essay

Note: If this required paper is submitted late, a student would not earn any points but could possibly still pass the class (depending on the student’s points lost/earned) if it fulfills all aspects of the paper requirements and is turned in before 9pm on Saturday, December 5, one week after the original deadline.

Note: This paper topic is lengthy, in an effort to clearly explain what this paper entails.

In the short stories “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman we see men and women interacting with each other as marital partners. We see the men and women in each story struggling in their relationships, in different ways.

In this paper, please answer the following questions:

What does each of these two fictional short stories have to say on the subject of gender? What statement does each different story seem to be making about female behavior and male behavior? How does each author seem to be commenting on these behaviors? You do not need to see the same treatment of gender in each story, since they are quite different from each other. Your paper must include at least 2 quotes from each story, and 1 quote each from 3 different outside sources, as described in the Outside Sources sections below. Your essay must also follow the standard academic essay format, include a Works Cited page and use the MLA style to document all 5 of your paper’s works cited (the 2 stories and 3 outside sources).

In order to discuss what each of the two stories shows the reader on the subject of gender, you need to consider how the author depicts each gender in each story.

How is the female depicted? How is the male depicted? Through their depictions of male and female characters, what statement do you see Hemingway and Perkins Gilman making about the female and male genders or gender relations? Your analysis must be based upon specific examples from the stories. To show how the male and female are depicted in each story, you will want to consider anything the characters say, do or think — how do they behave and how do they affect each other? To show how someone is depicted, you need to give specific examples of their behavior, their actions, their thoughts, or their words.

How to Organize This Paper

It is easiest to organize your paper by discussing the two genders in one story, and then discussing the male and female in the second one, rather than moving back and forth between the stories throughout the paper. Most logically, you would have one section of your paper devoted to the Hemingway story, probably divided into Harry and Helen, and another section of your paper devoted to the Perkins Gilman story, divided into a discussion of the female narrator and the male, her husband John. Either in the Conclusion or elsewhere in the paper, you would also need to place these two stories’ treatment of gender in relation to each other, since your paper is about both stories. Your paper should discuss each of the two stories at roughly the same degree of depth and length, rather than focusing on one story more than the other.

Your paper must follow the standard essay format we have been using all semester, with an Introduction paragraph that mentions or lists the two stories’ titles and authors, as well as the paper’s subject of gender, and includes a clear thesis statement. The well-organized body paragraphs should focus on details from the two stories that develop and support the thesis statement. Your Conclusion paragraph should not simply restate the thesis, but offer additional insights on the topic of gender or on elements of analysis in your paper.

A complete Works Cited page listing all five written works cited in your paper, in alphabetical order by author last name, is required.

The basic requirements of the paper must be met. For example, if your paper falls quite short of the required minimum wordcount or does not use the required number of sources and quotes, etc. you could not only fail the paper but have to re-do the paper (for no points) in order to simply pass the class. Doing, say, half of the elements required of the paper would not earn half the points but would be considered not having fulfilled the paper assignment at all, unfortunately. Please keep this in mind.

Your analysis must be your own. Do not discuss your paper with another student — all work in this paper must be your own work, in accord with the academic standards of the college. Collaborating with another student or taking something written online and using those ideas as if they were your own constitutes Academic Dishonesty, and can result in not only failing the paper but also failing the entire class.

The Three Required Outside Source Types

To earn a passing grade for the paper, you must not only analyze the two stories as per the questions above, but also use three relevant sources on gender that conform to the description below.

Your outside sources must be as follows:

1. One source must be either the Hinshaw essay or the Pollack essay (not both). They appear in our course modules and have already been the subject of Assignments in our class, so you are familiar with them.

2. An ACADEMIC ESSAY OF YOUR CHOOSING that was published in an academic journal. You can find these essays in the Academic Search Complete database if you limit your search for “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals”. You can also find academic essays in the MLA Database, which we have already used in our Discussion Forum where you needed to find an academic essay that discussed one of the authors we have read.

Both the Academic Search Complete and MLA database are accessed through the College’s Library homepage, then clicking on “Research Tools”. You cannot use an abstract of an article (which is a summary), because it is not a full essay. You cannot use a Book Review, which also is not an academic essay. The Academic Search database can be found in the same list of databases as the MLA database of articles — they are listed in alphabetical order.

The Academic Search Complete database has both scholarly articles from academic journals and non-scholarly articles. When you are in the Academic Search Complete database, look below the Search Engine box, to the left. You will see “Limit Search” to “Full Text”, click on that box, and “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals”, click that, to find an academic essay. Limiting your search to Full Text allows you to only find articles that have been scanned and are immediately able to be read. Limiting your search to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals means that only academic essays will come up and you can use those.

3. EITHER ANOTHER ACADEMIC ESSAY that you find in the Academic Search Complete database or MLA database OR AN ARTICLE FROM A RESPECTED NEWSPAPER OR MAGAZINE such as The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, Time magazine, The Washington Post, Psychology Today, etc. Articles from respected mainstream newspapers and magazines can be found in several different databases, from Academic Search Complete to their own databases of past articles. The key is that if you choose to use a non-academic, respected newspaper or article, it needs to be a respected news source, such as the nation’s leading newspapers and news or psychology-related magazines.

Your outside sources cannot be random essays or sources found online. Sources for this paper must be published essays, newspaper or magazine or journal articles. Online essays are not published — anyone can put an essay up on their website. Your sources must be respectable or serious written works in English (not videos, podcasts, etc.) that appear in respected newspapers, academic journals or magazines.

The MLA Database appears in our Library’s list of Databases under the Research Tools tab on the Library’s homepage. Go to: Library, click Research Tools, click Research Databases, then click on either Academic Search Complete or MLA International Bibliography database. Click on Full Text to find articles in their full text mode.

Three Required Outside Sources

Your paper will discuss these two stories and include in your discussion three outside respected, non-fiction sources that discuss any of the following topics: gender; gender studies; gender behavior; differences between males and females; issues related to being male or female or both; aspects of gender that are relevant to the stories in some way, such as marriage or mental illness in women; the treatment of gender in fiction in general or the treatment of gender or male and female characters by the authors of these stories – Ernest Hemingway and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Your choice of sources must make logical sense in relation to our topic. For example, if you find an essay about gender differences in Chinese shoppers, this has no relevance to our particular paper. Or if you find a scholarly essay about the difference between male and female small business owners, this would, again, not be an appropriate source for this paper on gender in these two specific short stories. Your sources should be logical and relevant.

Please note that using outside sources takes time. You’ll need to locate potential sources on the database of articles, and skim-read them to see if they will work with your paper topic. For example, you might find an interesting article about gender differences, but once you skim read it, you realize it doesn’t connect very well to what you are discussing about the men or women in these two stories. It is part of your job as a writer to ensure that the outside sources make sense to use in your essay. This can require skim-reading essays that you then realize you won’t be able to use — this is not time wasted, but a typical element of writing papers that use outside academic sources.

Your paper is made up of your own analysis. But in using outside sources, we are adding voices to our discussion. They might agree with what you are saying, or they might simply provide an alternative opinion.

Works Cited Information

The Works Cited information for the Hemingway story is hand-written on first page. The Perkins Gilman story and Stephen Hinshaw essay both appeared in the 2013 edition of the book Portable Legacies, which is a collection. The William Pollack essay appeared in the 2009 edition of Portable Legacies, so all information is the same as the 2013 edition except for the date — same publisher, same editors’ names, etc. Thus, these 3 sources are all works within a collection or anthology.

QUICK SUMMARY OF PAPER #4

1. Must answer the boldfaced paper topic question for the two stories at the same degree of depth/length: 2,000 word minimum for the paper, which does not include Words Cited page. This mean at least 2,000 words plus the Works Cited page.

2. Must quote from each story at least twice.

3. Must integrate 3 outside sources (as described in paper topic) into your discussion. All 3 sources should not be lumped together in one section.

4. Must use the standard Academic Essay Format, with a thesis statement in the Introduction, etc.

5. Must have an MLA-style Works Cited page that correctly documents the two stories and 3 outside sources used.