Analysis Paper Proposal Sample

Paper Format (Academic Essay or Multi-genre Paper): Multi-genre paper

Basic Topic: Role Playing

My take on the topic:

When people don't act in ways that are socially acceptable, there's always some fallout. Playing roles helps society function, but it also really limits us in ways that are not desirable. So, there are some times when we have to break out of structured roles in order for us to grow and develop.

Texts I want to use:

       "The Yellow Wallpaper"
       "A Woman on a Roof"

What texts seem to say on the topic:

• "Yellow Wallpaper" seems to say that the really restrictive nature of gender roles and expectations in that time period were partly responsible for the woman's madness. If she were only able to really talk with her husband, and if he were able to listen to her, things would've been much different. But they both just play their socially-expected roles instead.
• "Woman on a Roof" just shows us what happens when some men ogle a woman who's sunbathing, but she doesn't "play along" and respond to her. She's defying the role of the modest woman, and it throws the men off kilter. The story seems to be about what happens when one of two teams suddenly no longer plays by the rules of the game.

I want to explore the topic by showing some of the voices that aren't heard in the stories. I also want to have a set of writings by a person who is reading the stories and thinking about the role playing that happens in them. I'll use these as a reader's diary or something that gets interspersed at regular intervals to give the paper some continuity and coherence. I'm not sure what other genres I'll use yet.