“The Lottery” Read the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and form a 4-5 paragraph essay on one of the following topics: Discuss the theme of hypocrisy in the story. Discuss the importance of symbolism in the story, pointing out one or more symbols and explain what it/they signify. Analyze one of the characters in the story and discuss what he or she is motivated by, what type of character he or she is, and how he or she develops throughout the story. Instructions: Compose a critical analysis essay on one of the topics below. Your essay should be well developed, unified, coherent, and grammatically correct. Refer to the Grading Criteria for MCC English Classes in the First Day Handout for this course. Required length: 2 full pages Create a thesis statement, and back up your claim with support/evidence from the text. Support should contain clear, specific examples from the story or stories you are analyzing, as well as documentation for all text references. Include at least two quotations from the story in each body paragraph of your essay, for a total of 6 quotations from the story. Follow MLA format: Use size 12, Times New Roman font and 1-inch margins; double space. Include a Work Cited page. It is not included in the 2-page length requirement; it should appear on a separate page at the end of your paper. Composing a draft – Writing the introduction Open your essay by giving the author’s name, the title of the story, and a brief overview of the storyline of no more than 2 sentences. (Ex: John Updike’s story “A & P” reveals to readers the inner thoughts of a young man, Sammy, who works in a local grocery story. What makes the story intriguing is that Sammy’s reaction to the other characters is, ultimately, what leads to the story’s climax….). Do not begin by telling me that the author writes an exciting story, or the author did a great job with whatever. That’s just filling up space. The last sentence will be your Thesis statement. Writing the body paragraphs When you get to the body paragraphs, be careful not to summarize (retell) the story. The brief plot summary that you include in the introduction should be the only summary of the story. In each body paragraph, you will develop a specific point related to your thesis. (Ex: The first role Elisa Allen plays is that of the nurturing caregiver.) The sentences that follow should cite evidence, including quotations and paragraph/page references, from the text to support your point. Example of First Body Paragraph: The first role Elisa Allen plays is that of the nurturing caregiver. While she has no children of her own to tend, she pays careful attention to her garden and looks over the plants and flowers like a loving mother. She admits to Henry, “I’ve a gift with things, all right. My mother had it. She could stick anything in the ground and make it grow. She said it was having planters’ hands that knew how to do it” (Steinbeck 402). If she cannot take care of a child, she can at least give great attention and care to her garden. (Second Point under Body 1): Elisa is also a nurturing caregiver with her husband Henry as she irons his clothes, cooks his meals, and genuinely cares about the work he does on their farm: “You were right smart to get that price on that head of cattle” (Steinbeck 406). She chooses to see the positives in Henry rather than view him as a poor, country farmer. Concluding Sen: As Elisa proceeds in her life despite the emptiness of her womb, she proves that nurturing is innate in her character. Writing the conclusion The conclusion should express to the reader why what you have discussed is significant. (What point were you trying to make in your argument? What does the story reveal about human nature? How can readers relate to the story?) Do not simply write, “These are the symbols that represent Miss Brill’s character,” as this is redundant and boring. Instead, write something along these lines: Example: By examining Miss Brill’s inner thoughts as they are reflected in the images and symbols in the story, readers develop a sense of empathy for her. It is human nature to want to feel…. (Do not write: I learned a lot from this story or The author did a good job of writing this story. Blah blah blah) Preparing the Work Cited page Your Work(s) Cited should list the story you are analyzing (and any additional sources referenced in your paper). Within your essay, there should be specific references to the story with in-text documentation for each reference More Know –How’s: Title of your paper: not in bold, not underlined, not in quotations. Present tense means it is ALWAYS in present tense. You do not switch from past to present and back again. If it happened in the story, it is happening as you talk about it: Brown exits the forest with only his pride and leaves behind his wife, his God, and his town. Not: Brown exited the forest with only his pride and left behind… 2 pts every single time. Writer vs. speaker- The writer cannot say. The writer writes. You would not say: Hughes says to his instructor that they are alike. Hughes is the writer of the poem, but he is not necessarily the speaker. The speaker is the one who says he and the instructor are the same. Same thing with a story: the writer is not the narrator or a character. Do not say: Faulkner says that Emily is a fallen monument. Instead say: Faulkner uses the narrator to reveal that the town views Emily as a “fallen monument.” And do not write that the story says. A story cannot say or write itself. Comma Rule: Place commas around words that interrupt the flow of a sentence (nonrestrictive elements). Do not use comas when the information is important. Study the punctuation closely : 1). “The Chrysanthemums,” by John Steinbeck, is about a woman who longs to belong in a man’s world. (Notice by John Steinbeck is the interrupter in the sentence and needs commas around it. Also, the first comma goes inside the quotation marks, not on the outside. Short works like short stories, essays, and poems are in quotation marks. ) 2). Elisa Allen, the protagonist, shares an intimate moment with a complete stranger : “I wish a woman could do such things” (Steinbeck 634 ). (Notice the complete sentences in front of the quote, so you put a colon before the quote. Notice the period at the end of the sentence is not inside the quotes but after the citation. 634 is the page number and Steinbeck is the author’s last name where the quote is found. No comma is between them. 3). In John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums,” Elisa Allen’s flowers allow her a sense of motherhood: “It’s the budding that takes the most care” (633). (Notice the apostrophe after the author’s name because it shows possession. Notice the colon before the quote because it is a complete sentence before the quote that helps explains it. Notice the placement of the period after the citation. 4). In the short story “I Stand Here Ironing,” by Tillie Olsen, and the poem “A Negro Mother,” by Langston Hughes, the mothers are both hard working. (Notice there is NOT a comma before the title of the story or poem because you need to know which story you are talking about. A comma after “story” would mean the title is not important. Notice the comma inside the quotation marks after Ironing because the “In” at the beginning of the sentence makes it a introductory phrase. Notice that the author’s name has commas around it because it is an interrupter. Topic Sentences – A topic sentence is the first sentence of your paragraphs and (like the thesis does for the entire essay) it should reflect what the entire paragraph is about. It should not begin with a quote or a detail. Wrong Example: Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Hunger games. (This is a detail, not a topic sen). Correct Topic Sen: Katniss is the very definition of a hero because of her self-sacrifice. She courageously volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Hunger games, with no regards to her own safety. (The first sentence sets up that I will be writing about Katniss as a hero and that self-sacrifice is a trait of a hero throughout this paragraph. The second sentence is a detail from the book that proves my point- a detail sentence. ) 2) Textual evidence (quotes from your reading) and commentary (explanation) and Secondary Source quotes. 3) A concluding sentence. Do not end a paragraph with a quotation. Citation: Wrong: The slave mother still has hope for her children: “God put a dream like steel in my soul.” (Hughes 15). Correct: The slave mother still has hope for her children: “God put a dream like steel in my soul” (Hughes 15). The period does not go inside the quotation marks. It belongs after the parenthesis of the citation. A Drop Quote (don’t do this) A “dropped quotation” is when you do not integrate quoted material into your own work but leave the quote to stand alone between sentences, thereby disrupting the flow of the essay. You cannot begin a sentence with a quote. It must have a lead in. Wrong: The slave mother still has hope for her children. “God put a dream like steel in my soul” (Hughes 15). Correct: The slave mother still has hope for her children: “God put a dream like steel in my soul” (Hughes 15). (You needed to lead into the quote and have a colon before the quote begins.) Or The slave mother exclaims, “God put a dream like steel in my soul” (Hughes 15). Poetry: With poetry, you need to separate the lines with “/” slashes. You also cite line numbers instead of page numbers with poetry. Example: The speaker reflects,”What did I know, what did I know / of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (lines 13-14). The slash appears after “know” because that is the end of the line and the next line begins with the word “of.” Works Cited (centered) Author last name, Author first name. “Title of Poem.” Title (this line indented) of Textbook, edited by Editor’s (indented) Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry. The first line of the works cited entry (author’s name) is not indented. The second line and third ect… should be indented.Make sure you have a period at the end of the entry. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” Compact Literature, edited by Kirszner and Mandell, Cengage, 2016, pp. 448-57. EBSCO article (from MCC’s database system, which all your secondary sources will need to be from). Folks, Jeffrey. “Crowd and Self in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.” Southern Literary Journal, vol. 34, no. 2, 2002, pp. 301-306, EBSCO, Access No: 6970238. Who vs. That This is Relative Pronoun error. Usually this means you have used “that” when referring to a person or people while “who” is correct. Wrong: “I am a person that values honesty.” Correction: “I am a person who values honesty.” Sentence Structure If you’re sentence structure is weak: Your sentence are short and choppy. This is a college essay, and the sentence structure needs to reflect that in both structure, variety, and word choice. Wrong: The husband wants to control his wife. The husband will not let her drive. The husband is mean. He is a bully. (These are very basic sentences and need to be combined, cleaned up, and revamped). Correct: Because the husband seeks control in every area of his life, including the bedroom, he tries to control his own wife by not letting her drive, forcing her into sex, and becoming his own worst enemy by destroying his family from the inside out. How to lead-in to a quotation (Do not begin a sentence with a quotation). Use a colon to introduce a quote when the lead-in is a complete sentence. In the beginning of “The Lottery,” the crowd begins to feel very uncomfortable: “The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between them and the stool” (Jackson 217). Try to avoid using “the author writes, the narrator says, Jackson says,” -this is overused and not as strong. Use your own sentences to introduce the quote. Example: Miss Brill believes she is an important part of the performance, for “[n]o doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there” (Mansfield 243). You can also use brackets to change the grammar or tense of the quote to fit your sentence. Example: Miss Brill believes in her own importance and sincerely thinks “somebody would have noticed if [I] hadn’t been there” (Mansfield 243). (The “she” in the original quote can be changed to “I” to fit the meaning and grammar of the sentence by placing “I” in brackets to show that you changed a part of the quote. You can also lead into a quotation with an attributive tag where you name the author and work. Example: In the opening line of the poem “A Blessing from My Sixteen Years’ Son,” Mary Karr penetrates the heart of a mother: “I have this son who assembled inside me” (line 1). [This is a poem, so though it is found on page 729 in the book, poetry is cited with the line number.] Analyzing – There is an issue with your analysis: Possibly you are telling me a lot of details from the story, but not making a point about them. Remember, a critical analysis essay does not summarize the plot. I’ve read it. I know. You have to tell me the “so what” or the “why.” For example, in “The Disappearance,” if you say the husband controls her by not letting her drive or get a job. Ok. So what? I read that in the story. Your job is to analyze, which means to scrutinize, investigate, examine, and question. So you ask what does it reveal about the husband or their marriage or their culture that he had to control her this way and that she, in a sense, allows him to (until of course, she leaves). You have to ask what is the motivation of this character? What is the theme teaching us?