Engl 364
Options for your Second Paper
**** use your first assignment prompt for the paper guidelines ****
Your second paper must focus on one (or two, if you are comparing stories) of the stories read during weeks 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13. See the instructor if you are interested in writing about a topic that is not listed. See schedule for due date.
Choose a story; then choose an option to write about.
1) Wright, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" a) With the gun under his pillow, Dave feels "a sense of power. Could kill a man with a
gun like this. Kill anybody, black or white" (1430). What does Dave still have to
learn before he can be called a man? How does the story bring it home? b) Comment on the possible implications of Dave's remark: "They treat me like a mule, n then they beat me" (1435), both within the story and in a broader social and historical context. Does Dave's killing the mule have a symbolic significance?
2) Camus, "The Guest" a) Camus once wrote in an essay titled "The Wager of Our Generation" (1957), "No great work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it." Write an essay in which you evaluate "The
Guest" in light of Camus's statement. b) Why has Daru drawn the four rivers of France on the blackboard of his Algerian
schoolroom? Why does his action turn out to have ironic implications at the end of
the story?
3) Welty, "A Worn Path" a) Discuss the symbolism of birds in "A Worn Path." b) Explain why many readers think that Phoenix Jackson's grandson is dead.
4) Olsen, "I Stand Here Ironing" a) Compare and contrast Emily's talents and her mother's. b) Analyze the politics of "I Stand Here Ironing."
5) Paz, "My Life With the Wave" a) In what ways does the wave resemble a human woman? What problems occur in the
love affair because the narrator's lover is a wave? (You might consider to what
extent the narrator's fantasies about women reflect stereotypical qualities that men
often attribute to women.) b) Despite the unhappy ending of the love affair, "My Life With a Wave" is often humorous. Give examples in the story of the narrator's (and the author's) sense of humor. How does this sense of humor influence the reader's response to the story?
6) Paley, "A Conversation with My Father" a) Analyze "A Conversation with My Father" as a story about writing. b) What does the narrator add to her story in the second version? Does the point of the
story remain the same? Does her father get the point? What do you make of the
narrator's father's three responses to the story? Do they cohere?

7) Ozick, "The Shawl" a) Discuss Ozick's use of sensory images and their contribution to the overall story. b) Compare and discuss the theme of quiet desperation in Ozick's "Shawl" and
Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper."
8) Garcia Marquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" a) Recharging the sense of wonder: How does Garcia Marquez make the reader believe
in his angel? b) Compare and contrast the story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" with "My
Life with the Wave" by Octavio Paz.
9) Roth, "The Conversion of the Jews" a) Roth doesn't seem to resolve any of the issues he raises in the story. Discuss his
intentions in the story, and decide whether or not he has been successful in his
presentation. b) A reader could say that Roth is using the character of Ozzie to advance his own social agenda. Discuss this possibility.
11) Carver, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" a) Identify and describe changes in the setting over the course of the story. Discuss how the setting mirrors Carver's message about the stages of love. b) Compare and discuss the concept of marriage in Carver's "What We Talk About
When We Talk About Love" and Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper."
12) O'Brien, "The Things They Carried" a) Bobbie Ann Mason states that ". . . it is our impulse to deal with unspeakable horror
and sadness by fashioning some kind of order, a story, to clarify and contain our
emotions" (Charters1532). Analyze how this statement can be applied to O'Brien's
"The Things They Carried." b) Compare and discuss the quality of endurance in O'Brien's "The Things They
Carried" and Ozick's "The Shawl."
13) Diaz, "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie" a) The syntax of the story is weighted with many contemporary colloquialisms. Discuss
whether these terms will present difficulties for future readers or whether they help
lend the story a stronger sense of verisimilitude. b) Discuss the impact (on the reader) of Diaz's choice in using second-person point of
view to tell this story. How might this story differ if it were written in a different
point of view?