Final Research Paper Instructions

Please identify one or two crosscutting themes in two of the books you have read in this course. Once you identify the theme(s), state what theme you have chosen and make a brief analysis of the theme  in both books, pointing out if there are similarities and differences in terms of feminist analysis . The length of the paper may vary, but a 4-5 paragraph paper that states and supports your position is sufficient. 

For ideas on your themes, please visit:
https://literarydevices.net/a-huge-list-of-common-themes/

For support regarding Feminist literary criticism, please read information below: 

Tools of the Feminist Literary Critic

Feminist literary criticism may bring in tools from other critical disciplines, such as historical analysis, psychology, linguistics, sociological analysis, economic analysis, for instance. Feminist criticism may also look at intersectionality, looking at how factors including race, sexuality, physical ability, and class are also involved.

Feminist literary criticism may use any of the following methods:

• Deconstructing the way that women are described, especially if the author is male. This applies to both fictional characters in novels, stories, and plays, and women characters in nonfiction including biography and history.
• Deconstructing how one's own gender influences how one reads and interprets a text, and which characters and how the reader identifies depending on the reader's gender.
• Deconstructing how women autobiographers and biographers of women treat their subjects, and how biographers treat women who are secondary to the main subject.
• Describing relationships between the literary text and ideas about power and sexuality and gender.
• Critique of patriarchal or woman-marginalizing language, such as a "universal" use of the masculine pronouns "he" and "him."
• Noticing and unpacking differences in how men and women write: a style, for instance, where women use more reflexive language and men use more direct language (example: "she let herself in" vs. "he opened the door").
• Reclaiming women writers who are little known or have been marginalized or undervalued, sometimes referred to as expanding or criticizing the canon—the usual list of "important" authors and works. The retrieval of Zora Neale Hurston's writing by Alice Walker is an example. Another example: raising up the contributions of early playwright ​Aphra Behn, showing how she was treated differently than male writers from her own time forward.

• Reclaiming the 'female voice' as a valuable contribution to literature, even if formerly marginalized or ignored.
• Analyzing multiple works in a genre as an overview of a feminist approach to that genre: for example, science fiction or detective fiction.
• Analyzing multiple works by a single author (often female).
• Examining how relationships between men and women and those assuming male and female roles are depicted in the text, including power relations.
• Examining the text to find ways in which patriarchy is resisted or could have been resisted.

Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/feminist-literary-criticism-3528960