This essay may be on any of the texts we have read in the class, provided that you have not already written on them in a previous assignment. No William Blake, please. You should write about new material that you haven’t written on previously. This essay will be a literary research essay. That means you will engage with what other scholars in the field have to say about your topic. Specifically, the essay: must be 4-6 pages, double-spaced, stapled in a reasonably sized 12 point font. Number your pages. Give your essay a title. You love it. Would you not give it a name? must use MLA style documentation, including a works cited list. must consult and engage with at least 3 reputable scholarly articles or books; at some points you will need to fully summarize and explain the authors’ claims with which you are dealing. ONE of these essays may come from something I have posted on blackboard. You must directly quote each source in your essay TWO times. What is a scholarly article or book? It is a study written by an expert (often a Ph.D.) on the subject. General interest publications and blogs found on Google are not scholarly. You will find scholarly articles and books generally through library databases. We also call these secondary sources. The book you are writing about is your primary source and DOES NOT count as one of the three sources. See my research tutorial voice thread on blackboard for how to find scholarly articles and books. And, I say this every time, on all my assignments: I expect to see a focused argumentative thesis with supporting points based on textual analysis. Use the text as support, meaning, you must build your argument through close reading and explanation of actual passages in the text. Fully develop your analysis. A quotation from the text will not illustrate your thesis on its own. You must teach the reader, through close reading and elaboration upon details in the passages, how it relates to your thesis. It is also better to elaborate in detail upon one example than to bring in too many undeveloped examples. Pick one of the critical articles I’ve provided in the weekly guide, or if you are writing about Jesus Son, an article of your choice. Your research essay should offer your interpretation of the ending of Sula or any other text we have read. You should begin the essay with a short analysis of a passage from the final pages. Then, explain how the critical article you read adds to your thinking about one of the endings. What exactly, is the text really about? What, for example, is most important about it? Is it a story that “centers dark women,” as one writer has claimed? If so, what does that mean and how does it do this? You should, as required, incorporate two other research texts into your essay. 2. In “The Necessity of Disability in “Good Country People” and “The Lame Shall Enter First,” Laura L Behling argues that O’ Connor uses disability as a way to picture “humanity’s sin,” it’s moral impairments (80). She contends that the disabled are necessary in O’Connor’s vision to “expose imperfection in humanity” that is not visibly disabled (80). Extending from this article (which you should summarize in your essay), how do you believe disability functions in any of the texts we have read? 3. In “In Search of Self: Frustration and Denial in Toni Morrison’s Sula,” Marie Nigro dwells on Morrison’s description of Sula as an “artist with no art form” (92). How does she explain this characterization of Sula? In what ways does Morrison examine Sula’s development as an “artist” figure. How does Sula’s path from girlhood to woman figure in here? 4. In Toni Morrison’s Sula: A Black Woman’s Epic, how does Karen F. Stein explain the problem of freedom in Sula. How do you explain it? Do you think Sula’s desire to live outside of norms makes her an amoral character? How does any of this relate to Sula’s girlhood? 5. How do male characters in Sula suffer from what Morrison describes as the “wasteful capitalist war had on black people?” 6. In “Fractured Families,” Tony Magistrale writes that O’ Connor’s characters often “rebel against their responsibilities as parents” and that at “the core” of her “nuclear families is a mixture of resentment and perversion” (113). How might this claim apply to any of these texts we have read most recently? How do “fractured families” function in Jesus Son. In what ways does “family” operate in Sula. How and what do family members do to each other? 7. What is the same and different about Antigone and Sula’s relationship to gender norms? How do each embody the characteristics of an epic hero? A good thesis template: While both…., they are also different because….. 8. How does the model of defiance exhibited by Antigone compare to any other character we’ve read about this semester? (While these questions focus heavily on Sula, you may write about other texts we’ve read this semester or you may write compare/contrast. I think Antigone makes an incredible figure to compare with Sula).