Assessment: Long Essay
Assessment Description and Requirements
You should make use of at least 2-3 secondary references for this assessment.
Instructions
- Write a 100-150 word plot summary of James Joyce’s “The Dead.” This summary of the events of the story can appear at the top of your essay or in the body of the essay. If you choose to ‘weave’ it into the body of your essay, be sure to do so early on (1st or 2nd paragraph) and to indent it on a separate line.
- Now write a 1850-1900 word essay on the following topic:
Conduct a levels analysis of James Joyce’s “The Dead.” In your analysis, make use of concepts from at least TWO of the following stylistic categories/areas:
- Foregrounding (internal/external deviation; etc)
- Transitivity, modality, cohesion
- Metaphor (extended metaphor or conceptual metaphor)
- Speech & Thought categories (direct, indirect, & free indirect discourse)
- Narrative mode (voice, reliability, focalisation)
- Mind Style & character
Possible discussion points:
- memory, absence, ‘ghosts,’ the uncanny
- history or the past and its relation to the present
- the representation of consciousness
- snow, music
- the linguistic basis of the story’s various effects
