This is an open prompt meaning that you get to explore a critical question of your choice. Select one of the literary texts weve read this semester Flight to Canada by Ishmael Reed or Hunting
in Harlem by Mat Johnson and explore what that text is doing. Remember, satire does not operate in a vacuum. Satire is referential meaning that its making fun of something. So, if your
job is to explain what the text is doing, you will also have to understand the topic the novel is referencing. It would be impossible to explain Flight to Canada without some knowledge of U.S.
slavery or the Black Arts movement of the 1970s. You couldnt explain Hunting in Harlem without some awareness of the Harlem Renaissance, gentrification, the prison industrial complex, or
assimilation debates within African American uplift and civil rights.
This paper is an exercise in close reading, so please do not think of this as a research paper. You are not required to bring in secondary sources unless you find that reading critical work helps you come to a better understanding of the novel. Be sure to cite textual evidence (in the form of quotations) to back up your analysis of the novel.
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