Final Essay
“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Melville and “Young Goodman Brown” by Hawthorne
This essay must not use outside or secondary sources of any kind. It is to be your own analysis, supported by material from the assigned poems only. Do not use any form of internet search or internet material in any way for this assignment.
This essay must adhere to the 500-800-word range for essay content (does not include heading, header, title, or Works Cited page).
In both “Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Melville and “Young Goodman Brown” by Hawthorne, the title characters withdraw from life. Consider this as you read each story, and write a literary analysis essay answering the following three prompts:
1.What similarities and differences do you find in Bartleby’s and Young Goodman Brown’s withdrawal from society in each of these stories? Cite and explain at least two pieces of evidence from the text to support your claims.
2.What similarities and differences do you find in the consequences of these two characters’ withdrawal in each of these stories? Cite and explain at least two pieces of evidence from the text to support your claims.
3.What point are they each trying to make with their story? (What does each author seem to be telling readers through their stories?) And how does the character’s withdrawal from society convey the author’s idea/s? Cite and explain at least two pieces of evidence from the text to support your claims.
4. Highlight the following key elements in your essay:
• LIGHT GREEN: Your essay’s THESIS statement. 1-2 sentences at the end of your intro paragraph that introduce the main topics of your essay and show your stance on the prompts (either explicitly/directly or implicitly/indirectly,
• LIGHT BLUE: Your STANCE in response to each prompt question—It is required that each essay body paragraph begin with a sentence that provides your stance on the prompt question that paragraph will address—this is what needs to be highlighted in blue in each essay body paragraph. (Then, you will spend the rest of your paragraph supporting your stance/answer to the prompt.)
• YELLOW: The CLAIMS EVIDENCE you have chosen from the assigned reading and your research to support your stance/answer to the prompt and the claims you make in support of your answer. At least two different pieces of evidence per body paragraph (that is, per prompt) are required, and remember that MLA-style in-text citations are required each time you use source material.
• LIGHT GRAY: Your EXPLANATION of the evidence in EACH body paragraph. You MUST EXPLAIN HOW the evidence you provided supports your answer to the prompt question (your answer is your stance). Your explanation needs to be highlighted in light gray in each essay body paragraph.
• LIGHT PURPLE: The PARAGRAPH CONCLUSIONS your analysis of each prompt leads you to, at the end of each essay body paragraph. The core of your analysis is your explanation of the evidence.
Use these paragraph conclusions to help formulate your essay conclusion paragraph at the end of your essay, which needs to sum up the conclusions you have reached through your analysis throughout your essay and reiterate how your conclusions support your thesis statement. Your thesis statement should be restated (not repeated word for word) somewhere in your conclusion paragraph.
Your essay should “come full circle” in your conclusion paragraph by connecting everything back to your thesis statement/answers to the prompts. Use the conclusions you have reached through your analysis, which you will have highlighted in purple at the end of each essay body paragraph, as the basis of your conclusion paragraph.