Multicultural American Literature 1 Essay 1 Guidelines

Due Date: Insert link to your google doc to Moodle assignment portal by March 13.

Your essay is a literary analysis in support of a thesis statement. Your goal should be to enhance
your readers’ understanding of ONE of the topics listed below. Based on the selected topic,
narrow your essay’s focus by selecting three major issues that are related to that topic. Carefully
examine how these particular issues are portrayed and critiqued in the novel.

Primary Text: Tommy Orange’s There There

Audience: Your intended audience are readers who are familiar with the text and will not need
obvious aspects of the work summarized for them. Instead, refer to specific parts of the texts to
help your readers see them in the context of your selected topic.

Textual Support and Reference: You are required to have a minimum of 5 quotations that are
drawn from the text. Ensure that each quotation is sufficiently contextualized and each is
interpreted in relation to your topic. Do not use quotations that exceed 3 lines of typed space and
do not superficially drop in quotations.

Length: 800 – 1000 words, double-spaced type written

Guided Questions:

(1) Monolithic images of Native American people have persisted to this day. These hegemonic
narratives perpetuate the idea that Native American identities are fixed or static, stuck in the past.
Discuss how Tommy Orange’s novel attempts to counter monolithic presentations of Native
American people. Does he succeed with his goal to present modern “urban Indians” without
succumbing to stereotypes?

(2) In an interview with Read it Forward, Tommy Orange defines home as “moveable,
replaceable, and malleable. Home can mean so many different things to so many different
people, but once you know what home is for you, it can’t be replaced by anything.” Orange’s
cast of characters are also negotiating or trying to construct a sense of home for themselves.
Select three characters and examine how each negotiates his/her own sense of home.

(3) Unlike the other chapters of the novel, the Prologue and Interlude sections of There There is
narrated by a first person plural “we”. Both narrate a history of various types of violence against
Native American people. While the prologue mainly presents historical instances of violence, the
latter part of the Interlude forecasts an impending violence: “The tragedy of it all will be
unspeakable …” (142). Considering these, what argument about violence does Tommy Orange
make by having his wide cast of characters meet at the Powwow, which becomes the scene of a
shocking eruption into violence?