- Gender Roles: Some of our Middle Ages texts focus on the expectations, or even the subverted expectations, of how certain genders of characters behave in a story. The Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale clearly has a focus on gender roles or stereotypes. Meanwhile, some Arthurian legends have a more subtle focus on gender (such as “Lanval”) or a passive focus (such as Le Morte D’Arthur).
Compare the treatment of gender in any two (2) texts.
-OR-
Discuss gender roles in any two (2) texts as they affect their respective stories.
(Possible stories to use include the following: Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, “Lanval”, and Le Morte D’Arthur).
Basic Essay Requirements
- The essay should be 600-900 words in length.
- You must have a correctly formatted, original title that indicates what your essay is about. Do not put the entire essay title in quotation marks. Do not use only the titles of the stories you are using as the title of your essay.
- While it is fine (and even recommended) that you include the titles of the stories in the title of your paper, your title should be creative and original.
- Do not include a separate cover page.
- Your essay must be at least five paragraphs long (typed, double-spaced). More body paragraphs are allowable if needed but stay close to the word count window.
- Use MLA formatting for all parts of essay, including research documentation, using 8th edition MLA guidelines.
- You must include an MLA-style Works Cited page.
- Include a well-developed introduction paragraph that contains an arguable thesis statement.
Source and Citation Requirements
- Use at least 3 primary sources for your essay, unless otherwise noted in your prompt (Ex: Compare aspects of Othello and Doctor Faustus).
- Include at least 2 secondary sources.
- Secondary sources should be scholarly, analytical articles. Sources such as Wikipedia, Sparknotes, etc. are not acceptable.
- For secondary sources, the best place is usually AVL or Google Scholar.
- Remember that you are using your sources to back up your own original argument. Look to your sources to help you prove your points, not to provide your thesis.