Please select one of the following topics and write a critically focused, analytically detailed essay (1200-1500 words) in response. It is permissible to write on the same text for both the analysis and essay assignments, but the presentation the second time must be freshly composed and not just copied-and-pasted.

    –Define absurdist comedy and discuss the dehumanizing social strata and hierarchies in “The Diary of a Madman” and/or “The Nose”

    –Define black comedy and discuss the dehumanization of others in class/gender/racial/sexual identity terms in Breakfast of Champions

    –Define black comedy and discuss the enigmatic and now decadent nature of the American Dream in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas