PurposeThe learning goals of this essay are to twofold: to show that you can identify a significant topic for literary analysis; and from that topic, craft a professional, persuasive argument that is original and valuable to readers, using the texts we’ve read this semester as the raw material, or data, of your analysis. The essay…

Jan. CryingChristmas rolls remind of TitaPedro pops Q and accepts Rosaura on Tita’s cold night.   Feb. Tita’s tears ruin wedding vomit everywhere secret whispers bring hope to TitaNacha dies of saddness. Mar. Roses become aphrodisiac heatedGertrudis experiences sexual fantasy becomes realityescapes on horsegets disowned. Apr. A spark reignites a miraculous birthTita’s milkRosaura’s hurt motherhood bringing…

“Human beings participate in history both as actors and as narrators. The inherent ambivalence of the word ‘history’ in many modern languages, including English, suggests this dual participation. In vernacular use, history means both the facts of the matter and a narrative of this facts, both ‘what happened’ and ‘that which is said to have…

Throughout the semester we keep circling back to the claim Eagleton makes about literature: literature is fundamentally about morals, or a way of life. The job of the critic is to identify the “way of life” for which a piece of literature argues. As we’ve been reading Like Water for Chocolate (LWFC), a question that…

Remember there is ALSO a discussion board post due on 10/14, so if you haven’t done that yet, you should. Jane the Virgin is a television show that ran from 2014 and ended this year. It is an American adaptation of a Venezuelan telenovela, a type of television show that developed from sources similar to…

I’ve posted a number of quotations from the first two chapters in the LWFC discussion board. Choose one of them and, as a reply to the quotation, write about it thoughtfully*. Analyze the quotation by looking for the meaning behind the images; tease out the differences and their meanings in comparisons; find out what new…

Analysis & Criticism Terry Eagleton argued in “How to Read Poetry,” that all literature is concerned with morality, or how to live your life. If you’re writing an essay about how competition is a major theme in MND, you are arguing that the play makes an argument about competition functions in our lives. Perhaps it’s…

Plays are not meant to be read. They’re not meant for the audience at all. They are for the actors to use and dispose of before the play begins. Shakespeare couldn’t possibly have imagined that people would read his plays, especially in school. So, what exactly is “the play”? The text used by the actors,…

“. . . I never may believethese antique fables, nor these fairy toys. The lunatic, the lover, and the poetare of imagination all compact.” — THESEUS, (MND 5.1.15-18) Write a professional essay in which you identify an important theme in MND (explaining why) and discuss how the the play explores that theme by comparing two scenes. Consider imagery,…

For this first discussion board assignment, choose a character introduced in Act I and briefly compare your first impression of the character from your reading to the two interpretations in the filmed productions. What lines in the text might be the basis for each interpretation? Please post as either a thread (with the character’s name…