Essays / Essay on Professor's house & Old Mortality [4]

I am currently working on an essay about Professor's House but I am lost... I need some help.

In tutorial, you examined ways in which Cather had taken some of the raw factual materials of Mesa Verde and modified them artistically to make them fit with the various thematic concerns of The Professor's House. This activity was designed to make you more aware of how carefully crafted great fiction is, the degree to which everything means something, for example the way making a mesa blue instead of green changes the whole meaning of the novel. Building upon that work (i.e., going beyond what was said in tutorial), write a well-formed essay arguing exactly why Cather made the changes she did.

I am also working on Old Mortality... Same situation..

3. This one is not a traditional literary-critical essay. Take Porter's "Old Mortality," which is largely about growing up in a fairly backward-looking culture that tends in particular to stifle women in the name of "defending their honor" and adapt it to a different culture with which you are familiar-the way some directors (for example) will stage Shakespeare plays in times and places very different from the original setting to show those plays' universality. You may tinker with the plot somewhat, but be sure to keep the satirical tone and the sense of suffocation. Your TA will grade this essay based on how well it shows you understand what's going on in Porter's story and how well you're imaginatively able to adapt its conflicts-which are almost universal-to a different cultural setting. If you can be even a fraction as funny as Porter, that's a plus, too.

Could you please help me on this as I don't really know what I should write about... Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!!!