MLA, format; referencing p. 78-80
The Appearance of the Essay: see instructions 1 to 4
See example essay for first page format, p. 82
In addition: essay should be typed double spaced throughout; use wide margins.
Opening paragraph (49-50):
Constituents:
Make clear which author and text
Preliminary view of evidence
Link, leading to
Thesis statement
Thesis for an essay:
Heart of Darkness shows that civilized man cannot understand or accommodate to the African environment.
Opening: Conrad was a witness to the early steps in the colonization of the Congo: in Heart of Darkness he reports on the exploitation that took place in the name of civilization.
Evidence: The narrator Marlow is in some difficulty finding a language adequate to relate what he sees.
The story reaches an equivocal climax in Kurtz’s last words, “The horror! The horror!”
Link: In describing the destruction wreaked by the administration >
Thesis: > Heart of Darkness shows that civilized man cannot understand or accommodate to the African environment.
Body of essay: analytical paragraphs, Headrick, p. 8
Claim – follows from thesis (see below)
Evidence – quotations from the text, or, more rarely, summary statement of what is in text
Analysis – argument that the evidence reflects the claim
See sample essay, p. 82, second paragraph.
Each paragraph should follow something like this sequence of components.
Argument Structure (ties together whole essay) – e.g., p. 46-7
Example: note how theme of lack of understanding is developed in each paragraph; leads to culminating example of Kurtz in Claim 4.
Theme: The Heart of Darkness shows that civilized man cannot understand or accommodate to the African environment.
Claim 1: The story’s narrator shows that with the white man’s arrival in Africa he spreads destruction
Claim 2: Marlow’s language shows his difficulty in communicating his experience with words like “impenetrable”
Claim 3: Marlow’s descriptions show the hypocrisy and ignorance in the civilizing mission of the colonists
Claim 4: That the failure of the white administration is shown at its most horrific in the deterioration of Kurtz (his “unsound” practices, etc.; “the horror”)
Conclusion: Mention “exterminate all the brutes”
Literary Analysis, pp. 65-75
Purpose of critical sources: relate a critic’s point to your own argument
As general statement to enrich background
To extend critic’s point to apply to your context
To agree or disagree
General statements of critic that apply to your specific concern
In-text citations: examples of format, p. 80
And see sample essay, 7: pp. 100-106
Document created October 18th 2011