Analysis

The title of your short literary analysis should follow this example format of number and reading title: In a straight forward manner answer the 3 questions (not in essay format). Short Literary Analysis 1: The Yellow Wallpaper Directions for Completing a Short Literary Analysis: For your short literary analyses, you will need to complete the following three steps in a minimum of one page (Exceeding one page is not a problem, but short literary analyses that fail to reach one full page will be logged as zeroes in the gradebook without the chance to revise and resubmit.): 1) An analysis of one or two interesting points from the story (your choice), 2) An analysis of one of the literary devices or terms used or present in the story (A list of acceptable literacy devices is attached below, and definitions of these terms can be found in TNIL’s Glossary from pages A1 – A13.) 3) An analysis of how this piece connects to one of the critical approaches we covered in the first weeks of this semester. Below are examples of what each of the above steps could look like: 1) I find it interesting that in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist reports seeing a woman behind the yellow wallpaper and the same woman creeping across the grounds around her rental home. It is not clear from the story if the protagonist is slowly losing her mind due to being trapped in the master bedroom, which used to be a nursery, or if she really is seeing a woman that had been painted behind the design of the wallpaper as well as a woman sneaking around outside. Why this woman wants out from behind the wallpaper is a mystery, but both images suggest that the woman is trapped. The protagonist believes that the woman is trapped behind the wallpaper’s design, which look like bars, and that she is sneaking outside because she does not want to be seen and put back behind bars. Is she escaping from her husband, from the burden of being a mother, or from society’s strict demands on women? 2) The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” uses the symbol of yellow to suggest sickness and cowardice. The wallpaper in the protagonist’s and her husband’s bedroom is yellow. Since she is forced to rest most of the day, she is surrounded by this color all day. The use of the color yellow in the wallpaper parallels her “sickness” well. The male-dominated society that the protagonist lives in claims that she is “sick” because she is nervous, though her sickness seems to worsen the more she is diagnosed and treated by her husband and brother. Because she does not fulfill certain expectations of women in her time, she is labeled “sick” and treated through isolation and lack of freedom/choice. The color yellow is frequently a color of sickness; for instance, when infants are born with weakly developed livers, their skin appears yellow due to a condition known as jaundice. Also, when people are sick or dying, their skin can turn yellow due to poor circulation. Therefore, the use of the symbol yellow in the story suggests that rather than the protagonist’s “treatment” of isolation and loss of freedom/choice curing her of her “sickness,” it actually makes her “sickness” worse, in positive and negative ways. 3) A literary theory that connects with story of the “The Yellow Wallpaper” is Biographical Criticism. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860 and bore her only child, a daughter, in 1885. After nine months of pregnancy and the birth of her child, she suffered from severe post-partum depression, a period of depression women can suffer while recovering from birth and hormone changes within the body. In the 1880s and earlier, women were believed to be hysterical, overly emotional, and anxious, so little trust was placed in their ability to make logical decisions, and therefore, they maintained little legal control over their own lives. In the story, the protagonist has just had a child and is experiencing symptoms similar to post-partum depression; her symptoms seems to worsen as she receives treatment from her husband and brother, and her feelings and opinions are ignored, reflecting Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s own experiences during her life. The response above is numbered to make it easier for you to see where each part begins and ends, but your short literary analysis should not be numbered as you move through each of the required steps. You are welcome to start a new paragraph for each of the three sections, but no changes to margins or spacing should be made. Full credit will be awarded for each section that is done thoroughly and sincerely. Each section is worth 33 to 34 points: section one = 33 points, section two = 33 points, and section three = 34 points for a total of 100 points. Weighted each of the 10 short literary analyses is worth 5% of a student’s fine grade, for a total of 50% of the student’s grade. Finally, you should not frequently reuse the same literary devices or terms and critical approaches in steps two and three of your short literary analyses; each of your short literary analyses should attempt to take on a new critical approach and literary device or term. My hope is that in completing these SLAs that you will discover ideas for your longer writing assignments, your Midterm Literary Essay and your Final Literary Essay. Please use these assignments as a chance to explore ideas that could become larger essays later in the term. See below for the list of literary devices. The following is a list of potential literacy devices and terms to analyze in step two of your short literary analysis (definitions for these terms can be found in the Glossary at the end of your textbook): 1. Allegory 2. Allusion 3. Analogy 4. Antagonist 5. Anthropomorphism 6. Anticlimax 7. Antihero 8. Antithesis 9. Aphorism 10. Archetype 11. Authorial intrusion 12. Bibliomancy 13. Bildungsroman 14. Cacophony 15. Character 16. Characterization 17. Characternym 18. Climax 19. Closed dénouement 20. Conflict 21. Connotation 22. Crisis 23. Denotation 24. Deus ex Machina 25. Dialogue 26. Diction 27. Drama/plays 28. Dynamic/round character 29. Epilogue 30. Epiphany 31. Episode 32. Essay/expository 33. Euphemism 34. Euphony 35. Exposition 36. Fable 37. Flashback 38. Flat/static character 39. Foil 40. Foreshadowing 41. Hero/heroine 42. Hubris 43. Hyperbole 44. Imagery/image 45. In Medias Res 46. Irony 47. Juxtaposition 48. Litotes 49. Malapropism 50. Metaphor 51. Mood 52. Motif 53. Narrator 54. Negative capability 55. Nemesis 56. Novel 57. O. Henry ending 58. Onomatopoeia 59. Open dénouement 60. Oxymoron 61. Parable 62. Paradox 63. Pathetic fallacy 64. Personification 65. Plot 66. Poetry/poem 67. Point of view 68. Prologue 69. Prose 70. Protagonist 71. Regionalism 72. Romance 73. Setting 74. Short story 75. Stream of consciousness 76. Sublime 77. Suspense 78. Symbol/symbolism 79. Synopsis 80. Theme 81. Tone 82. Unreliable narrator 83. Verisimilitude/realism