this paper must use one secondary source. That means you’ll need to locate one scholarly article about this story from the Citrus databases (where someone analyzed the story and published the analysis), and find one solid quote from that article that you can use in support for one of your body paragraphs. The instructions for doing all that have been saved for next week. Don’t worry about it right now. Just be aware that somewhere in this paper, you need to have an ‘outside’ source, one that isn’t directly from the story.
Sample for Paper #2 (Using “Story of an Hour”)
Paragraph #1 (introduction): Theme/thesis: This story shows how marriage in the early 1900s was sometimes a trap for women. A person who has always lived in a restricted kind of society might not even know what freedom is until it’s right in front of her. In that case, having the chance for freedom taken away can be even more devastating than for somebody who’s always lived freely.
Paragraph #2: Setting – in this paragraph I’ll discuss how the setting (the time period) contributed to the conflict of Mrs. Mallard. Her husband dominated her and she accepted that domination because that was ‘normal’ for the time.
Paragraph #3: Internal Conflict – in this paragraph I’ll discuss the nature of the first conflict Mrs. Mallard faces, when she starts to realize how happy she is that her husband is dead. She fights against that feeling because it seems like a terrible reaction to her – but the conflict ends with her accepting that she’d rather be free than be married.
Paragraph #4: Irony – in this paragraph I’ll discuss how the entire story is set up to use dramatic irony. The doctors and the people who love Mrs. Mallard have no idea what happened. They think she died of sudden joy at seeing her husband alive. The truth is that she dies of horrific shock that he was still alive.
Paragraph #5: Conclusion – I’ll try to explain how the story’s meaning relies heavily on these three literary elements.
Sample for Paper #2 (Using “Hills Like White Elephants”)
Paragraph #1 (introduction): Theme/thesis: This story shows how sometimes a couple can reach a crossroads where there are only two choices—to move forward or to split up. Often, the issue of children is the one that leads to this moment. In relationships, people sometimes compromise with what they really want in order to bring about some momentary peace, but that peace is probably going to be short-lived.
Paragraph #2: Point of View– in this paragraph I’ll discuss how Hemingway’s choice to use objective point of view affects the reader. Without internal thoughts from the characters, and with their dialogue never expressing their true feelings, the random details of setting really stick out and draw attention to themselves.
Paragraph #3: Narrative Style – this paragraph will mention the point of view again, but focus more on Hemingway’s use of short dialogue. The rhythms of male/female discussion and disagreement are clear in the dialogue. This makes the reader pay attention to small clues about what the man is really talking about and how the woman is reacting to it.
Paragraph #4: Symbol – in this paragraph I’ll discuss how the two sides of the train station must be symbols for the two choices facing this couple: to have the baby or to abort it.
Paragraph #5: Conclusion – I’ll try to explain how the story’s meaning relies heavily on these three literary elements.
Sample Introduction/Body Paragraph
1) I’ll give a brief overview of my topic
a. Title/author/brief plot summary
2) I’ll put in my theme statement, since it’s the point of that plot I just summarized
3) I’ll explain my plan of action for discussing that theme statement (one sentence that covers where my body paragraphs are going)
Like this:
“How I Met My Husband” was written by Alice Munro and published in 1974. The story is told in flashback by Edie, a happily married woman who is remembering events from when she was fifteen years old and living away from home for the first time. When young Edie encounters Chris Waters, an older pilot who is traveling through the countryside making money by offering rides in his plane, she becomes involved in a brief romantic entanglement with him. This gets her into trouble with both his fiancé and her employer. At the end, Edie must decide if she is going to wait for Chris to someday write her a letter or realize that she means nothing to him and move on with her own life. “How I Met My Husband” illustrates the problems that young people can run into when they have limited experience but strong curiosity about life. Sometimes a person has to make a decision to let go of something they want in order to achieve a better understanding of who they are. The story shows these ideas through using first person point of view, through the minor character of Loretta Bird, and through the setting of post-World War II small town America.
Comment: the sharp-eyed reader might say something here like, “Hey! That seems suspiciously similar to the introduction you did for the first paper!” Well, it is similar. Introductions all basically fulfill the same requirements. I just adjusted that one to meet the Paper #2 requirements.
Now for the body paragraph, I’ll do the one that also includes my secondary source quote, the one I got from doing exercise #7. Here it is:
The use of first person point of view in the story helps the reader understand that what he’s reading is actually a memory coming from a much older Edie. Because of this, we see the conflict in young Edie’s mind, but also know that the more mature Edie is there, looking back on what happened. “Like many of Munro’s stories, this one has a tone of charming intimacy and confidentiality about it, mediated in this case through the double perspective of its first-person narrator. Edie tells her story as a memoir: She is no longer the fifteen-year-old romantic, but the middle-aged Mrs. Carmichael who understands what her younger self did not and could not” (Baron). Because the older Edie is clearly an adult, the conflicts in the story don’t seem as serious; we know that Edie is going to get through them. Munro first lets us see the presence of older Edie after the opening scene when Chris’ plane lands. She provides background information that explains Edie’s situation. “I was fifteen and away from home for the first time. My parents had made the effort and sent me to high school for a year, but I didn’t like it. I was shy of strangers and the work was hard, they didn’t make it nice for you or explain the way they do now” (Munro 69). The way the older version of the narrator pops in helps us understand the somewhat naïve attitude of the young Edie. The narrator doesn’t try to hide the fact that she wasn’t successful in school; she even admits to coming in last in the annual high school scores. Because of this, the reader sees Edie as honest, someone who just hasn’t found her place yet. The older Edie looking back at the younger Edie is also apparent when Edie can’t think of how to react to Chris calling her ‘beautiful.’ “I wasn’t even old enough then to realize how out of the common it is, for a man to say something like that to a woman, or somebody he is treating like a woman. For a man to say beautiful. I wasn’t old enough to realize or say anything back, or in fact to do anything but wish he would go away” (Munro 71). The first person narration allows us access to both minds: the young Edie who is too embarrassed to even accept a compliment from an older man, and the older, wiser Edie who provides the explanation for why this is so. Using both narrative views gives the story a double-layer of perspective that helps us see the younger woman trying to find her way into adulthood.
OK—that’s the sample. Send me one of your own this week!
