Literary Analysis
This paper is meant to be a literary analysis of a tv show episode for The Twilight Zone S01E03, Replay and S.D. Brown’s ‘Prism’ (which I’ve attached as a file).
The Instructions are as follow:
“As with the Midterm Analytical Essay, the Final Analytical Essay is structured as a more in-depth development of your Discussion Forum responses.
This time, you will be building from Discussion Forum responses that you have completed during the second half of the course (WEEK 8 onward).
Also as with the Midterm Essay, this essay has no specific prompt, beyond asking you to focus research and analytical attention on specific key themes, topics, and concepts, that we have explored over the second half of the course. You may include other concepts and topics we have explored earlier in the course, but they need to be in addition to these more recent topics/concepts, not in place of them.
As before, because the expectation is that you will develop previous Discussion Forum work, you are free to use the Discussion Forum questions/prompts to structure your approach, if you’d like, or you may develop and pursue your own research/analysis questions/prompts.
The primary difference with this assignment is that it is a bit longer, and it requires inclusion/use of at least two scholarly sources, instead of one. For the Final Draft, please provide the following:
-57 page final draft of essay (not including required Works Cited page; roughly 1,2501,750 words))
-MLA 8 format, including standard Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced, proper margins and headers, etc.
-Literary analysis of at least one fictional text of your choosing from the second half of the course (as detailed in assignment instructions above)
-Inclusion/use of at least two scholarly sources for analysis
(NOTE: These sources may include assigned scholarly course textse.g., Womack, Winnubst, Snorton, Anzalda)
-Students are encouraged to use and develop their previous work in the class (e.g., Discussion Forum responses)”
The aforementioned discussion forum response is as follows:
Upon reading S.D. Brown’s “Prism” and watching The Twilight Zone episode titled “Replay,” it is safe to point out that one overarching theme in this week’s content is the use of Afro-futurism as a coping mechanism for Black creatives. The Twilight Zone’s “Replay” for example (which was written by Jordan Peele, who is no stranger to including Black theory in his work), may seem like your typical Twilight Zone episode at the surface level, however upon close analyzing one can observe that the experiences of the characters are very real and relative to what many people are going through today. Throughout the episode, a Black mother finds herself in possession of a magical camcorder that has the ability to rewind time. This realization, added on to the fact that they were in the presence of a racist and murderous cop, who seems to be willing to go to all lengths to murder her child, results in her being forced to relive numerous experiences in order to keep her son safe. Police brutality is a war that has been going on for ages, and the thought of having a magical device that can rewind time and undo tragic events sounds like an incredibly comforting idea. Themes of comfort and time-travel are also reminiscent in S.D. Brown’s “Prism,” which is the author’s recollection of moments very specific and relevant to their identity in the present. Brown has arranged the article so that every few paragraphs or so seem to be an account of a different time in her life, all relating back to each other. For example, we are told that she was forced to carry out her pregnancy (and eventually give birth) in jail, but that this was bearable as she spent time finding comfort in her memories of childhood and past experiences. The most obvious takeaway for myself from these two works was that escapism (whether that be in the form of stories about fictional time-travel or memories from the past) is oftentimes a coping mechanism for those who have gone through heavily traumatizing experiences, hence suggesting an explanation Afro-futurism’s rise.
