Essay 3 workspace · Gothic Criticism
Gothic Literary Criticism Studio
A practice room for Essay 3. Choose a primary Gothic text, locate two critics of different types, outline the interpretive thesis, then draft the literary criticism essay.
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Purpose
Write a 1,500 to 2,000 word MLA literary criticism essay on one Gothic primary text. State a contestable interpretive thesis, support it with close reading, and engage at least two peer-reviewed critics from two different criticism types.
On this page
Required reading / assignment overview
Titles and how to use them live here. Library: SAC Library · A–Z databases.
How to use this studio
- Read the Purpose above.
- Open the reading and overview dropdowns on this page.
- Use Tools; pick this essay when a helper asks.
- Keep AI at Level 2 (support, not composition).
Assignment overview
- 1,500–2,000 word MLA literary criticism essay on one Gothic primary text.
- Contestable interpretive thesis; close reading; at least two peer-reviewed critics from two different criticism types; resistant evidence or alternative reading.
Required reading (primary — choose one)
- Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”
- Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery”
- William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”
- Or an approved focused comparison.
Starter criticisms (optional starters; verify full text)
- Poe: Cook “The Raven and the Antebellum Culture of Bereavement”; Miller “Prosody, Media, and the Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe”; Teitelroit “Poe’s Raven Says More Than ‘Nevermore’”; Hasan et al. on gloominess and despair.
- Jackson: Robinson on “The Lottery” and Holocaust literature; Bowers on Jim Crow America; Hakaraia with Empson; Hosseini-Maasoum et al. feminist analysis.
- Faulkner: Fetterley (The Resisting Reader chapter); Nebeker “Emily’s Rose of Love…”; Blythe “The Chivalric Narrator…”; Burduck “Another View of Faulkner’s Narrator…”
Practice helpers
Pick Project 3 · Gothic Literary Criticism in Tools.