Discuss about midterm paper based on comparing and contrasting two gothic stories. Students should compare
characters from two stories that we have read so far. Select from the following list:
“The Lottery” -Jackson
“The Black Cat” -Poe
“Young Goodman Brown” -Hawthorne
“The Yellow Wallpaper” -Gilman
“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” -Marquez
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” –Bierce
“A Rose for Emily” -Faulkner
“Prologue to Invisible Man” -Ellison
“A Hunger Artist” -Kafka
By this point, there is no question that these texts are gothic, so let’s focus on what the characters teach us about gothic
limits, violence, death, and a return to normalcy. Do some characters reveal what we should do and some reveal what we
should not do? More specifically, this essay asks students to compare and contrast between two and four characters in order
to address some (not all) of these key ideas:
· Allan Lloyd-Smith encourages readers to ask about the Puritan inheritance, fear of democracy, and fear of
overturning race, gender, and sexuality codes. How do characters react when faced with these issues?
· Lloyd-Smith ultimately believes that the Gothic “explores chaos and wrongdoing in a movement toward the
ultimate restitution of order and convention”—the Central Gothic Irony (5). Do the characters you write about
desire normalcy or fight against it?
· Do events or scenes in the story fall under the definition of Todorov’s three terms: uncanny, fantastic, or
marvelous? Do the characters seem to follow the Spirit of Perverseness?
· How does the stories narration style alter reader sympathy or understanding? What does the focal distance or
internal/external narration do to readers’ understanding?
· Do the actions/emotions of the character lead readers to consider redemption or how they provide an allegory for
our present world?
Essay Details:
1. Make sure to begin with a strong thesis that you support by using evidence from the text. Also, use direct quotations
from the original text.
2. Write using clear paragraphs that contain declarative topic sentences.
3. Minimum 900 words.
4. You should not use outside sources—use notes from our class and handouts such as my handout on gothic definitions–
plus the handouts on Todorov and Lloyd-Smith’s chapter. [I will not accept papers that use outside sources]
5. If you have questions about Modern Language Association (MLA) format, writing a thesis, paragraph structure,
conclusions, or citations, please study the Purdue OWL website that is on our OpenLab course page. If you still have
questions after trying to answer questions on your own, then ask me.
6. Above all: choose characters and stories that interest you.
Grading Rubric:
1. First Page: A clear introduction, title, thesis, and method (25 points)
2. Formal Writing: Concrete nouns, well-structured sentences, and clear paragraphs (25 points)
3. Story knowledge: Accurate character, plot, narrator, and setting knowledge; correct weaving of at least four
quotations from the stories/articles (25 points)
4. Gothic terms: Accurate understanding and usage of specific gothic terms such as the gothic definition, hallmarks
of the gothic, central gothic irony, betrayal of innocence, and Todorov’s uncanny, fantastic, and marvelous (there are
others) (25 points)
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