It is the business of thought to define things, to find the boundaries

British Literature. Wed, Sep 22nd, 2010 at 5:37 pm

…thought, indeed, is a ceaseless process of definition. It is the business of Art to give things shape. Anyone who takes no delight in the firm outline of an object, or in its essential character, has no artistic sense. He cannot even be nourished by Art. Like Ephraim, he feeds upon the East wind, which has no boundaries.

—Vance Palmer

Hey! The essays are starting to take shape! We spent today in the computer lab typing up outlines.

A few tips based on what I saw today:

Don’t worry about perfecting your thesis statement at this point! We are still in the planning stage, so just get it down (making sure it is an argument) and check it often as you gather support for your points. Change it as necessary, but don’t worry if the phrasing isn’t just right.

Your thesis statement must be an argument. At the beginning of this week, we discussed the trick of using questions from your journals to create a thesis statement. If you have a question at the top of your page, do not forget to work on the formulation of an answer as you collect evidence and patterns. Because, as you know, a question is a question and not a statement. One of you noted the recursion in the poem “A Warning to Children” and wondered if it applied to Hamlet. The question, then, was this:

How does recursion in Hamlet affect the lives of the characters?

But this, my friends, is not a statement. By answering this (cool) question, he formulated this thesis:

The recurrence of different problems and situations in Hamlet has caused some of the main characters to spiral downwards into self-destruction.

Is it perfect? Nope. Is it an argument? Definitely, because it raises all kinds of other questions that need to be clarified:

The answers to these questions become the major points in support of the argument. Each of these answers may raise more questions to be answered with arguments…Hmm. Speaking of recursion…. The only way to end the cycle is to get to answers that can be logically answered by quotations from the text. There is an example of this below.

Make sure your major points are arguments that support your thesis. The trick is to divide each argument into as many smaller arguments as necessary to make your thesis clear to your audience. This can be tricky to get the hang of, and is what a writer spends most of his or her time on when composing an essay. Maybe some more excerpts from an outline written today would help:

Thesis: The masks we wear to hide ourselves can take us over, resulting in a loss of identity. Both Hamlet and Ophelia put on false personas that leads to their demise.

Good so far, the thesis uses the language of Dunbar’s poem (with a nod to Eliot’s) in order to explain the action in Hamlet. It is two sentences long, but the second focuses the argument to the topic at hand, making it the thesis of this paper. The first sentence is a more general argument used to draw the audience in and give them a reason to read further (remember our ethos discussion?).

V. Ophelia goes insane after her father’s death. She has lost her “puppet master” and isn’t sure how to act.

This sentence elaborates on one part of the argument—specifically, Ophelia’s demise. It is an argument because it incorporates part of the text (Polonius’ death, Ophelia’s actions) with the author’s opinion, which needs to be supported further.

b. Ophelia is also emotionally drowning

Again, this is an elaboration on one part (Ophelia’s drowning) of the argument (V) above, incorporating something from the story (Ophelia’s drowning) and the author’s insight (it is a metaphorical, emotional, drowning).

At this point, the author of this essay should support her point with evidence from the text, as there is no way to make this more specific without becoming absurd. She lists the following as support:

i. “I was much further out than you thought, not waving but drowning” (Smith 3-4)

She plans to explain the poem “Not Waving but Drowning” earlier in the text, which allows her at this point to rely on her audience’s understanding of a metaphorical drowning. The author should plan to include a quotation or two from Hamlet to support this claim in addition to that from the poem.

The next step:

If you were unable to finish your outline in class today (many were not), try to finish up tonight. I have scheduled the computer lab tomorrow, but I would like to give you all time to review one another’s work before you write your rough drafts this weekend.

Comments are closed.