write a basic literary analysis of either Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” or Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat.” You will select a topic based on one of the suggestions below, present a clear thesis, follow literary conventions, and provide ample textual evidence to support your thesis. Your essay should contain an introduction with a thesis statement that presents the main claim and an overview of the supporting examples, body paragraphs that support the thesis, textual evidence (at least one quote in each paragraph), and a conclusion that revisits the thesis and provides one final thought for closure.
You can choose only one of the following subject areas for a topic:
Character analysis
Learning how to write a character analysis requires a thorough reading of the literary work with attention to what the author reveals about the character through dialogue, narrative, and plot. The protagonist is the most important character, while the character who plays the villain in the conflict with the main character is called the antagonist. Great writers create characters with many facets, so a complex character might not easily fit into one of these two categories, or might not be discernibly good or bad. Other minor characters can play a dynamic role in the story and help to reveal important details for the story’s theme. So, you can select a major character or a minor character.
For this topic, the character analysis should focus on one character’s actions, thoughts, and dialogue and how these contribute to the larger theme being explored by the author. You might discuss the main character’s transformation such as the narrator’s slow decline into madness or transcendence in the “Yellow Wallpaper.” In this option, you will want to address women’s issues during the 19th century Victorian era because these issues inform the narrator’s relationship to her husband and his treatment of her mental condition, her transformation, and eventually her death. You could discuss Sykes’ struggle with assimilating into a dominant white culture that has a history of extreme violence and oppression.
Literary device analysis
Literary devices are various elements and techniques used in writing that construct meaning and contribute to the larger theme. Common literary devices are symbols, metaphors, imagery, personification, hyperbole, irony, etc. A symbol is an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning such as the whip in “Sweat” or the wallpaper in the “Yellow Wallpaper.” Sarcasm is an interesting literary device in Gilman’s text as we hear the narrator’s inner rebellion against her husband’s rest cure.
For this topic, you will discuss either one or several literary devices and how they contribute to the story’s larger theme. For example, the narrator in Gilman’s text is writing with a sarcastic tone in her journal. On the one hand, she wants to believe her husband’s diagnosis and follow his treatment as an obedient wife should, but her sarcasm reveals her real thoughts that begin to emerge and leads to her secret resistance. The snake in “Sweat” is an interesting symbol that signifies both the traditional African spiritual practices with snake charming and the dangers of domesticating a wild animal.
