12 point standard font thesis statement reflective W r i t i n g

Literary Analysis Essay Project

Fictional literary works are reflective of the worlds we inhabit by using the raw elements of reality and refashioning them into stories that reveal to us the significance of life through art.  The act of exploring the significance of literary work occurs through critical readings that help relate aspects of the text to other ways of thinking (or frameworks).  Literary texts, however, are composed using the technical features of writing known as literary devices.  It can be said that the significance of a text (what is interpreted) is actualized through literary devices (what is analyzed), however, both meaning and its component parts are important to understand for a wholistic view. Critical frameworks help open a literary text to interpretation in order to reveal the larger significance of a text by showing the importance of the human experience.

Prompt: Compose a literary analysis of Albert Camus’s The Plague by using one of the critical frameworks introduced in this unit (New Historicism, Sociological Literary Theory or Existentialist Literary Criticism) in a way that makes use of analytic references to the literary features of the text as support for the development of a literary interpretation.

Questions to Consider: Consider the following questions as a guide to help orient to this project.

Which critical frameworks inspire a closer and more subtle reading of the text?

How can the critical frameworks support a deeper and more complete experience of the text?

In what ways can the critical frameworks help to develop more insights about the world through analysis of the text?

What literary passages support your interpretative claims?

Evaluative Criteria:

5-6 pages, double-spaced, 12 point standard font

Thesis statement reflective of a unified interpretative claim

Careful use of a given critical framework for development of ideas

Well-organized body paragraphs

Compositional balance between analysis and interpretation

MLA format

Quotations or paraphrases from source text