6 Page Prescriptively Structured The Company Of W
For your first essay, you will write a 5-6 page prescriptively structured academic literary analysis essay
that answers the following multi-part research question:
In either Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves” or “The Tiger’s Bride,” how and to what extent does power related to traditional gender roles shift for the female protagonist, and what is the significance of that power shift?
To answer this question, choose one of the two stories and write an essay using the following format,
including: bold section headers; an underlined, two-part thesis statement that gives a preview of the
entire essay; underlined topic sentences that relate to the header and your thesis; and all of the other
features of academic writing, the fundamentals you should have a grasp of from English 122 (using quotes properly, having transitions, etc.).
It is imperative you watch/listen to the screencast videos I provide, as well as read the example story and essay for this assignment to understand the format and task. This probably seems overwhelming at the moment, but I promise you can do this—you just need to follow the format. The observations leading up to this will have prepared you well. The second essay is structured nearly exactly like this—you are working toward mastering a form. The work you do now will pay off later.
Here is the structure your essay should follow, in outline form:
1) Header—Introduction
a) Your introduction should:
i) introduce the story you choose
ii) relate it to the original tale
iii) set up the “traditional gender roles” idea
iv) have a two-part thesis related to the research question (underlined):
(1) Part 1 (the first half or sentence) should talk about how and to what extent the female’s traditional gender role shifts;
(2) Part 2 (the second half after a semi-colon, or a new sentence) should talk about the significance of that gender role shift
2) Header—Observation: How you see your chosen female protagonist related to a traditional female gender role as established early
a) This section should proceed much like an observation assignment on character traits, where you go back and forth between presenting evidence and explaining it; in this case, you may blend the two more naturally together as you see fit, but remember to explain how your evidence is working—don’t let it speak for itself
3) Header—Observation: How you see the male (antagonist) related to a traditional male gender role as established early
a) Like the prior section, but for the antagonist (The Wolf, or the Beast)
b) these two sections about the protagonist and antagonist provide the necessary set-up to talk
about the how and to what extent does power related to gender roles shift—obviously to talk
about how things change you must talk about how they start
4) Header—Observation: How the action of the story leads to a shift in power related to these roles
a) In this section—probably your longest observation section—you’ll track the evolution of each character’s (as you see fit) relationship to their gender role through the plot of the story—see my example for how this looks
b) this addresses the how and to what extent part of the research question
5) Header—Commentary: The significance of this shift in power
a) this section is where the critical thinking comes in, and it’s probably the most challenging part—the rest probably seems like a lot of work (it is), but it’s still just making complex, detailed observations—this commentary is another beast (heh)
b) Here are some things to think about for your overall analysis of the significance of the action of the story:
i) the qualifier in the research question “to what extent” does power shift asks you to make an evaluation; think of to what extent as a scale, with complete power on one side, and complete lack of power on the other:where are your female and male characters located at the beginning of the story? where are they located at the end? Does where they end up reveal any ongoing problematic situations? ii) another way of thinking about this same thing is: at the end of the story, even though there are some things resolved, are there any problematic elements remaining?
iii) another thing to think about is: what does this story have to say about real life relations between genders (and perhaps society?)Formatting and Other Concerns
length; it will still seem short and I’ll know
page)
features present (headers, underlining, organization);