Submit either Assignment One or Assignment Two (required length: TWO pages)
Assignment One
Choose two of the assigned readings where the American Dream is addressed in some context and do the following:
1. Explain how the American Dream is false, distorted, and unfulfilled.
2. Support your explanation with specific references to characters, plot, or theme.
Assignment Two
Choose two of the assigned readings by writers of the Harlem Renaissance and do the following:
1. Explain how the common themes of alienation, marginality, folk roots and culture, or blues tradition are addressed in each work (choose only themes you are able to identify).
2. Support your explanation with specific references to character and/or figurative language.
Instructions:
Rd: Tennessee Williams’ The Last of My Solid Gold Watches (PDF), Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” (PDF), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” (PDF), Dudley Randall’s “The Ballad of Birmingham” (PDF), Langston Hughes’ “The Ballad of the Landlord” (PDF), “Come to the Waldorf-Astoria” (pp. 94-6), and “Let America Be America Again” (PDF), Georgia Douglas Johnson’s “Black Woman” (PDF), Sterling Brown’s “Bitter Fruit of the Tree” (p. 213), and Jean Toomer’s “Blood-Burning Moon” (pp. 181-88).
Remember to always follow a quotation with an explanation of how it supports your interpretation.
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