Book name: The Paper Menagerie (chapter: All the FLAVORS)
LINK TO THE BOOK: https://giganotosaurus.org/2012/02/01/all-the-flavors/
1,000 words
Analyzing a literary work, as with any form of analysis, requires the reader to break the text down into its component parts. While analysis might take many forms (especially in literary studies), for this essay I’d like you to focus on one very specific object, image, or phrase and discuss its significance to the text as a whole. As we’ll come to see, works of fiction frequently take things from the real world and load them with multiple, overlapping, or even contradictory kinds of significance.
Identify a particular object or phrase that is repeated throughout “All the Flavors” and explain its significance. We’ll discuss some of these sorts of objects or phrases in class, and you’re welcome to use one of these. You also might choose to focus on something else entirely—maybe something you notice but the rest of us missed. But you will need to focus on just ONE thing; please do not attempt to address multiple objects in your paper.
I would like you to show how your chosen object acquires a significance outside of itself. This paper should argue how your chosen object enriches our understanding of “All the Flavors” as a whole.
Organization
There are various ways to organize this essay. The simplest is probably chronologically, and you can certainly trace the development of your object across the course of the novella. But there are other approaches, too, that might be more substantial. For example, you might organize it according to character, devoting a new paragraph to how each different character encounters or interacts with the object. However you choose to structure your thoughts, each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence explaining the sub-argument you’re making (as opposed to just telling us what you’ll be discussing or simply narrating the next plot point within the story).
Your introduction, as always, should prepare your reader for your thesis statement—setting up the question for which your thesis provides an answer, for example. Your conclusion should not restate your thesis or paragraphs but should explain why your argument matters.
Requirements
Don’t forget to double space and provide the correctly formatted header and name/course/date!
