Literary Analysis

This essay is on the short story And of Clay We are Created, and the character the essay is on is Rolf from the story, And all the evidence has to come from the short story.

The Norton Introduction to Literature reminds its audience that the critical evaluation of an author’s power to create memorable characters remains a mainstay of a literary study. This conventional, although enlightening, approach often assumes E. M. Forster’s method that assesses characters for flatness, their two-dimensionality, and resistance to change, or roundness, their three-dimensionality and vulnerability to change. All the texts by the following authors reveal round and flat characters of one kind or another: Isabel Allende, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Edgar Allan Poe, Alissa Nutting, and James Joyce. Choose a round or flat figure from one of their stories and write an essay in which you outline the character qualities and/or traits that the figure reveals.

Claim (Thesis). Make a clear, arguable claim that identifies the character under assessment as well as a specific description of the character attributes observed. For example, you might explore the presentation of Allende’s narrator for the patience, compassion, and loyalty that she shows. Remember that a claim must be debatable and, therefore, requires a strong supply of evidence for demonstration.

Development. Assemble enough relevant and detailed evidence to sufficiently back up the claim, and integrate it through a combination of quotations and paraphrases. Moreover, craft an introduction, body, and conclusion to give your essay the shape and focus demanded by its audience as well as give a suitable title.

Audience. Attend to your academic audience’s needs. Anticipate its knowledge level, concerns, and values.

Cohesion. Deploy words, phrases, and clauses as well as varied syntax (word order) to link the major sections of the text. The sense of cohesion generated should also clarify the relationship between the claim and evidence.

Conventions. Modify your language to create a formal, objective tone that demonstrates standard English conventions of usage and mechanics while attending to the formatting and documenting norms of MLA Style (including the use of in-text citations and a Works Cited page). Such norms include the use of one-inch margins, headers, double-spacing, and Times New Roman or Calibri font size twelve. The essay should be 800-1000 words in length.