The specific instructions from my professor: In this essay, you will select a specific text from our course materials and explain how the text teaches the reader about the time, place, and culture of its creation. Note that you are not telling the reader what the text teaches the reader about the setting of the text you have picked but instead about the time of the text’s publication. For example, if you choose to write about Hawthorne, you will write about the early to mid-19th century when he was writing, not the late 17th century when many of his stories are set. The thesis of your essay, in other words, will argue that one of our specific stories can help modern scholars better understand the time from which the story came. Here is an example thesis in template form that students may use if they wish: “Modern readers can see in Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative an illustration of how Rowlandson’s own culture’s ethnocentric religious and social beliefs affected her ability to view non-Western peoples objectively.” You will need at least two main points to support your stance. For example, I can support my thesis above in these ways: #1 “Europeans of the 17th century were very confident in their belief that they represented a sort of favored position in the Great Chain of Being. They believed that they were the closest thing to angels on Earth and that God clearly favored them over other peoples. We can see this in Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative in the following examples:_______. #2 “Consequently, these Europeans did not see the enslavement of Africans or the violence waged against natives in the Americas as immoral. Their religious and cultural beliefs justified their treatment of the Other in their eyes. We can see this in Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative in the following examples:_________.” You will need textual support from the primary text from our syllabus that you select as well as support from at least two secondary sources. The secondary sources should support your claims about the time/place/culture of the text’s publication.
