Your essay should be 5-6 double spaced pages in length, in 12-point times new roman font, and in MLA formatting. See the handouts posted to moodle or check out this website for information about MLA formatting:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html
For this second essay, you will be required to do outside research to find at least two scholarly sources to support your arguments. Still, the focus of your paper should be developing a creative and nuanced close reading analysis of the primary source. That is, while this assignment does not require you to focus on any one specific extract from the novel, you should ensure that you engage in a close reading of specific details and formal features from the novel. You should underline the clear and concise thesis statement you write in your introduction (see my handout on Moodle about developing thesis statements). This thesis statement should tell your readers something new, compelling, and not obvious about the novel. If you are struggling to develop your own thesis statement from scratch, I have appended some questions at the end of these instructions which may help direct you. Please do not feel constrained by these prompts you may also develop your own thesis from scratch or brainstorm with me in an online meeting.
Possible essay prompts:
1) Philadelphia Fire engages in several different genres (detective fiction, memoir, historical fiction) and references several others (Shakespearean drama, news media, documentary). What is John Edgar Wideman trying to achieve or communicate by way of incorporating all of these different genres?
2) Philadelphia Fire is written in three distinct parts, without a singular plot trajectory, and from a number of different character perspectives. What effect does this heteroglossia have on readers and why does John Edgar Wideman want to create this effect?
3) Philadelphia Fire touches on a number of actual historical events (the MOVE bombings, the incarceration of Widemans own son, an Independence Day rally in the year 1805). How does Widemans experimental retelling of these historical events challenge dominant historical paradigms? Does he, for example, challenge the idea that time is linear (if so, why)? Does he challenge the idea that history is static or singular (if so, why)? Does he challenge the idea that history is a progress narrative– that it gets better– for minority populations (if so, why or how)?
4) John Edgar Wideman breaks into first person narration in the second part of the novel but has refused any identification with himself and this John Edgar Wideman character. What does Philadelphia Fire seem to be telling us about identity? Is all identity performed, for example? Do identities become fractured in moments of trauma (racial or personal)? Are identities commodified? Is there some other theory of identity the novel is exploring?
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