English 328/ONF1
Fall 2020
Latin American/US Latinx Literature
Critical Essay
8 pages Minimum—to the bottom of Page 8 (Including five secondary, peer-reviewed sources—journal articles or book chapters, Works Cited Page, and an Imaginative Title)
First Draft Due (1-2 pages, Introduction, Thesis, and Beginning of Argument): December 4 by 11:59 PM in TurnItIn
Final Draft Due by 11:59 PM in TurnItIn December 16
No Exceptions!
In a critical essay, please respond to one (1) of the following questions:
- Please consider the narrative perspective in Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1983). The narrator is anything but linear in his storytelling, and oftentimes returns to an event (Angela’s sexual history, a murder) to tell the tale from a different perspective. What is the value in this changeable narrative position? What do you learn about story-telling from the narrator’s multiple perspectives? In your paper, choose three key scenes that illuminate something important about the narrative perspective. Please use evidence from the text to support your claims.
- Please compare and contrast the magical realism in any of the Latin American, or US Latinx short stories (Borges, Dávila, Naranjo, Machado, Díaz) we have read this semester by choosing 3-4 key scenes from no more than two texts to discuss. What does the magical world tell us about the “real” world? Why do you think the author chooses to tell this particular story through the magical realist narrative mode? Is the body of particular focus in the short stories you choose to focus upon, and if so, why? Please use evidence from the text to support your claims.
- We learn a lot about gender and work, and the way gender is connected to work, in Helena María Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus. In this paper, choose three key scenes from the novel that connect gender and work. What do these scenes tell us about US Latinx women’s identity? Is history, or historical time connected to the characters’ undertstanding of work, and gender? Please use evidence from the text to support your claims.
- In this paper, consider Gloria Anzaldúa’s famous quote, “To survive the borderlands, you must live sin fronteras, be a crossroads” (Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza). How do the characters in Helena María Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus occupy a “crossroads?” What are they moving away from, and toward what do they “cross over” to? Please use evidence from the text to support your claims.
- Helena María Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus is a story of women and men who work endlessly, and who often appear to have bottomless religious faith. Yet, this novel launches a serious critique of Christianity, specifically in the way the characters experience ethnic and social-class oppression. In this paper, choose three scenes in which religion is invoked to explain human events in the world. What is at stake in these scenes? Please use evidence from the text to support your claims.
Some Guidelines on MLA format and Essay Requirements
Please use Times New Roman 12 point font.
Your Works Cited page is not included in the page-length.
Please include at minimum 5 proper secondary peer-reviewed sources (distributed between journal articles, and book chapters) incorporated by direct quotation into the body of your argument.
You must not use internet sources of any kind.
The secondary sources you use must come from the Medgar Evers College Charles Evans Inniss Library databases. The best databases for literature sources include JSTOR (for journal articles), and Project Muse (for book chapters).
When you use a secondary source, you must weave a quote from the secondary source into your essay in some way. Of course, you will quote from the primary texts, too, to craft your essay. Please also include an imaginative title!
Please feel free to use any of the secondary sources I have included on your BB Course Materials page for this part of the assignment. Also, use your notes from video discussions and lectures to write your essay, if they are at all helpful to you.
Please incorporate through quotation the citations from your secondary sources into your essay, and follow all MLA Guidelines. Your secondary sources must be incorporated into the argument of your essay.
Many of you probably still have The Little Seagull Handbook With Exercises, (119-167) is where you will find all you need to know about MLA format.
If you do not have an up-to-date handbook on MLA format, please see the following Purdue OWL website(s) for all things MLA:
Basic MLA format,
For MLA in-text citations—and how to use signal phrases— go to
For MLA formatting quotations, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_quotations.html
For MLA Works Cited periodicals (secondary sources),
And for MLA Works Cited (primary sources),
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_page_books.html
You must without exception enter your essay into TurnItIn by the due date and time.
Please remember, you must follow ALL MLA GUIDELINES for in-text citations and your Works Cited page. You must choose ONE of the following questions, and discuss/argue it in the context of one, or, no more than two of the texts we have read this semester.
As this is a critical essay, you will demonstrate interpretive structure in your essay. So, you will establish a clear and strong thesis statement that your will then discuss. Your discussion will be grounded in quoting evidence from the primary text and the secondary sources to support your claims. Do not simply retell the events of the text in narrative structure. See the Critical Essay folder for further guidelines.
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