pride and prejudice

Description

Your analysis should contribute insight to the passage itself while also lending to a renewed understanding of the text as a whole. For instance, an analysis of a conversation between two characters may enlighten us to the intricacies of what is happening in that very moment of dialogue, but it should also change our understanding of the text as a whole (i.e., the nature of the characters, the conflict between persons, the tensions alive in the story more broadly, the historical or politico-social dynamics it represents, etc). If you choose to analyze poetry, you are welcome to incorporate analyses of as many as two or three poems to draw attention to the topic of your argument. This is particularly useful if you intend to argue that a trend, theme, symbol, tonal property, stylistic feature, etc. manifests in several poems. Close reading essays should be argumentative, though they often carry a slightly more “observational” tone. A thesis statement is required, though you will not be expected to make an entirely revolutionary argument. In short, even if you choose to outline a familiar or slightly more commonplace idea about a text, you should still present an argumentative thesis statement and original insights through supporting evidence. Your essay must be in MLA format, 3-4 double-spaced pages in length, and must include a Works Cited page.