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The Story Of An Hour Essays and Research Papers

Instructions for The Story Of An Hour College Essay Examples

Essay Instructions: Write the Obituary: Choose one character from any of the fiction we have read and write an obituary for that character. Directly reference the work itself and your scholarly sources using paraphrase and quotation, and include a follow-up essay of about 500 words that explains why you made the choices you did, and brings in your critical sources to help support your choices.

I decide to write the ?the story of an Hour? by Kate Chopin as a write an Obituary. I chose to write this topic because the fact is that the story is set in the nineteenth century in a society that is inclined to discrimination to women makes it possible for readers to understand why the protagonist puts across particular attitudes. I am exploring the question regarding how people in the late nineteenth century were influenced to adopt discriminatory attitudes toward women. Society generally promoted patriarchal thinking during the period and it was thus difficult and almost impossible for many women to feel free.

I will also select Schumaker, Conrad. "Too Terribly Good to Be Printed": Charlotte Gilman's ?The Yellow Wallpaper". Both related to the nineteen century. Please include the two short stories in the paper, about how women felt in the nineteen century. Thank you

Essays should:
Have, instead of a title page, a cover letter that answers the questions specified below
Cover Letter Questions as
The following questions should be answered in all essay cover letters as the 1st page:
What work or works are you writing on, and why did you choose to write on this work or these works?
What critical question were you exploring in this essay? Did you find this question difficult to answer?
How did your understanding of the work(s) about which you are writing change as you wrote this essay? If it did not change, why do you think that was?
What did you find the hardest about your writing process for this essay?
What do you see as the essay's strengths and why?
What do you see as the essay's weaknesses and why?
What specific feedback would you like from your instructor?

Excerpt From Essay:

Essay Instructions: FORMAL LITERARY CRITIQUE ONE

On "the Story of an hour" (short story) by Kate Chopin




DUE MARCH 24TH




After you have reviewed the feedback on your ?Story of an Hour? essay, e-mail me with any questions you may have. You will then compose a literary critique on any short story of your choice (WHICH WE HAVE NOT DISCUSSED) in Literature, Craft, and Voice Volume One. You should first do a careful close reading of the text you choose. Some questions to consider are as follows:




PLOT

How does the story begin?

Is exposition included in the story?

Does it begin in media res?

How does the plot unfold?

Does it include flashbacks?

Does the story include foreshadowing?

Which elements of plot can you identify?

Who is the protagonist

Who or what is the antagonist?

What is the conflict?

What is the climax?

What is denouement, resolution, or conclusion?




CHARACTER

Which elements of characterization can you identify?

What does the physical appearance of the character tell you?

Does the name of the character reveal anything?

How is the character dressed, and what does this reveal?

What actions has a character taken that tell you about his or her motivation?

How does the character?s voice, by mean of either their internal thoughts or dialogue, emerge on the page; how does that ? voice sound; and what does this tell you about the character?

Is the character complex?exhibiting both good and bad traits?and able to change?

Does the main character exhibit traits that sympathetic but not heroic in the traditional sense?

Does the character represent primarily one characteristic, such as greed or vanity?

What function do the flat characters play in the story?




SETTING

What elements of setting can you identify?

What is the story?s location?

What mood does the setting create?

How is setting a window into character?

How does setting shape character?

Is setting a character itself?

Is setting an expression of the story?s theme?

How is setting a window into a particular region?




POINT OF VIEW

What is the point of view in this story?

Why do you think the author told the events in this way?

Do you think the information told to you in this story is reliable?

What would happen if the story were told using a different point of view?

(What would you learn? What would you lose?)




THEME
Does the title suggest anything about the purpose or direction of the story?

What (in fairly simple terms) would you say might be a possible theme?

Does any object or image or action stand out as significant in your reading?

Is there a repeating pattern of words or images of any kind







AFTER YOU HAVE GENERATED SOME CLOSE READING QUESTIONS, YOU SHOULD FORMULATE A CLEAR THESIS AND EFFECTIVELY DEVELOP THAT THESIS IN YOUR ESSAY. YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY FOLLOW THE GRADING RUBRIC AS YOU COMPOSE YOUR ESSAY.




MINI RUBRIC




I. INTRODUCTION

LIMITED TOPIC:

STATED THESIS :




II. BODY PARAGRAPHS

SUPPORT / EVIDENCE

RELEVANCE:

TERMINOLOGY:

TEXTUAL EVIDENCE:




ANALYSIS

DYNAMICS BETWEEN

LIT. ELEMENTS:




DISCUSSION OF

THEME:




III. CONCLUSION

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENTS:

CRITIC? S FINDINGS:




IV. GRAMMAR / MLA STYLE:







YOUR ESSAY MUST BE AT LEAST 4 PAGES (1000 WORDS) IN LENGTH. YOU ARE TO DOUBLE SPACE YOUR PAPER, FORMAT YOUR PAPER WITH A ONE INCH MARGIN, AND USE A TWELVE POINT FONT. USE THE COURSE MESSAGING SYSTEM TO SEND ME YOUR PAPER AS A MICROSOFT WORD ATTACHMENT. THIS ASSIGNMENT IS DUE NO LATER THAN MARCH 24TH AT MIDNIGHT.
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Current Item FORMAL ESSAY ASSIGNMENT ONE

Excerpt From Essay:

Essay Instructions: Theme and Narrative Elements in the Short Story

In two to four double-spaced pages (excluding title and reference page), demonstrate your understanding of literary themes, using a short story from the readings in week one or two:

Describe what the theme of the short story is, using Chapter Seven of the text as a reference.
Identify at least two of the literary elements in the short story that contribute to the theme (e.g., plot, point of view, tone, setting, character, symbolism, etc.), providing an example of each element.
Explain how the selected literary elements affect the narrative theme


Your paper should be organized around a thesis statement that focuses on how the literary elements contribute to the larger narrative theme. All sources must be properly cited. The paper must include a separate title and reference page, and be formatted to APA (6th edition) style.

The paper must be two to four pages in length (excluding the title and reference page), and formatted according to APA style. You must use at least two scholarly resources

The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin (1894)
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
5
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
10
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously, She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will?as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow?creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
15
And yet she had loved him?sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self?assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door?you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door.
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life though that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had though with a shudder that life might be long.
20
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel?stained, composedly carrying his grip?sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know that there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen himself from the view of his wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease?of joy that kills.


An Annotated Story Illustrating Elements of Theme and Symbolism

Because stories are imaginary, and story writers want you to understand and learn from the imaginary world they are creating, they find ways to make the theme stand out clearly, and they use symbols to convey feelings, describe settings, present characters, heighten conflict, and create various moods. The annotations of the story illustrate some of the ways Ernest Hemingway uses theme and symbolism effectively in "Hills Like White Elephants."

Excerpt From Essay:

Title: The Story of an Hour

Total Pages: 5 Words: 1720 Sources: 3 Citation Style: MLA Document Type: Research Paper

Essay Instructions: Develop an argument on The Story of an Hour. In addition to supporting claims with relevant evidence and quotes from the primary text, you must integrate material from 3 secondary citical texts. 1 refernce book, 1 from a periodical, and the third from circulating stacks.

Excerpt From Essay:

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