For this assignment, please do the following:
Please choose a theme from one of the TWO SHORT STORIES THAT WE HAVE READ SO FAR THIS EXPRESS SEMESTER.
Please then come up with a thesis statement based on this theme. For example (and as we discussed in class), one could choose music in the story “Sonny’s Blues”–a thesis then could be something like–Music in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” is what heals Sonny, allowing him to cope with his addiction/cope with his suffering. So, the main goal here is to make sure that we specify what about our theme we want to show/explore.
If we wanted to discuss the theme of knowledge in Chekhov’s “The Bet”, we would want to say what it is about knowledge that is important in the text–for ex, knowledge as that which transforms, or knowledge as that which leads to the renunciation/rejection of society (by the imprisoned lawyer).
The goal is then to use EXAMPLES/QUOTATIONS from the text/story to show and discuss your thesis. We want to analyze the quotes that we choose AND make sure that these quotes are supporting and revealing our thesis.
This is an expository essay–meaning that we want to “expose” something–we want to respond to the text that we have chosen. This essay is only asking us to work with this one text, no outside sources. Please see links that I will post for formatting.
