sprinkling little anecdotal comments throughout W r i t i n g

Write an introductory paragraph for How Miss Amelia resists and accepts feminine code? why she resists and why she accepts norms. Also note how other characters besides Amelia and Lymon break and accept gender codes, just to give your discussion further depth and impact.

While writing the introduction make sure to look at:

Introductory Paragraphs

ↈ For a paper of this size and scope, you will likely need to compose two introductory paragraphs,
although one is still an option. Do not make the opening or any other paragraph longer than a half a page,
the rule-of-thumb on length.

ↈ Your options for how to begin are manifold: a) general remarks about the subjects or themes you plan
to focus on in the essay, b) a social problem, controversy, or phenomenon the literature speaks to, c)
general comments about the theory your essay is deploying, d) an acknowledgment of some relevant
aspect of the author’s life, a nod to recurring themes in the writer’s work, or a caption of any relevant
statements the writer has made about the theme or subject, e) a critic’s argument about the work, and f) a
short anecdote explaining your interest in the author’s work.

Proviso: If you choose this option, you have to follow through by sprinkling little anecdotal comments
throughout your paper, and these comments should maintain the general focus with which you open the
essay. Do not write so much about yourself that you neglect the text you are analyzing or the theory you
are applying. Two or three anecdotal sentences, tightly bound to your critical focus, placed strategically
throughout the essay should suffice.

ↈ If you have not already mentioned the author’s name and the title of the text, do so now, couching the
information in transitional sentences that further outline your analytical focus on the author’s text. These
transitional sentences should serve as building blocks of the thesis, revealing your thoughts about themes,
characters, point-of-view, narrative structure, imagery, dialogue, stage directions, etc., as well as theory.
Disclose the theorist’s name (if you have not already done so), discussing the theory and its application
either to the text or to larger cultural issues pertinent to the text. These sentences may also comment on
literary devices or the author’s biography.

ↈ Whatever you include, take pains to make each statement relevant to the thesis—no puffery or
padding to reach required page length. Again, do not wait until the thesis to telegraph your theoretical
focus.

ↈ Lastly, posit your thesis linking theme and theory.
ↈ If your introduction contains two paragraphs, make sure the second transitions smoothly from the first.

An example of an opening paragraph: Here, then, is Christian’s introductory paragraph.

Human relationships and intimacy form the cornerstone to the phenomenology of our lived
experience. Concurrently, the spaces we inhabit and interact in are of fundamental import to this
experience, especially those spaces that straddle the boundary between the real and the imagined. For
Michel Foucault, these spaces are of particular interest and significance, and he termed these boundary
spaces—those spaces where society turns upside down, where incompatible worlds are juxtaposed—
heterotopias. In Patrick Marber’s Closer, these liminal spaces bear witness to the complexities of human
intimacy—the good and the bad. Likewise, the intricacies and nuances of Marber’s characters are a
perfect match for the environments they occupy. Just what Marber has to say through the mouthpiece of
his characters is clear: using heterotopic environments, Marber explores the mercurial relationship
between intimacy and deception. Set inside society’s fringes, Closer powerfully demonstrates that the
more intimate a thing is the more deception we find in it.