Scene Analysis – Toni Morrison’s Jazz

Below are the instructions of the essay:

“Your paper should be at least three pages (not including the works cited) in double spaced, 12 point Times New Roman typeface.

It should include:

1. An introductory paragraph that fully establishes the paper’s specific topic or focus, and which ends wwith a precise and complete definition of your overarching original interpretive thesis about the larger meanings of Jazz.

2. Focused and in-depth analysis that probes the implications, connotations, and subtext of a single short passage or scene in Jazz. It is fine, and encouraged, for your paper to ultimately radiate outwards from its close analysis of a specific passage and to discuss other moments in the novel that connect to your larger thesis. But: close analysis of a single specific passage should be the foundation of the paper and should be the focus of a significant proportion of the paper.

Develop an original and complex interpretation of a novel by focusing not on what it is saying, but on how it is saying it. The purpose of this assignment is to approximate professional literary analysis. This isn’t like a conventional college term paper in which your job is largely to demonstrate that you have read and understood the assigned material. Rather, set out to ask “How can I say something distincitve and new about the meanings of this literary work–something that will surprise the reader, but which will also be persuasive to them?”

Any single passage should embody the larger meanings and implications of an entire literary work. Through intensive analysis of just one passage–which is to say, by treating that passage as a microcosm of the novel–explain unexpected, intriguing, and illuminating things about the larger meanings of the whole book.

Write this paper inductively–which is to say that you wwill begin by analyzing a single short passage in great detail. Your ideas about the meanings of the specific passage should gradually lead you to larger insights, and, finally, to an overarching argument or thesis about the meanings of Jazz as a whole.

The paper should be structured deductively–which is to say that once you have finally developed your larger argument about the novel aas a whole from your localized analysis of a single passage, you should incorporate that thesis into the beginning of the paper. The larger argument should be in your introduction, not your conclusion. The final version of the paper should proceed from your main idea, not toward it.”

The scene can be any which you choose to select, and can be as small as a selected paragraph up to a full scene lasting roughly four or five pages from the novel. Additional sources may be used but are not needed, but please include a short works cited page with a citation of the text (Toni Morrison’s Jazz) in MLA format.

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