Guidelines:
We read a number of stories that we did not get a chance to talk about in class. George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant, Joan Didion's On Morality, Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, Jessica Midford's American Way of Death, Eudora Welty's Why I live at the P.O., Edith Wharton's Roman Fever, and John Milton's "When I consider how my life is spent" come to mind. I would like us to use this third exam to make up for lost class time and stray away for a moment from the traditional testing format--the one we have engaged in for exams 1 and 2--to return to the texts listed above. No fill-in-the-blanks, this time around in other words--it's an essay only exam.

And this is what I you would like you to address in your exam: All of the texts above have something in common; all of them deal, in one way or another, with the issue of morality. Some of the texts present scenarios in which people act in socially accepted ways; others question why and how something can be socially acceptable when it clearly diverges from what one would customarily consider "morally right;" others still engage the very concept of what "morally right" might entail and ask who, if anybody, determines whether something is "morally right" and in which situtation such standards may be applied. Now, while we did not get the chance to talk about morality in the context of the texts listed above, we did talk about "morality" to some extent when we discussed Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants, Flannery O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge, Hermann Melville's Bartelby, the Scrivener, and even in poems like George Herbert's "The Collar" and William Shakespeare's "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." Obviously there are more one could list, but these may serve as representative examples here.

In place of your third in-class exam then, I would like you to dicuss the concept of morality in the context of at least two of the stories, essays, or poems which we did not get to talk about in class and at least one of the texts that we did speak about in class. You may draw from any and all genres (or combination thereof) and any and all of the texts that we have read up to this point of the semester (excluding Hamlet/A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oedipus, and Dracula/Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). As in your short reflective papers, be sure to follow the clues the writer left you in laying his/her, the narrator's, or society's attitude and perception of morality. Why is morality so difficult to define and so frustrating to pursue and live up to? What is the dramatic effect of exposing morality as a social concern in fictional literature (short stories and poems) and how does that effect differ from a discussion of morality in non-fictional texts (essays)?

Don’t forget to support your argument with ample quotations from the texts you choose to discuss! top

In short: Write a short analytical paper that explores the concept of morality in three pieces of literature that we have read this semester. Develop an argument, introduce your paper and formulate a thesis statement, provide support in the body of your paper (quote the texts to which you are referring!), and conclude your paper in a confident and convincing manner. top

Structurally and mechanically, I need you to stay within the page limit— no fewer than 2 and no more than 4 pages in length, double-spaced, with a 1” margin all around (this translates roughly into 900-1,800 words—insert page numbers, please, top right hand corner, preferably). Proofread your paper and follow MLA conventions! Do not forget to give your paper a title that stands in immediate relation to your thesis statement, and be sure to sustain your focus throughout the entire paper. This means that as you write about morality, you need to make sure that each and every paragraph of your paper deals with this theme and that they are all headed by a topic sentence which leads the readers into the next part of your argument and prepares them for the textual support you have discovered. Above all then, focus on logic and coherence in your analysis. Take us for a ride but make us feel safe! top

I’m available for questions via e-mail and during my office hours. For appointments outside my office hours, talk to me after class or send me an e-mail. Proofread e-mails and drafts, please—remember this is an English class: Use language to impress, not to confuse or make your reader wonder whether you actually care or only threw something together at 2am on due-date-day. Clarity & style are just as important as logic & coherence! top