1 Writing the Biography EssayExamining a Life Writing the Biography Essay
2 The Prompt How do the events of an author’s life affect his or her perspective/point-of-view, style, and choice of topics? Read an autobiography, biography, or memoir about/by an author, and then read two seminal literary fiction works by that author. After reading the texts, review the connections, theories, and discussion topics you have tracked and recorded. Identify at least three major insights you have gained about the author’s life in relation to his or her literary work. Write 7-10 pages to state the insights and explain how events in the author’s life connect to perspective/point-of-view, style, and/or choice of topics used in his or her literary work. Identify details across the texts to promote those ideas. Include a Works Cited page, quotes, paraphrases, and parenthetical citations.
3 Creating a Thesis The thesis statement for this essay will focus on an overarching statement (position) that you are taking regarding the influence the author’s life experiences had on his or her literary works. All the points that you make in your paper need to link back to this thesis in some way. You will need to decide how the two literary works and the autobiography/biography/memoir you have read link together. This will most likely form the basis for your thesis.
4 For Example… Your thesis may focus on aspects of the author’s childhood, education, romantic experience(s), traumatic experience(s), or influences by other people. If I was writing an essay about Langston Hughes, for example, I could write the following thesis statement: Langston Hughes’ experiences in the South fundamentally affected the way he perceived relationships between blacks and whites, and resulted in Hughes writing some of his most powerful poetry in an attempt to address the inequities and abuses experienced by black Americans.
5 Connecting Quotes In the course of your essay, you will need to link specific quotes from your autobiography/biography/memoir to specific quotes from your literary works of fiction. This does NOT mean that you should “chain” the quotes right after one another, but instead carefully and thoughtfully draw connections between them, and then draw conclusions from those connections.
6 Making the Connections and ConclusionsEach quote or paraphrase should be followed by some commentary—not repetition of the content in different words, but thoughts on the significance of the quotes or paraphrases. Then the entire section should have a conclusion or conclusions drawn from those connections. This conclusion should in some way tie back to the thesis.
7 Example Quote One From I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes’ autobiography: “So on Sunday I left Hampton, sadder and wiser concerning Southern Negro education. The further I penetrated into the Deep South, the sadder I became in this regard. The old abolitionist spirit out of which , during the Civil War and in Reconstructionist times, many Negro colleges had grown, had now turned strangely conservative in regard to contemporary problems. It was the year of the Scottsboro case, 1931, yet on many Negro campuses the nine black teen-agers on trial for their lives in Alabama were not even to be mentioned” (44).
8 Commentary One I would write, following the preceding quote: The South’s refusal, even among the intelligentsia of Negro academia, to acknowledge the reality facing black Americans in America, and especially in the South, was perhaps best demonstrated in their unwillingness to mention, address, or much less protest the Scottsboro case. Hughes, an activist to the core, was dismayed by the blinders the Southern Negroes willingly placed on themselves. He, however, was not willing to walk so blindly through the times.
9 Example Quote Two From I Wonder as I Wander by Langston Hughes: “Over Alabama that winter lay the shadow of Scottsboro. But I heard no discussion whatsoever of the case at Tuskagee, although at nearby Kilby eight of the nine Negro boys involved were in the death house where I went to see them….Their chaplain, a small-town Negro minister, said it might cheer the boys up if I would read them some of my poems. So at Kilby prison I went down the long corridor to the death house to read poetry to the Scottsboro boys. In their grilled cells in that square room with a steel door to the electric chair at one end, in their gray prison uniforms, the eight black boys sat or lay listlessly in their bunks and paid little attention to me or to the minister as we stood in the corridor, separated from them by bars. Most of them did not even greet us. Only one boy came up to the bars and shook hands with me” (61).
10 Commentary Two I would write, following the preceding quote: It is interesting to note that at no time does Hughes write the names of the Scottsboro defendants, but instead calls them “the boys” or “the youths” throughout this section of his autobiography. While he certainly felt compassion for them, he also seemed to view them more as symbols than living, breathing, despairing young men who were doomed before they began their trials. This attitude can be observed in the poem he wrote as a result of his visit to see the Scottsboro boys.
11 Example Quote Three From “Scottsboro” by Langston Hughes: “8 BLACK BOYS IN A Southern JAIL./WORLD, TURN PALE!/8 black boys and one white lie./Is it much to die?/Is it much to die when immortal feet/March with you down Time’s street,/When beyond steel bars sound the deathless drums/Like a mighty heart-beat as They come?” (1-8).
12 Example Paraphrase OneFrom “Scottsboro” by Langston Hughes: Hughes goes on in the poem to name famous revolutionaries who protested or fought against injustice, and many of whom died for their courage: Christ, John Brown, Moses, Jeanne d’Arc, Dessalines, Nat Turner, and Lenin, among the long list. He tells the Scottsboro boys that these heroes of revolution are coming “To walk with you” (27) and that the world should “turn pale” (29) at the thought of what may come out of their trials.
13 Commentary and ConclusionHughes’ reference to the famous heroes of revolution is not without significance. Most of those heroes died or failed in their attempts at revolution. He claims in lines 22 and 23 that these famed revolutionaries are “Not dead! Not dead!/None of those is dead” which is, of course, a reference to their immortality in fame and history rather than actual life. By placing the Scottsboro boys in this company, Hughes claims that their trial will be a turning point for black American existence and revolution. Their symbolism is, therefore, more important to him than their actual existence and fate. Once again, Hughes took inspiration from his travels in the South and linked the reality to a higher purpose: Confrontation and combat against the pervasive inequities and rampant abuses experienced by black Americans at the hands of whites.
14 Creating an Outline An important part of structuring an essay of this length and breadth is the creation of an outline. Outlines may be simple in structure, or they may be quite detailed. Outlines are like the skeletons of the body: Quotes, commentary, and conclusions are the flesh built upon the skeleton.
15 Outline Structure Conventional outlines are structured with a descending series of uppercase Roman numerals, capital letters, “regular” or Arabic numerals, lowercase letters, and finally (if very detailed) lowercase Roman numerals. Outline conventions dictate that there must be at least two of any given set in the series. This means that if there is an “A,” there must at least be a “B,” and if there is a “1,” there must at least be a “2”, and so on. There may certainly be more than two items in the set, if appropriate.
16 Outline Structure ExampleIntroduction A. Hook: An interesting opener. B. Context: Overview of the author and the two works that are being examined. C. Thesis statement: Here would be my thesis statement. Main point #1: Here would be my main point. A. Example/Quote #1: “Here would be my quote” (citation) 1. Conclusion drawn from quote or example 2. Connection to the next quote B. Example/Quote #2: “Here would be my quote” (citation) 2. Connection to the previous or next quote C. Conclusion drawn from Examples/Quotes
17 More on Outline StructureIII. A. 1. a. i. ii. b. 2. B. C.
18 What Comes Next? Re-examine your annotations and notes.Find the connections and start drawing conclusions. Determine your overall thesis statement. Determine your main points. Gather examples, quotes, and paraphrases from your texts. Create an outline once you have enough material to fill it out. Start writing your essay based on your outline. REMEMBER: You can always change things if the essay isn’t working! You are never “stuck” with what you have written until you turn in your final draft!