your goal is to argue something specific and debatable about the text by close reading and by drawing on our theoretical texts and other credible secondary sources. At the minimum, you need 6 secondary sources total in addition to the literary and theoretical texts your paper uses. Please include both essays in one document and list all your Works Cited at the very end.
If you’re struggling to select a text, feel free to come and talk with me or visit the Writing Center to help you generate ideas.
Good papers often begin by setting up a key tension in the text. It should be clear what issues are important and what is to be gained or lost relative to those issues. In other words, make it clear why these issues matter. (Avoid “from the dawn of time” kinds of moves and just start with the text itself). Then, using the tension you have identified, introduce your thesis statement. Remember that a good thesis statement will begin with an observation about the text, and then make an interpretive leap, setting up a debatable claim about what your observation suggests or demonstrates. You want to very clearly teach your reader why your argument matters and what it reveals.
From there, you should begin paragraphs by using topic sentences that clearly set up the main ideain that paragraph. Then bring in textual evidence (quote the text) to support your point. Then analyze that evidence. In other words, teach your reader why it suggests or demonstrates what you say it does. Evidence doesn’t speak for itself, so teach your evidence to your reader. Lastly, end your paragraphs by making a clear link between the point you just made and your overall point.
Your paper must follow MLA formatting, including a Works Cited page. Talk to me or check out The Owl at Purdue (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_style_introduction.html if you need help.
Important due dates:
- Thursday, 10/28—Library day: start thinking about what text to research and write about
- Thursday, 11/11—Paper proposals due. See directions below. Submit your typed proposal and outline via Google Classroom
- Thursday, 11/18—Annotated bibliographies due via Google Classroom. See annotated bibliography assignment sheet
- Tuesday, 11/23—Bring a draft of your first two pages of each paper to your individual conference
- Tuesday, 12/7—Final paper due on Google Classroom
Proposal:
For your final paper proposal on Monday, 4/1, you need to have:
1.) drafts of your two working thesis statements,
2.) a list of at least 4 main ideas you plan to develop in your body paragraphs for each paper
3.) a list of the evidence (quotes from primary texts or quotes from secondary texts) that you will use to support your points in each paper
4.) a Works Cited page, formatted according to MLA, that includes at least 3 sources that you think will be useful and relevant for your paper. As per the syllabus, failure to submit a proposal will result in a lowered grade on your final paper.
Solution
Film analysis; La Grande Illusion
Marxism
In the film “La Grande Illusion,” the social boundaries between classes diminish as the aristocrats lose their power, just as in Mark’s predictions about capitalism. In Marxism, Karl Marx argues that society has been divided into two social classes, specifically the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The proletariats are laborers whose labor is used in production by the bourgeoisie who have the capital and own the means of production (Aune 19). As a result, the bourgeoisie has more power and gets vast profits in a capitalist society, thus creating a social boundary and imbalance to the proletariat, who often work and live in poor conditions and receive low wages. According to Marxism, capitalism has the inherent seeds of self-destruction; thus, it would eventually collapse (Cassegård 314). In this film directed by Jean Renoir, the social walls between classes fall just as Marxism had predicted. The film portrays a road to equality, a critical enterprise that aims to identify contradictions between particular and universal human freedom conceptions and intervene into them politically and socially, aiming for an egalitarian society. Thus, as portrayed in the film “La Grande Illusion,” even though the upper class controls both the material and intellectual force to represent its interests as the common interest of society as a whole, the final stage of human development is one free from class divisions and struggles.
At first, in a capitalist society, the members of the upper class may have varying interests, but they are united together by the need to maintain their social position and further the social boundaries based on material, intellectual, and background differences ……………for help with this assignment contact us via email Address: consulttutor10@gmail.com
Psychoanalysis and Literature
Psychoanalysis originates from Freud’s work and theories and primarily assumes that people possess unconscious feelings, thoughts, memories, and desires (Tambling 16). Thus, psychoanalysis in literature entails using Freud’s method of reading because it views literature like dreams and helps express the author’s secret unconscious anxieties and desires. From a psychoanalysis view, a literary work is a projection of the authors on neuroses (Parkin-Gounelas 10). Even though it is possible to psychoanalyze individual characters in a film, this theory assumes that all characters are a manifestation of the author’s psyche. In the film “La Grande Illusion,” directed by Jean Renoir, there are various unresolved Renoir’s psychological conflicts, emotions. The ambivalences, guilt, and psychological conflicts expressed in the film are identified through psychoanalysis. Renoir had served as a soldier and as a reconnaissance pilot serving France during World War I, where he was shot in his leg and left with a permanent limp (O’Shaughnessy 21). Renoir’s traumas, fixations, conflicts, and family life can be traced in the characters’ behavior in the movie. In the film, psychological material is manifested indirectly encoded or disguised as in dreams through various thoughts of individuals projected in one image, symbolism, and association of characters. Using psychoanalysis, this paper shows that Renoir’s unconscious thoughts, desires, and intentions are more evident in how the characters cross social boundaries and are more interested in gestures of compassion and sympathy than gestures of selfishness and hatred, thus encouraging the viewer to renew the constructions of culture, mind, and language constantly……………for help with this assignment contact us via email Address: consulttutor10@gmail.com