Requirements:\n• Length: 4-5 pages of double-spaced 12-point font\n\n\nTexts:\n• Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour” (The Bedford Guide for College Writers, pages 283-85).\n• Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “The Making of a Divorce Culture” (handout from Writing Today, pages 712-17).
A copy of this reading is posted in the Canvas Module for Week Eight.\n
• Note: Please do not use any sources outside of The Bedford Guide and Whitehead’s essay. Papers using external sources will not be accepted for grading.
\n\nContext:\nIn class, we have been reading and discussing Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” in the context of Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s “The Making of a Divorce Culture.”
Our discussions have raised the following hypothesis: Although Whitehead presents the “divorce culture” as a relatively recent development that has occurred since the late 1950s, many of the ideas that she presents as factors in the evolution of our modern “divorce culture” can be seen in Chopin’s short story, first written in 1894.
\n\nConsider, for example, how “The Story of an Hour” relates to the following elements of Whitehead’s analysis of the “divorce culture”:\n\n• Two Competing Ethical Systems: Whitehead emphasizes the contrast and tension between a traditional “ethic of obligation to others” (712) and a “new ethic of obligation to the self” (713).\n
• An Ethical Shift: One cause of the “divorce culture,” Whitehead argues, was a shift “away from an ethic of obligation to others and toward an obligation to self” (712).\n
• Greater Emphasis on Individual Satisfaction: This ethical shift was accompanied by greater emphasis on the rights, needs, wants, and inner experience of the individual (712-13).\n
• New Standard for Measuring Family Well-Being: With these changes, the “new metric” for judging the value and health of the family became the family’s “capacity to promote individual fulfillment and personal growth” (713).\n
• Loss of Family as Distinct Domain: The boundary between the family, traditionally a domain for duty and service to others, and the public marketplace, traditionally a domain for the pursuit of selfish interests, dissolved: “Once the domain of the obligated self, the family was increasingly viewed as yet another domain for the expression of the unfettered self” (713). \n\n
Writing Assignment:\nWrite a thesis-driven essay that answers the following question: To what extent does Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” align itself with or against the attitudes and ideas that Barbara Dafoe Whitehead presents as key factors in the rise of “the divorce culture”?\n\nTo answer this question, you will first need to analyze and explain which features of “the divorce culture” (as defined by Whitehead) are present in the world of Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” In the final analysis, your task is to determine whether Chopin’s story ultimately approves or disapproves of the shift in values analyzed by Whitehead.\n\nSupport your generalizations by referring to specific evidence from the story.\n\nPre-Writing Analysis:\nBefore writing your response, be sure to perform the following steps of pre-writing analysis:\n
• Read about the genre of literary analysis in Chapter 13 (The Bedford Guide for College Writers, pages 258-88).\n
• Review Whitehead’s “The Making of a Divorce Culture” and the assignments you have already written on it. Locate and mark key terms and passages that you will need to explain as you write this paper.\n \nStrategies for Developing Your Argument:\nFirst, try to read “The Story of an Hour” through the lens provided by Whitehead’s essay. Pay close attention to aspects of the story which may relate to what Whitehead calls the “change . . . away from an ethic of obligation to others and toward an obligation to self” (712).
Try to read and think about the story through the concepts and terms that Whitehead’s essay provides.\n\nIn the process, explore how Whitehead’s ideas help illustrate Chopin’s story, and how Chopin’s story helps demonstrate Whitehead’s ideas. Be sure to base your examination on a close reading of words and passages in both Chopin’s story and Whitehead’s essay. Whatever connections you draw, you need to back them up with supporting evidence (including quotations) from the texts.\n\nStrategies for Organizing your Argument:\nYour essay should take the form of an argument that advances a central claim or thesis.\nThis thesis should be summed up in a thesis statement that is clearly and directly delivered in the first paragraph of the essay. For this assignment, for example, a clear and direct thesis statement might resemble one of the following:\n\n• Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” strongly aligns itself with the attitudes and values that Barbara Dafoe Whitehead presents as factors causing the “divorce culture.” \n
• Although written in 1894, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” powerfully illustrates key ideas and attitudes that Barbara Dafoe Whitehead examines in “The Making of a Divorce Culture.” Chopin’s story clearly embraces the shift in values and ideas that Whitehead analyzes.\n
• Although “The Story of an Hour” illustrates some of the attitudes and ideas that Whitehead regards as factors in the twentieth-century rise of the “divorce culture,” the institution of marriage was still a much more powerful institution than divorce at the time Chopin was writing, and Chopin’s story illustrates the features of the “divorce culture” only to a minor extent.\n\nFor such a thesis statement to be understandable to your reader, you will have to explain what Whitehead means by the “divorce culture” and describe its key features. As in your last essay, you will need to define your key term(s) clearly at the outset of your essay. Otherwise, your argument will be vague and imprecise, and your reader won’t be able to understand your point.\n\nIn addition to containing a thesis statement and a brief definition of your key term(s), the first paragraph of your essay might also include an essay map—that is, a statement which “maps out” or lists (in the order in which the essay discusses them) the main supporting reasons or subtopics of the argument.\n\nChecklist for Revising:\n
• Thesis: Does the essay contain a thesis statement? Is the thesis or main claim stated directly and clearly in the first paragraph? Does the thesis directly address the question of the assignment? Does the essay clearly take a stand on whether or not Chopin’s story aligns itself with the features of the “divorce culture”?\n
• Essay map: Is the thesis statement accompanied by an essay map—a brief statement of the supporting reasons in the order in which the essay discusses them?\n
• Key terms: Are key terms defined clearly in the first paragraph? Is it clear what the essay means when it refers to “the divorce culture” or to “an ethic of obligation to others”?\n
• Supporting Evidence: Does the essay display supporting evidence (including quotations and paraphrases) to back up its interpretations? Does it support its claims with ample evidence from Chopin’s story? \n
• Quotation: Does the essay use direct quotation accurately? Does it place borrowed words and phrases within quotation marks, without introducing any changes, except for those indicated by an ellipsis (three spaced periods, like these . . .) or by square brackets [like these]? Does the essay set up a relevant context for its interpretation of quotations, so that it avoids dropped quotations? Does it avoid reading quotations out of context and misrepresenting their meaning in the context of the story? \n
• Paraphrase: Does the essay paraphrase accurately, without misrepresenting or distorting its sources? Does it clearly attribute the ideas it paraphrases to their author(s)? Does it avoid plot summary, except to provide necessary contextual information?\n
• Organization: Is the argument organized logically, so that it sets forth its claims in an orderly manner? Does the essay define its key terms before deploying them in its analysis? Does the essay contain an essay map? Do the topic sentences of the body paragraphs correspond to the subtopics listed by the essay map?\n
• Persuasiveness: Is the argument convincing? Does it contain any errors in reasoning or judgment? Does it display sufficient supporting evidence? Does it acknowledge and address opposing arguments (the counterargument)? Does it argue reasonably against opposing arguments and for its claim? \n
• Present tense: Does the essay use present-tense verbs when discussing literary characters and themes? Does it use the present tense when discussing what a non-literary text says or does?\n
• Grammar and mechanics: Does the essay avoid obvious grammatical and mechanical errors (sentence fragments, comma splices, sentence fusions, problems with agreement, etc.)? Is the essay well edited and proofread?\n
• Works Cited: Does the essay contain a Works Cited page that follows the MLA style? Does the Works Cited page contain an entry for both Chopin’s story and Whitehead’s essay? Do these entries follow the format for citing “Essay, Story, or Poem from a Book,” as illustrated on page A-34 of The Bedford Guide?\n• MLA Style: Does the formatting of the essay resemble that of the sample MLA essay on pages A-2 and A-3 of The Bedford Guide? Are sources cited according to the MLA style for in-text citation, as shown in Section E-1 on page A-32 of The Bedford Guide? \n\n
