Your task in this essay: This will be a cause and effect essay. A character’s identity may have been formed by various factors. His/her racial, religious, and social background may be responsible for various aspects of his/her character. Gender, ambitions, the environment in which s/he lives may be other contributing factors that determine the character’s identity. In this assignment, you will look at certain aspects of the character’s identity and will write a cause and effect essay in which you will analyze what factors were responsible for the formation of certain aspects of the character’s identity. The analysis that you will offer in the essay paper will look at the text’s meaning and significance. Any text that you read, including the plays you will read for this section, have a plethora of meanings. You job in this paper will be to interpret, analyze, and evaluate the text, or a certain aspect of the text. The playwright is communicating a message or even several messages through his work and in the analysis you will examine the significance of the message and the manner in which he is communicating it to you. The analysis is often broken down to the different elements that comprise the text such as character, setting, plot, motive, images, symbols, language etc. What is a cause and effect essay? The cause and effect essay explores the connection between what has happened (effect) and what are the factors that have made it happen (cause). Here are a few examples of causes and effects: Cause: liked poetry in high school Effect: majored in English Literature in college Cause: there is no gas in your car Effect: your car will not start Cause: you lose weight Effect: you cut down on our calorie intake and exercised. But, beware of just picking a laundry list of character traits that explains the character’s identity and listing those in your essay. You will look at the causes and effects of the character’s identity, but find a way that will allow the essay to flow smoothly. Find two or three related facets of the character’s identity and analyze those. Go beyond listing causes and effects to analyze what the facets you have chosen to focus on say about the character’s identity. Here are some basic pointers that will help you begin:
You might need to read the play more than once.
When you read the play, make notes of facets of identity that are inter-related in some way. Make notes about how the character’s identity develops and what causes the identity to develop and change
Make notes about how the other characters react to those facets of the character’s identity that you have chosen to analyze
Make a note about your personal reaction to the play and the specific characters. Did you enjoy the play? Why?
Consider why the playwright has chosen to portray the character in the manner in which he does.
Create a working thesis statement How do I Tackle Literary Analysis? There are two major components in any analytical essay: The Summary: Provide your readers with a brief summary of the text so that they are aware of the main events and characters of the play. But, the summary should only be a very brief overview of the play.
• In the summary, you will give an account of the text in our own words, but you will only pick the main points of the text and ignore lesser details
• Write the summary in the present tense.
• To be useful, a summary should be no longer than one third the length of the original source.
• A summary will provide an accurate brief synopsis of the text. The Analysis: This is majority of the analytical essay. In the analysis, you establish criteria for judging the importance of a text and then explain and support your judgment. What Am I Looking For When I Grade This Assignment?
1. A clear and unified essay for a reader who has not read the original sources
2. A clear and unified thesis statement
3. Insightfully chosen evidence (in the form of quotations from the text) to support the claims you have made
4. A clear organizational pattern in which you have compared and contrasted two texts
5. A focus on the significance of the character’s identity rather than re-hashing of the plot. Focus on the meaning of the character’s identity—why does the playwright make the character develop or change in the manner in which he does? What is the significance of the causes that allows the characters to develop or change? What is significant about the manner in which the character’s identity develops or/and changes? 6. A mechanical error free essay (Proofread)less