Writing Assignment #1

Due: Friday, 23 January 2009

The driving force of the stories within Chesnutt's story "The Goophered Grapevine" is the conjure or goopher that is placed on the vines. The anthology's introduction to the story states, "Conjure (or hoodoo) is the name given to a set of folk beliefs combining elements of Caribbean and West African healing and spiritual practices with elements of Christian belief. Practitioners of conjure were thought to know how to get in touch with and direct the powers of nature to make something happen--or to keep something from happening" (688).

Write 300-400 words addressing who believes in the goopher and who does not. How can you tell? What are the effects of their beliefs for them as individuals or in their relationships with others? Because you will not have space to consider everyone in the story, you might think about focusing on one or two characters; don't forget to consider writing about one of the minor characters within and without the story.

While your answer should be in complete, grammatical sentences, you do not need to write a formal essay.  There does not need to be a broad, declarative opening. You do not need to reach a thundering conclusion.  Dive right into the discussion.  If you are stuck with how to begin, just start naming the details you think are important:  “One of the characters that does not believe in the goopher is....”

Your assignment should follow the formatting guidelines from the syllabus. Any citations to Chesnutt's story in the Norton can be made using parenthetical citation to page numbers.