The task: For this assignment, think of a theme you find interesting (sports
segregation, work segregation, masculinity, sexism, racism, sins of the father,
family). Then choose four quotes from the play and analyze how they support
your theme. You don’t need a thesis nor an introduction nor a conclusion. Your
essay will go straight into your analysis of two scenes that BEST represent your
theme. The length of your essay should be two paragraphs maximum, each of
which discusses a different scene about your theme. Each paragraph should
have a topic sentence and at MINIMUM two quotes. Write your essay in MLA
format with name, double-spaced, date, etc, in a Word document and load it into
Blackboard. This essay should not be more than 2 pages and no less than one.
This is DUE on Wednesday Oct. 14.
Note: A theme is a concept or idea that an author explores in a literary work.
● How do the ideas or actions of the main characters reflect different aspects of the
theme?
● Does the theme develop or change over the course of Fences?
● If so, how?
If your evidence includes symbols, explain how the author uses those symbols to
explore the theme. THINK Fence: the fence symbolizes what to whom in the play?
Remember you need to include FOUR quotes from the text, and you should explain
how these quotes provide examples of how the theme is represented in Fences?
Instructions on how to Analyze a text/story: Writing about either
literature or any subject demands that you strengthen your discussion with specific
evidence from the story or text. Rather than simply placing quotations in and expecting
their significance and relevance to your argument to be self-evident, you need to
provide sufficient analysis of the passage. Remember that your overriding goal of
analysis is to demonstrate some new understanding of the text.

1. Read or reread the text with specific questions in mind, like while reading
   Fences, you might ask: Why does Troy always criticize everyone around him?
   Answer: he’s overly idealistic, and as a result, he will never be happy in the
   world. His idealism leads him to placing himself above others as if no one is good
   enough for him. This also leads him away from self-reflection and lack of
   self-analysis as he doesn’t critique his own shortcomings.
2. Organize basic ideas, events and names. Depending on the complexity of book,
   this requires additional review of the text.
3. Identify and consider most important ideas (importance will depend on context of
   class, assignment, study guide).
4. Return to the text to locate specific evidence and passages related to the major
   ideas.
5. Use your knowledge following the principles of analyzing a passage described
   below: test, essay, research, presentation, discussion, enjoyment.
   Principles of analyzing a passage
6. Offer a thesis or topic sentence indicating a basic observation or assertion about the text
   or passage.
7. Offer a context for the passage without offering too much summary.
8. Cite the passage (using correct format).
9. Then follow the passage with some combination of the following elements:
   ○ Discuss what happens in the passage and why it is significant to the work as a
   whole.
   ○ Consider what is said, particularly subtleties of the imagery and the ideas
   expressed.
   ○ Assess how it is said, considering how the word choice, the ordering of ideas,
   sentence structure, etc., contribute to the meaning of the passage.
   ○ Explain what it means, tying your analysis of the passage back to the significance
   of the text as a whole.
10. Repeat the process of context, quotation and analysis with additional support for your
    thesis or topic sentence.
    Sample analysis paragraphs
    from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

1 The negative effect the environment can have on the individual is shown in Morrison’s

comparison of marigolds in the ground to people in the environment. Early in the novel, Claudia
and Frieda are concerned that the marigold seeds they planted that spring never sprouted. At
the end of the novel, Claudia reflects on the connection to Pecola’s failure:
I talk about how I did not plant the seeds too deeply, how it was the fault of the
earth, our land, our town. I even think now that the land of the entire country was
hostile to marigolds that year. This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain
seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its
own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live. (206)
Morrison obviously views the environment as a powerful influence on the individual when she
suggests that the earth itself is hostile to the growth of the marigold seeds. In a similar way,
people cannot thrive in a hostile environment. Pecola Breedlove is a seed planted in the hostile
environment, and, when she is not nurtured in any way, she cannot thrive.

2 One effect of the belief that white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes are the most beautiful is

evident in the characters who admire white film stars. Morrison shows an example of the
destructive effect of this beauty standard on the character Pecola. When Pecola lives with
Claudia and Frieda, the two sisters try to please their guest by giving her milk in a Shirley
Temple mug. Claudia recalls, “She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the
silhouette of Shirley Temple’s face” (19). This picture of two young African-American girls
admiring the beauty of a white American film star is impossible for Claudia to comprehend.
Another character who admires white beauty is Maureen Peale. As Pecola and the girls walk
past a movie theater on their way home with Maureen, Maureen asks if the others “just love”
Betty Grable, who smiles from a movie poster. When she later tells the others she is cute and
they are ugly, Maureen reveals her belief that she is superior because she looks more like a
Betty Grable image than the blacker girls do. Pecola’s and Maureen’s fascination with popular
images is preceded by Pauline’s own belief in the possibility of movie images. She describes
doing her hair like Jean Harlow’s and eating candy at a movie. Rather than being transported
into the romantic heaven of Hollywood, she loses a tooth and ends in despair. “Everything went
then. Look like I just didn’t care no more after that. I let my hair go back, plaited it up, and settled
down to just being ugly” (123). Admiring beauty in another is one thing; transferring a sense of
self-hatred when a person doesn’t measure is another. At that point, the power of white beauty
standards becomes very destructive