Essay 1 — Responding to Race in “The Gold Bug”

Purpose

This exercise increases your ability to perform the basic tasks of a persuasive essay: state a thesis, present an argument in support of it that includes evidence supporting your position and rebuttals to plausible counter-arguments, and build a conclusion from the argument and thesis.

Background

In our September 6 class we talked about racist elements in Poe’s depiction of Jupiter in “The Gold Bug,”; on September 8 we connected this depiction to 19th century minstrel caricatures, and began to discuss how similar caricatures still shape perceptions of African Americans and Africans today. We will continue some of these discussions in class on September 13. In this essay, you will explore your own reactions to these discussions and expand on them.

Activity

Write an essay of 900 to 1500 words (3 to 5 pages) in which you present and argue for some moral that you draw from our discussions of race surrounding “The Gold Bug.” This is a very broad writing prompt, and the next paragraph hints at some of my reasons for assigning it, which might in turn give you some more focused ideas to write about. In any case, I do not want you to simply say what I and the readings told you in class; I want you to write about what those ideas have become for you as you have thought about them, compared them to your previous beliefs, and listened to classmates respond to them. The central idea behind the essay should be “what those ideas have become for you,” and almost any essay motivated by that idea will be fine as far as subject matter is concerned.

While we covered a lot of ground in discussing race and “The Gold Bug,” we could have gone much further and deeper. For example, we determined that Jupiter is a combination of two minstrel caricatures, but we didn't consider in detail how closely he follows those caricatures or whether he also incorporates others. We left the entire history and influence of minstrel caricatures in the 20th century to the readings. I claimed that “The Book of Mormon” includes caricatures of Africans that operate in many of the same ways the minstrel caricatures of African Americans did, without acknowledging that the caricatures themselves are different (or are they?), and without having a really thorough discussion of how being used in a satire affects the caricatures. We didn’t even mention connections between racial caricatures and other current events (police shootings, protests against racist historic monuments, etc.) or whether there are caricatures of other ethnic groups similar to those of African Americans. Nor did we talk at all about what future courses of action would be appropriate in light of the past. All of these, among many other things, are loose ends from the classes that I hope you will keep thinking about. Any of those thoughts could be a starting point for this essay.

You may find yourself thinking about lots of “loose ends,”, and in many ways that would be good. However, academic essays are far more compelling if they pursue one line of thought in depth than if they talk superficially about many. For this exercise, you should therefore pick one idea you want to pursue from our discussion and do so in detail.

This essay should mainly be based on your personal reactions to our readings and classes, not on extensive additional research. Nonetheless, you should justify those reactions with evidence from our readings and discussions — try to persuade your readers to share your reactions.

Follow-Up

You will write this essay in stages, each with its own deliverables and feedback.

• On September 22 you will share drafts of your essay with other students in this class, and exchange feedback with them. You must bring copies of the draft to class that day, and should email me a copy before class.
• Before the end of the day on September 27 you should meet with me to talk about my reactions to your draft. Please schedule an appointment with me to do this. The appointment should be half an hour long.
• The final version of the essay, revised in response to feedback from your peers and me, should be emailed to me by 11:59 PM on October 4.
• Finally, by the end of the day on October 7 you should meet with me to get my feedback on your final version and the grade for it. As with the draft, please schedule a half-hour meeting with me for this.