“A farewell to arms” and “Hills Like White Elephants”

A. Literary Elements: A research paper that is organized around literary elements generally includes a focused discussion on one or more of the following: setting, speaker, symbolism, irony, imagery, tone, language, etc. B. Themes: A research paper that is organized around a theme, such as death, life, love, race, gender, class, cultural identity, etc., generally includes a focused discussion on the role a particular theme plays in several pieces of literature. C. Critical Approaches: Whether you knew it or not, you adopted a specific approach to analyzing literature in both of the essays you wrote for class, namely a “formalist” approach to interpretation. For the second essay, some of you focused on how the historical, political, and/or social context informed the work; this was called an “historical” approach to interpretation. There are, of course, a number of other “critical” approaches to interpreting literature, such as feminist, Marxist, pluralist, structuralist, poststructuralist, sociological, biographical, etc. If you are interested in adopting one or more of these models of interpretation, please let me know.

A. The Thesis Statement: As you surely know by now, a thesis statement is the main point you are trying to make about the literature you are discussing. All of the information in your paper should, in one way or another, work to support your thesis statement. A good thesis statement is ARGUMENTATIVE in nature and is supported with a detailed interpretation of the text (or texts). You DO NOT want a thesis statement that is FACTUAL (Raymond Carver is a man), or that is SPECULATIVE (What if Raymond Carver is really a woman?), or that states an OPINION (Not only is Raymond Carver a bad writer, he’s also ugly). B. Primary Material: The text, or texts, that you choose to write about are called your primary texts. They are the main material that your thesis is organized around. In other words, “primary quotations” will serve as your primary form of support (textual evidence). C. Secondary Material: The research you will do ABOUT the author(s), text(s), and/or critical approach(es) is considered your secondary or “outside” material. In other words, you will be gathering information from outside sources that are relevant to your thesis and which help support your main points. Your goal is to balance your paper with your own analysis, with direct quotes from the text(s), and with quotes from others (secondary sources) who have written about the author(s) and/or text(s) you are discussing.