Short Story

Write a 3 page essay (5 paragraphs) about one of the following topics: 1- Explain the effects of setting on characters in a short story you have read this semester. 2-
Talk about the characteristics of the protagonist and the antagonist in a short story you have read this semester. 3- Discuss the importance of symbols in
communicating thoughts and feelings of characters in a short story you have read this semester. 4- Explain how conflict is the leading force behind the success of
fiction. Please, justify and illustrate your answers. Your essays should have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Refer to the lecture “Writing about
literature.” You can quote from the story you will choose to illustrate your answer. It is important to comment on the quotation you will cite from the story. In the
introduction, state your thesis, which you can extract from the question you are going to answer. You also have to give your plan of development, which means you have
to indicate how you are going to develop your thesis statement. Example: Birds are beautiful creatures that inspire positive feelings and thoughts. Plan of
development: They inspire positive feelings and thoughts since they are symbols of freedom, beauty, and perseverance. (Your plan of development can be extended to more
than three points if your paper is going to be long.) In the body of the essay, take each point from the plan of development and turn it into a topic sentence. Then,
provide illustrations from the story to support it. In the conclusion, recapitulate (summarize) the main points and end your essay with a final thought that refers to
what you have talked about; do not bring up any new ideas that you have not mentioned before since such you will be required to develop and illustrate again. In case,
you choose to respond to option # 4, in the introduction, address the essay prompt, which is: conflict is the driving force behind the success of fiction. What you
need to do is to state that indeed conflict is a necessary element in works of fiction and that it is the driving force behind the success of fiction since readers
anticipate what is going to happen next, sympathize with the characters during their struggles, and try to participate in finding a resolution to the conflict. Then,
give examples of characters from the short fiction we have studied to illustrate these main points, which you will discuss in the body paragraphs. What you need to do
is talk about how conflict leads to the success of each fiction that you have selected. Introduce that in the plan of development and then address each in the body
paragraphs. Use any of the stories you have read so far this semester. The stories we have read are: 1. Guy de Maupassant – ″The Necklace″ 2. Raymond Carver- ″Cathedral″
3. John Updike – ″A&P″ 4. James Joyce – ″The Dead″ 5. James Joyce – ″ Araby″ 6. Franz Kafka – ″ A Hunger Artist″