ENGL 103 AS63 Guidelines for Assignment 1: Short Fiction Analysis
Value: 15% Length: 600-700 words Due Date: Sunday 5 February 2023
Using one of the topics below, please write a well-organized essay about one of the short
stories covered in the first four weeks of the course. Be sure that your essay has a clear thesis: a
central claim that is neither self-evident nor far-fetched. Support this claim with specific
references to the story you are discussing. These references should include at least some direct
quotations (which don’t count toward the 700-word limit).
For this assignment, you should focus on the primary text: the story you are analyzing.
You need not—and should not—look at secondary sources (published critical interpretations) on
your primary text. However, you can refer briefly to the Broadview anthology (Chalykoff et al.)
and/or to course notes, if these sources provide useful definitions, ideas, etc. to work with. You
can also refer to ideas about fiction from Atwood’s “Happy Endings” and/or Smith’s “True Short
Story.” Be sure to provide complete MLA-formatted information about your sources. Classes
during weeks 3 and 4 will review methods of analyzing, quoting, and citing texts.
These topics are quite general, and each should be applicable to several different stories
from the course, so you should be able to write about a work you find interesting.
1. “Epiphany: a moment at which matters of significance are suddenly illuminated for a literary
character (or for the reader), typically triggered by something small and seemingly of little
import. The term first came into wide currency in connection with the fiction of James Joyce”
(Chalykoff et al. 385). Analyze the role(s) of epiphany or epiphanies in any one story. (Joyce’s
“Araby” would be suitable, but so would be several other stories.) What is revealed, to whom,
and how? How does epiphany provide structure to the story?
2. In an interview, Ernest Hemingway describes the “principle of the iceberg” for fiction: “There
is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows” (Paris Review, 1958). Explain how
this principle applies to any one story (Hemingway’s own “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” would
be suitable, but so would be several other stories.) How and to what end does the story prompt
the reader to find meaning beyond the literal words on the page?
3. Several stories from the course leave readers to consider two or more alternative
interpretations of their endings and overall meanings. Choose one such story and use evidence
from the text to explain what you see as the most persuasive explanation of the story’s significant
features. If no one interpretation seems comprehensive, is the story weakened or strengthened?
(Suitable stories include, but are not limited to, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” “The Secret Sharer,”
“The Garden Party,” “Kew Gardens,” “The Demon Lover,” “The Star,” “Speech Sounds,” and
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”)
4. Analyze one story from the course in which setting—the specific physical environment where
characters exist and events take place—becomes more than just a necessary background. How
and to what effect does setting take on significance in its own right? (Most, if not all, works on
the reading list could be addressed under this topic.)