Sibling-parent relationships

 How does Catherine’s understanding of her father change after his death, or even before it? How does her relationship with her father evolve within the play? How is Catherine’s relationship with her father different than her sister’s relationship with him? (You would likely only write about one of these questions, not all.) Academic Level : Bachelor Paper details In this essay, you will analyze a major theme within the play Proof, and then broaden your discussion in an extra body paragraph to consider how this theme was relevant in another text we’ve encountered this semester. 1.Analyze a theme you see emerging in Proof (This element will make up a substantial portion of your essay–with two to three body paragraphs on this topic.) 2.Draw connections around this theme between Proof and Sherman Alexie’s book, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. This will be done in at least one additional body paragraph, although you are not limited to just one. Analysis of Proof In this section, you will offer a traditional type of argument-driven literary analysis in which you argue for how one of the following themes proves significant in the text. Choose one from the following questions: • ◦ Sibling-parent relationships: How does Catherine’s understanding of her father change after his death, or even before it? How does her relationship with her father evolve within the play? How is Catherine’s relationship with her father different than her sister’s relationship with him? (You would likely only write about one of these questions, not all.) ◦ Mental instability: How does Catherine’s and Robert’s mental illness/instablity contribute to their outsider status? To their exceptional accomplishments? If you do want to analyze Catherine’s mental state, you may have to draw an argument for how we should understand it. What condition do you see her suffering from and how does she manage or overcome this? ◦ Grief/healing: What strategies do we see Catherine (and others) using to deal with her grief over her father’s death and to enact healing? ◦ Writing/creativity: What do the creative acts we see in the play (from Robert’s hundreds of journals to Catherine’s mathematical proofs) provide the characters? What do they allow the characters to explore? For this section, you should write a minimum of two body paragraphs of analysis, or around two-three pages of text. Part 2: Reflection on your theme For whatever theme you have chosen to focus on in Part 1, you will extend that discussion here and consider how your thinking on this theme has evolved and what you have learned about it through the other texts we have read. You should have at least one additional body paragraph on the following: 1.What did you learn about this theme in any previous texts we’ve read? (You need not talk about the theoretical essays we read, unless you want to.) In this paragraph, you will assess major points or pieces of knowledge/insight that you gained on this theme from the previous texts.