Characters and Themes

Purpose: When studying literature, particularly short fiction, it is crucial to practice close reading. This includes scrutinizing and evaluating important words, phrases, and passages from the text in order to have a better understanding of the story’s point of view, characters, setting, tone and style, themes, and symbols. This assignment will focus on studying characters, symbols and themes to understand the life they bring to stories. They help us understand writers’ intentions and sometimes even motivations, which are not always literally revealed on the page. Sometimes we must read between the lines and offer our own opinions and interpretations in order to analyze successfully. This is why our first assignment will allow us a chance to do close reading, support a controlling thesis, and practice analysis in a relevant and meaningful way.

Topic: Reality Bites gives us a depiction of the struggles college students face after graduation when they encounter a difficult transitional period in their lives. Choose 2-3 conflicts the film addresses and analyze the role these conflicts play in the lives of post-graduates, both in the film and in real-life. You might want to address whether or not you find the conflicts occurring in the film realistic and how such conflicts have changed or stayed the same over time. Somewhere in your paper, make a connection to another story or play.

Essays must be in MLA format – typed, double-spaced, 12-point font and with a Works Cited page. Essays must be between 4-6 pages (4 is the minimum and 6 is the maximum). Not including works cited page.

You must use 4 sources in this essay:

1. The first is your primary source (the story you are focusing on). You should consistently reference this story throughout your essay. Quote from the story at least 3-4 times.
2. The second is your secondary source ” The Storm” or “Sure Thing ” (another story, play or film from the sources I assigned to which you’re making a connection in one paragraph). For a full list, see the “Text” section of this assignment sheet. Quote from the secondary source at least 1-2 times.
3. The third is a web article (a credible newspaper or magazine article) that you have researched and find both relevant and credible. Quote from the web source at least 1-2 times.
4. The fourth is a scholarly article from a scholarly journal or book (scholars are people with high degrees who publish peer-reviewed articles in their studied field). Quote from the scholarly source at least 1-2 times.