Directions: Please read the following literary works in your textbook:
• "Bartleby, The Scrivener" by Herman Melville (pp. 432-457)
• "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka (pp. 457-488)
• "The Prophet's Hair" by Salman Rushdie (pp. 782-791) Then write a two to three page essay response for each of the following prompts. Be sure to cite any references used (you may utilize LIRN to search for literary analysis articles). Please use proper APA citation when using any source including the textbook. Please visit the Academic Resource Center (ARC) for concise APA guidelines.
"Bartleby, The Scrivener" by Herman Melville Prompt 1:
1. Determine the image, theme, or concern that you keep coming back to or find yourself curious about, that most intrigues you, or that confuses you.
2. Once you have decided on an image, theme, or concern to focus on, reread the story and keep track of every time it occurs (and even, perhaps, every time you run across its opposite or even its cousin).
3. List all these occurrences and then look for patterns or commonalities, some similarities or trends or typical characteristics. Just as important as thinking about the consonance of their occurrence is to think about the way they contradict one another, about the wrinkles, gaps, and weirdnesses that you see when you look at your list. This inconsistency may be the beginning of an intriguing thesis.
4. By looking at your list and generalizing about the role or the character or the pattern of the image, theme, or concern you have chosen, you should be able to move toward an argument, a thesis, about that image or theme or concern.
5. To help you flush out that thesis, free write in response to any or all of the following phrases (X being shorthand for your theme or image or concern):
1. In "Bartleby," X usually means . . .
2. X is important in "Bartleby" because . . .
3. X is surprising/unexpected/confusing in "Bartleby" in that . . .
6. Then write the rest of your essay about this image, theme, or concern and use supporting evidence from the textbook and from outside sources.
"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka Prompt 2:
Write a personal essay in which you consider a time in your life when you changed in some way that made you feel as if you suddenly did not fit into your world (or some smaller subset of it-your family, your circle of friends, your school, your church, your club). What kind of a change was it-internal or external or both? How would you compare it to Gregor's situation in "The Metamorphosis"? How did you feel about the change? How did others feel about it? How was the situation resolved?
"The Prophet's Hair" by Salman Rushdie Prompt 3:
How does Rushdie intermingle worlds in the story? Consider the secular and the sacred, the wealthy and the impoverished, the honest and the dishonest. What is the effect of these juxtapositions on the ideas of the story?