Hello ALL, Few questions, if anyone could be so kind to answer.

[MomNcollege]

Please excuse my grammer, it has been a long week. I have a Literary Analysis, "new criticism" argument paper coming up. On the story "Where are you going, where have you been?" Joyce carol Oates. I am struggeling immensly on exactly what im supposed to do. If anyone has views or anything i would be greatful. What exactly does "new criticism" mean? Am i to find something for example "Arnold Friend" and analyze him throughout the story? I have asked my professor for extra help but i have not heard anything back from her. I just recently lost a loved one and lost my train of thought upon many other things. Thanks for any help at all!!!!

I tried looking in past forums but i could not find anything

[JBI]

New criticism is a form of criticism that originated at the beginning of the 20th century, in response to the leading trends of the day. Basically, it puts more emphasis on the text, and on the relation between text and reader, rather than writer-reader, or writer-text. Through that, a large amount of critical vocabulary came into being, explaining what the text is doing. I can't help you on your paper, however, being that it is rather difficult to explain, without primary sources, new criticism, to the extent needed for a paper. You need to turn to, for instance, the Norton Anthology of Criticism, or to books specifically on the subject of new criticism.

[Jozanny]

Mmm, Mom, welcome to LitNet. I can offer you some preliminary suggestions, but you may need to look into tutoring help on your campus. High school should have covered some of this for you, but one:

Google "define term paper" and you might find a site which can offer you help on creating a thesis statement. I'm not going to do that here.

New Criticism is merely a method for analyzing a literary text independently of the author's biography. You can Google that as well and should find some summaries. Your professor wants you to do this with the Oates story, and I am not sure if you are quoting the title of the story or the theme for your paper. I will let you clarify that.

Is "where are you going..." the title of the story?

[bounty]

hey mom...approaching your situation from another perspective. i work in higher education and its just plain not acceptable for profs to not communicate back with their students. try again, but with more presence....face to face early before class or afterwards...