ENGLISH 2850
SHORT ESSAY #2
DUE DATES:
 To count, your Essay #2 must be posted to the class blog no later than 12 pm on
Thursday March 22. http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2850spring2012/
 The second part of this assignment is to comment on at least two other
classmates’ Essay #2 blog posts by 11 pm on Saturday, March 24; comments
posted any later will not count toward your grade. In your comments, write at
least four to five sentences and up to two short paragraphs responding to a
specific idea in the author’s post. Explain the reasoning behind your response.
Students who fail to post at least two comments will not receive a grade higher
than C- on this assignment; in addition, the overall quality (thoroughness and
thoughtfulness) of your comments will count toward your grade. Your comments
should engage with something specific in the original post, not just say “good
comment” or “I agree.”
NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
Background
So far in this course, we haven’t read any women writers. That’s about to change: we
will read some powerful female voices of the twentieth century. And we will talk a
lot about how women are depicted in literature.
Though we may not have read any works by women yet, we’ve certainly seen some
compelling and suggestive representations of female characters.
Essay 2 Topic
For your Short Essay 2, you will make an argument about the characterization of
women in two nineteenth-century texts. For your two texts, you must select one
from Group A and one from Group B:
Group A: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats OR “A Carcass” by Charles
Baudelaire
Group B: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, OR “The Lady with the Dog” by
Anton Chekhov, OR “Punishment” by Rabindranath Tagore
Write an essay drawing from your two chosen works (remember, choose one text
from Group A and one text from Group B). In the two works you selected form
Groups A and B (above), how are women characterized? What attitude toward
women is suggested? So what? (What point would you like to make about the
characterization of women and attitude toward women that you’ve noticed?)
Further instructions:
Your Essay 2 should be a complete mini essay. Be sure to provide an introduction
that clearly lays out the primary point you want to make. In the body of your essay,
include well-chosen quotations from both of your chosen texts. Use these quotations
to advance your main point. Be sure to explain the relevance of your quotations and
how they help prove your point—that is, analyze your quotations, in the same way
we have analyzed many scenes and images in class (for instance, in our discussion of
the curtain-hanging scene in The Death of Ivan Ilyich in class on March 13). Go deep;
explain the connotations of your chosen quotations.
There will be no revision option for Essay 2.