HXE 112- Reading and Writing about Literature

Dr. Mohamad Rashidi Pakri

Individual Essay (10%)

This paper needs requires you to perform at least two tasks in details. The analysis of
the novel should be developed as a way of addressing, understanding, resolving, or
complicating the issue or topic you set out to discuss (as per required by the question). The
analysis of novel involves discussion of the specific elements of the texts (plot, character,
symbols, themes, etc.) and how their choice and arrangement produces a new way of
looking at or understanding of the novel. It is important to cite evidence from the text, either
through actual quotations or by reference to page numbers. In developing your argument,
you might wish to browse some of other reading materials such as newspapers or journals.
You might very well proceed in one of the two directions. For example, you may pinpoint
you’re the character, and then choose to explore that character and relate that character to
another character. Or you may choose symbols that seem related to each other, and from
them develop a common argument/significance. It may appear that the characters novel
reinforce each other, or that the different symbols seems to present different meanings.

Draft your paper by first writing an introduction that sets out the problem or issue;
this paragraph should be at least 200 words. Then draft analyses of specific passages or
elements from the question you have chosen. Then try organising your material into a
sequence that makes argumentative sense, and write a draft that connects the introduction
to the analytic parts (you may include this draft in the first part of your essay for my
reference)

Length: 4-5 pages, double-spacing.

Due date: Week 8

Questions:

1) Discuss the relationship among the characters in The Mimic Men (1967) and their
attitudes towards each other.

2) Examine the symbol(s) being used in The Mimic Men (1967) and explain the
significances of those symbols in relation to the novel.