Below are several essay topics from which you may choose. These topics are meant to guide your research and writing. You will refine your topic to arrive at a specific focus for your essay. Several of the essay topics include a list of guiding questions to help you choose a      focus; keep in mind that you do not have to address every question listed within the topic.

The final option is an essay topic of your own choice. If you choose this option, you must consult with me and get approval for your topic. Essays on unapproved topics will not be graded. Please write your potential topic in a few sentences or as a research question and submit it to me by Wednesday, March 8.

1.   Choose two short stories and compare how the stories approach themes of nature and the

city. Do the stories suggest certain moralities or attitudes are fostered in these environments? Do the stories promote certain values or moral lessons in relation to nature, the city, or both concepts? How do ideas of nature or the city affect the stories and characters? You may focus exclusively on the city or exclusively on nature rather than comparing both concepts. *Do not use the same short story that you used for Assignment 1.

2.   What social problems and social constructs are important in Maggie, A Girl of the

Streets? How do these social issues affect Maggie and the other characters? Do any social topics appear to be the main concern of the novella, and if so, how do they impact the       story? Social problems include alcoholism, poverty, racism, violence, etc. Social constructs include economic systems, traditions, religion, class, etc.

3.   How does the physical or material environment shape the lives of the people in Maggie a

Girl of the Streets? What environments are shown? How does the story describe different places? Do different environments have unique effects? Does environment shape the        lives or morals of the characters more than other circumstances? You might consider the tenements, the workplaces, and entertainment venues.

4.  Maggie, A Girl of the Streets was criticized for its depiction of Maggie’s sex work. Consider gender in the story. How does the novel treat women and men? What different attitudes towards sexual relationships and sex work are shown in the novel, and what meaning may we take from them? How are women and men responsible (or not responsible) for sexual behaviour in the novella?

5.   The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and artistic flourishing for Black Americans that turned Harlem into a unique cultural centre. Zora Neale Hurston ’s essay, “How It Feels to Be Coloured Me,” and Langston Hughes’ poem, “Let America Be America Again,” both deal with concepts of race and place. Consider the essay and the poem together. How do they express the experiences of Black people in relation to place? Do   the works show mostly similar or different ideas? How do these works reflect the history and ideas of the Harlem Renaissance? What other important meanings might we take from reading these works together?

6.   American literary regionalism refers to literary works that reflect the distinct geography, culture, dialect, traditions, and history of a particular region (although a single regionalist work may not explicitly include all these categories). Choose two short stories and consider how the authors depict a certain region. How do the authors address the natural  world and the human material world? According to the stories, what are the defining features of the regions and the people who inhabit them? These features may be geographical and physical or characteristics like values and cultures – you may consider  how the physical environment affect the people’s personal and collective identities. How do the depictions in the stories compare?

7.   Choose two short stories for a comparison essay. What do the two stories have to say about life in the country versus life in the city? What do they say about people who live   in the country and the people who live in the city? How do the two stories work as a pair; that is, what more can we learn from looking at them together? Do they give us an insight into historical concerns or social constructs? Do they show different sides of a conflict, or do they show a more complete picture of one attitude, belief, or concept? *Do not use the same short story as you did for Assignment 1.

8.   After Alexandra decides to expand her farm in O Pioneers!, she realizes “how much the country meant to her.  The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music.  She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the

sun.  Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring” (71).  At the very end of   the novel, the narrator exclaims, “Fortunate country, that is one day to receive hearts like Alexandra’s into its bosom, to give them out again in the yellow wheat, in the rustling     corn, in the shining eyes of youth!” (309).  What is Cather suggesting in these passages,  and others like them, about the relationship between the land and the people who work it, between the natural and human worlds?

9.   After Alexandra rejects her brothers’ patriarchal advice about what she can and cannot do with her land, Oscar and Lou conclude that “Alexandra ain’t much like other women-folks” (173).  In what ways is this assessment true?  What qualities of character, imagination, and spirit distinguish Alexandra from most of the people, both women and men, who surround her?  How does her attitude and behavior defy the conventional expectations for a woman in her time and situation?

10. Alexandra is deeply tied to the land, and yet her greatest hope is for her brother, Emil, to leave the farm and go to college, to have a personality apart from the soil.  Why does Alexandra wish a different life for Emil? Why does the novel suggest the farming life     would not be so meaningful if the world did not also have other achivements?

11. Emil ’s and Marie’s love is both condemned and exalted in the novel. The narrator  describes “the stained, slippery grass, the darkened mulberries, told only half the story.  Above Marie and Emil, two white butterflies from Frank’s alfalfa-field were fluttering in and out among the interlacing shadows; diving and souring, now close together, now far apart; and in the long grass by the fence the last wild roses of the year opened their pink hearts to die” (270).  How can we understand this love story and its   consequences? Be sure to address Alexandra’s responses to the affair and its end throughout the novel.