Read: The Age of Innocence
Writing instruction
1)Close readings should be 600 words.
2)Your close readings do not necessarily need to have a thesis but should focus on one or two interrelated themes you see in the passage. You should tie these themes to some element of form in the text, such as metaphor, point of view, narrative chronology, use of place. Introduce these themes and formal elements in the beginning of your essay. For example, you might have a sentence like this in your first paragraph: “The metaphors and images in this passage invoke an interplay between freedom and constraint, escape and entrapment.”
3)Be sure to quote from the passage (or describe illustrations in detail in the case of Fun Home), explaining how the images and metaphors are working in particular sentences and phrases.
4)Your interpretation should tie the passage to larger themes of the novel, revealing your knowledge of the novel as a whole. One way to demonstrate this knowledge is to show connections between an image or metaphor in the selected passage and another appearance of that image or metaphor in another section of the novel.
5)Your interpretation might also show connections between the passage and contextual material you’ve explored on the course website. For example, a discussion of a passage from Under the Feet of Jesus might refer briefly to the conditions of farmworkers in California and problems with access to health care.
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