The last paper, “The Tie
that Binds”, was written for an American Literature survey course at Ball State. It was my first true exposure to literary
theory. The criterion for this
assignment was to
support the thesis of the paper with research from literary journals. The approach, while relying heavily upon
others’ ideas, shows
a clean break from the subjectivity found in the reader-response approach to Emma. I take a New Criticism approach with this paper, analyzing
Hawthorne’s use of different literary devices in “Young Goodman Brown.” This illustrates a greater awareness to literary concepts and language. Although I have cited my references
differently than the first paper, they do not follow
MLA style. The organization is fairly
clear, though the overuse of outside support bogs down the flow.