The Rules: Your response must be typed, in Times New Roman, Font 12 (Microsoft Word’s default typeset), double-spaced, and it must be AT LEAST however long I assign. Don’t try any of the following tricks:
- Font 13 or more
- a different, and bigger font
- double-and-a-half spaced or greater
- squashed margins
- all sorts of unnecessary information at the top. Your heading should look like:
Name Date
Title
[first line of the essay]
All of the above are uncreative ways of making it seem like you actually did work, when in fact you did not. (If I stuck a Jaguar hood ornament on my car, it would still be a Ford.) I’ve seen all of these tricks before, and each time, the student thought that he or she was really clever and that I was an idiot. Neither turned out to be true. Be honest. IF YOU TRY ANY OF THESE TRICKS, IT WILL BE CONSIDERED AN INCOMPLETE, AND WILL COST YOU SIX POINTS ON YOUR HOMEWORK GRADE
YOUR TOPIC: Explore the repetition of any of the following themes in Hemingway (remember – a good essay DOES NOT merely point out that the theme exists, but examines HOW. It is not enough to say that guilt appears in several stories. Tell what causes guilt, what effect is has or what happens to guilty characters etc.)
GUILT or SHAME
PRIDE
CONTROL
RESPONSIBILITY
OR (and this is always an option): Write your own entirely original thesis. – We had some interesting ideas about some oppositions & repetitions in class. Feel free to explain one of them.
WEAK THESIS = Holden’s hat represents his desire to be protected
BETTER THESIS = By symbolizing Holden’s desire to be protected through his cheap red hunting hat, Salinger implies that Holden’s self-made expectations are artificial and are therefore bound to fail
This italicized section will take the thesis beyond just taking a logical stab at what a Salinger symbol “means”
Requirement: 1.5 pages, PLUS an outline of the 2 remaining body paragraphs which includes a debatable topic sentence and 2+ quotes per paragraph, with each quote broken down to show deeper understanding
