Your primary task in this essay is as follows:
Focusing on one specific theme or topic, advance an argument about what and how the novel means to you and
how those meanings are situated within broader systems of cultural values
Your argument must be thesis driven. In other words, make a strong, focused, debatable claim about the novel, and
then provide compelling evidence designed to persuade your reader to see it your way
You don’t need to have right answers. You just need to craft compelling arguments
Some possible themes/topics to explore within the novel:
Individuality and conformity
Coming of age
The nature and aims of education
Social class
Ethnicity and/or race
Gender, womens empowerment
Tricksterism, brains over brawn
Tribalism, or modes of forming human groups
Nature vs. nurture
Technology (many, many options here)
Utopia vs. dystopia
Also, feel free to let your choice of topic or your response be shaped by our guiding course questions (from the syllabus):
What are the roles of media and technology in contemporary human lives? Are media and technology merely
neutral tools at our disposalmere objects to be picked up and put down at our convenienceor do they perhaps
constrain, expand, or otherwise influence who we are and how we live? Do media and technology merely reflect, or
might they also shape, how we understand concepts like race, gender, and sexuality and what it means to be a
human being? What, if anything, can we learn about ourselves, each other, and contemporary American culture,
through reading and writing about popular culture [or this novel in particular]?
If you have a few different possible topics in mind, try the following approach to see which one feels most promising:
1) Plug each theme into this question: What does the novel suggest about [some specific topic]?
2) Come up with a claim, and list as many pieces of evidence as possible from the novel.
3) Ask: In light of the above two exercises, which topic feels strongest and most significant?
Questions and ideas for conducting invention work and constructing your analysis:
What do you find most compelling about the novel? Which characters did you find most engaging? Which
technological features most peaked your interest? Which elements of the plot? Why?
Is this a good novel, a bad novel, or something in between? Why? Do you find its messages on your chosen topic to
be productive, troubling, or something in between? Why?
What systems of meaning and cultural mythologies circulate within the novel? Where in particular? For instance,
does the novel seem to embrace todays ideas about gender or education, or does it posit a different model? How so?
Remember, were not necessarily aiming to uncover some hidden authorial intention hereas we discussed in class,
every text reflects something of the time and culture in which it was created. Think of your chosen film as a mirror
and investigate how it might help us see something of ourselves reflected within it.
Regarding research: Rather than simply looking for something to quote, look first and foremost to engage with
readings that will help shape your thinking about the text in fundamental, substantive ways. Your research should help
inform your understanding of the text, bolster your knowledge of the subject matter, and support your overall
argument about the novel.
DISCLAIMER: Please cite only the book(including page number) and do not use any outside sources.
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