Critical Analysis Final Paper
Goals: To compare 1984 in productive and engaging ways to one or two of the texts listed below; to put to use your close reading, writing, and critical thinking skills; to write a well-organized, well-developed paper with a clearly defined thesis statement; to write a paper that follows APA and the five-paragraph format.
Instructions: Choose ONE of the following topics (and in turn choose to focus on 1984 and one or two of the other texts from the list provided below).
Regardless of which topic you choose, ensure you stick to the texts, rather than offering sweeping statements on how our society or the world works.
For example, if you want to focus on our society's education system, draw your points from "Dehumanized" or from further research into academic sources, not on your own generalizations.
Analysis: Remember to provide evidence by quoting specific aspects of the text and analyzing them to explain how they support your arguments.
Comparison: Each topic asks you to compare 1984 in different ways, but all of them involve some form of comparison. Your thesis statement should take the form of a comparison argument and the rest of the paper should serve to prove that argument. Re-read "Comparison Essays" (Moodle) for more information.
Format: Remember to use APA citation format and to include a References page. Use a size 12 font and double-space. Follow the Format for Papers section of the syllabus.
Word Count: 1750-2250 words
PASSING THE COURSE: You must obtain a grade of 50% on this paper in order to pass the course.
Topics
1. How do the citizens of Oceania (other than the Inner Party) help to create and maintain the dystopia of 1984? What would some authors from the list below suggest as "solutions" to prevent this from happening?
2. As Keith M. Booker (1994) notes, dystopian literature serves to "provide fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable" (p.19). How does 1984 in particular do this? How do other texts (from the list below) suggest similar problems today or in the time period in which they were written?
3. How does 1984 represent consumerism? How would some of the texts (from the list below) criticize this form of consumerism?
* Incorporate one or two of the following other works we have studied this term into your discussion: Mark Slouka's "Dehumanized," W.B. Yeats's "The Second Coming," George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," Daniel Francis's "The Bureaucrat's Indian," Thomas King's "Borders," Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est,"FadwaTuqan's "Enough for Me," Real Women's "Marriage Between a Man and a Woman," NARTH's "Our Purpose," Margaret Atwood's "God is in the Details,"Wendell Berry's "Agricultural Solutions for Agricultural Problems," Steven Stoll's "Fear of Fallowing," T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," David Steele's "Danger Lurks in a Biotech World," Stephen Jay Gould's "Evolution as Fact and Thoery," Paul Simon's "Sounds of Silence," George Lakoff's "Metaphors that Kill," Naomi Klein's "Don't Fence Us In."
References
Booker, K.M. (1994). The dystopian impulse in modern literature: Fiction as social criticism. Westport, CT:Praeger.