Victorian Literature Essay Paper Assignment

Professor McNeil
English 320
Spring Semester 2007

Due: beginning of class,
May 8, 2007

Love and Sex in the Victorian Age
Essay Paper Assignment

Assignment: Write an essay paper (4-6 pages, about 1200-1800 words) in which you discuss a Victorian text or texts, touching on the themes of love and/or sex.

The paper must be typed, double-spaced, and on one side of the page. Leave no more than a 1 1/2-inch margin on both sides of your page, number your pages, and fasten them together (staple or paper clips; staple is best).

Guidelines for writing the paper
All essays in general require a topic and a thesis. In this assignment (and most English paper assignments) you are essentially writing an "argumentative essay." In other words you are making some specific claim (your thesis) about a subject and then "proving" that claim with "evidence" and supporting details in the body of your essay.

Topics and theses are related but NOT the same thing: topics are much more general than theses.

Topic Thesis

The voice of the prostitute in Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor Though Mayhew's treatise seeks to confirm the moral condemnation of prostitution of the time, the narratives of the prostitutes themselves reveal them to be neither victims nor depraved people but women who like the independence and financial rewards that prostitution offers.

Lesbian desire in The Woman in White Marian's masculine female character represents a clear alternative to the socially acceptable heterosexual femininity of Laura Fairlie. Marian's same-sex desire parallels Walter's heterosexual desire, but gives her the freedom to love and yet remain an independent woman

Male desire and the female body in Tess of the D'Urbervilles Tess becomes the object of male desire largely through the objectification of her body. The masculine "reading" of her body produces the masculine desire that ultimately ensures her destruction.

Male desire and the female body in Tess of the D'Urbervilles The novel is really a warning about getting skin cancer in Victorian society. All the references to Tess's body are about possible skin cancers, which is why she should stay out of the sun more in the novel.

Some possible topics

The marriage plot in The Woman in White
Female identity and female property rights in The Woman in White
Victorian ideals of femininity and masculinity in The Woman in White
The Pre-Raphaelite heroine in the Victorian novel
Siren or angel: The image of the female in Pre-Raphaelite painting
The fallen woman: prostitution and the fate of the promiscuous Victorian woman
Natural law and sexual desire in Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Fallen man? the image of the rake in Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Victorian soul mates: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems to her husband
Female sexuality and colonialism in "The Hareem"
Art, marriage, and possession in "My Last Duchess"
"Sisterhood" as lesbian love in "Goblin Market"
Virtue and the nature of temptation in "Goblin Market"
Female sexuality and female power in Lady Audley's Secret
Knowledge (and ignorance) is power: secrets and scandal in Lady Audley's Secret
May-December marriage in The Woman in White and Lady Audley's Secret
Victorian social and sexual taboo in Dracula
Science vs. superstition in Dracula
Unclean/un-dead: Victorian anxieties of the body

Helpful hints in writing the paper

Read the poem(s) or passage(s) you intend to use very carefully before you begin to write your paper.

If you choose a longer work (such as The Woman in White or Tess of the D'Urbervilles) you will probably need to focus your answer on part(s) of the text. If you choose a very short poem, you might possibly write on more than one--for example, two or three poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But be careful that you treat each poem thoroughly.

State your thesis right in the introduction of your paper. It's best to get to your point in the first or second paragraph.
Support your thesis with specific details of the poem (or whatever) you are using. It's best to be as specific as you can about your work's actual phrasing, imagery, word choice, plot details, characterization, etc.

Make sure that you document all quotations and references to other people’s work. Short quotations can be included in the body of your text in double-quotation marks with a citation in parentheses: "'Not alone! Oh, Walter, for God's sake, not alone! Let me go with you. Don't refuse me because I'm only a woman. I must go! I will go! I'll wait outside in the cab" (Collins 603).
After your first reference, it's ok just to refer to pages of the novel (or the line numbers of the poem): "The long, happy labour of many months is over. Marian was the good angel of our lives - let Marian end our Story" (268).
Long quotations of three lines or more of writing should be a) indented 10 spaces b) written out as verse (if poetry) c) single-spaced d) not in quotation marks e) with ending punctuation before documentation:

The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window - and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps - and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer - and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail to express), The lady is ugly! (58)You are required to do outside research on this paper. I provide a bibliography of useful or interesting scholarly works related to issues of love and sex that will hopefully help to get you started on your search for information. (Many times you can also find a useful bibliography of secondary material in the back of a given edition) It might be best, though, first to reflect and brainstorm on the topics and works that might interest you before embarking on your research at the library.
When you do refer to an outside source in your paper, give its full title, author, and publication details in a Works Cited list at the end of your paper (use MLA style guidelines). Don’t use footnotes in the paper itself.

I will provide for a short meeting with me in my office to discuss your paper draft. For this meeting, I would like you to have at least a basic outline of you paper , with a clear indication of your topic and some indication of your thesis and research materials you have consulted up to that point. You must get my approval on your topic to receive credit.

For internet links to useful sites on Victorian literature and research see the last page of my Victorian Syllabus website.

Lastly, please give your paper a title, and please proofread your paper carefully before turning it in.

Topic	Thesis
The voice of the prostitute in Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor	Though Mayhew's treatise seeks to confirm the moral condemnation of prostitution of the time, the narratives of the prostitutes themselves reveal them to be neither victims nor depraved people but women who like the independence and financial rewards that prostitution offers.
Lesbian desire in The Woman in White	Marian's masculine female character represents a clear alternative to the socially acceptable heterosexual femininity of Laura Fairlie. Marian's same-sex desire parallels Walter's heterosexual desire, but gives her the freedom to love and yet remain an independent woman
Male desire and the female body in Tess of the D'Urbervilles	Tess becomes the object of male desire largely through the objectification of her body. The masculine "reading" of her body produces the masculine desire that ultimately ensures her destruction.
Male desire and the female body in Tess of the D'Urbervilles	The novel is really a warning about getting skin cancer in Victorian society. All the references to Tess's body are about possible skin cancers, which is why she should stay out of the sun more in the novel.