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Article Writing · Studypool

Writing Question

Post ID: 3549769

Overview

Final Research Paper Assignment

Analyzing Genre and Literary Movements

This semester, we studied the literary periods of Realism, Modernism, and Contemporary/Postmodernism, along with specific genres or movements within each. For each, we read a story that reflects key features of that genre or movement.

Your Task:

Write a 750-word minimum essay analyzing how one story that we studied Unit 2: Modernism or Unit 3: Contemporary/Postmodernism represents the literary genre or movement we studied with it.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT write about the literature from Unit 1: Realism & Naturalism

Your essay should do two main things:

  1. Analyze the story closely (textual analysis).
  2. Explain how the story reflects key features of its genre or movement (genre analysis).

Important: Don’t separate your genre explanation and story analysis—show how they work together. Review your class notes and the textbook chapter introductions to refresh your understanding.

Research Requirement:

Your paper must use two research sources from the GALILEO library database, in addition to your textbook (optional). Use research to:

  • Explain features of the genre/movement
  • Provide historical or biographical context
  • Support your interpretation with scholarly perspectives

Check the GALILEO Research Help folder for tutorials if needed.

Paper Format & Requirements:

  • Organized in clear paragraphs with:
  • An introduction (identify story and literary movement)
  • Body paragraphs with analysis and support
  • A conclusion that ties everything together
  • Use MLA format throughout
  • Include:
  • Direct quotes from the story with in-text citations
  • Discussion of genre/movement features and how they appear in the story
  • At least 2 outside sources, properly cited
  • A Works Cited page in MLA format (cite the story and your sources)
  • Use Purdue OWL for correct citation rules
  • The Cite tool in GALILEO can help—double-check for accuracy

Here is a handy list of what literature goes with what genre or movement. You can find complete information about that movement in the chapter intros in your textbook (pages included). Remember, you MUST address the literary genre and not just the short story itself!

Unit 3: Modernism (Ch 5)

  • “The Red Wheelbarrow” (575), “In a Station of the Metro” (576), “Autumn” (link in folder) - Imagism/Low Modernism (pg 564)
  • "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" - Modernism and Expatriate literature (pg 561-565)
  • “Sweat” - Harlem Renaissance (pg 686-687)

Unit 4: Contemporary (Ch. 6)

  • 5.18 ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891 - 1960) Zora Neale Hurston was born in 1891 in Al abama, moving with her family when she was a young child to Eatonville, Florida, one of the nation’s first all-black towns. Hurston enjoyed a happy childhood in Eatonville. In 1904, how ever, Hurston’s idyllic young life came to an end when her mother died. Hurston’s father soon remarried, and family life for Hurston became complicated. She moved frequently, living with relatives and working to support herself. Even Image 5.16 | Zora Neale Hurston, circa 1935 Photographer | Unknown Source | Wikimedia Commons License | Public Domain Page | 707 Writing the nation ModernisM (1914 - 1945) tually, she attended Howard University where she nurtured her writing talent. She later attended Barnard College where she studied anthropology, earning her bachelor’s degree in 1928. In the 1920s, Hurston became one of the most import ant figures of the Harlem Renaissance, producing a number of literary pieces and working with Langston Hughes to launch a literary magazine that promoted the talents of young African-American writers. In the 1930s, Hurston enjoyed one of her most productive decades. She conducted anthropological fieldwork across the South, studying African-American folklore, and she traveled in Haiti and Jamaica, where she conducted research on spiritual practices including hoodoo and voodoo. Her book Mules and Men, published in 1935, remains an important work on Afri can-American folklore. In 1937, she published her most well-known novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, an early African-American feminist work that inspired later writers such as Alice Walker. During the next twenty years, Hurston contin ued to work as a journalist and a freelance writer. She married twice, but each mar riage ended. By the time of her death, she was living in Florida in relative obscurity and poverty, dying of a stroke in 1960. Unlike her contemporaries, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston in her fiction did not take on overtly political or racial themes. Like many artists in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, Hurston’s art was essentially apolitical. Hur ston’s work celebrated racial pride and African-American culture without any fil tering, and characters’ power came from their own self-discoveries and their own inner resources. In her most critically acclaimed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie Crawford comes of age, moving from a young girl taught by her grandmother that she must be cared for by a man to a young woman trapped in an abusive marriage to a self-actualized woman who loves herself and lives life on her own terms, including freely expressing her sexuality. In “Sweat,” Hurston explores a similar theme of self-liberation. Delia Jones, trapped in an abusive marriage to Sykes, a brutal man who beats her and uses her for material gain, finds within herself the power to stand up to him and order him from the home and business she has built through her own sweat. When he plans retribu tion by exposing Delia to a rattlesnake in her home, she beats him at his own game. Sykes, at the end of the story, sweats for a change.
  • 5.18.1 “Sweat” Please click the link below to access this selection: http://wwwi.mcpherson.edu/~claryb/en255/handouts/sweat.pdf