solved Paper #1: Pride and Prejudice (4-5 pages) Final draft due

Paper #1: Pride and Prejudice (4-5 pages)
Final draft due in paper, in class, and to designated Blackboard folder: Wednesday, 10/20
Consult no sources for the writing of this paper, not even to “get started” or “get ideas.” Please consult the syllabus policy on academic dishonesty. The only exceptions allowed are The Oxford English Dictionary Online, available through the Milne Library databases link, and Green’s Dictionary of Slang, available online.
Assignment: Locate a theme in the novel and argue for what position you believe Austen is taking on that theme. Support your claim with quotations from the novel and close reading of those quotations. Cite your quotations correctly both in-text and in a Works Cited page. See the Format and Documentation handout for how to do this and how to format the paper generally (header, etc.).
Writing the thesis:
1. Pick a theme: A theme is a novel-wide issue that comes up repeatedly. You may wish to consider some of the issues that we have talked about throughout our discussion, like the marriage plot, gender, the limitations of the early (women’s) novel, social class, and so on. These things are themes. Themes can be narrowed–made more specific– often to the benefit of papers.
2. Determine what position you think Austen took on the theme, overall, in her novel. The idea is that authors don’t just “talk about” social class or sex or race in their novels; they have opinions about those things, and they use their novels to forward those opinions. What overall position on your chosen theme does Austen use her novel to express?
3. Name the novel and name the author.
4. Keep the thesis one sentence only, and make sure it is as precise and concise as possible. Theses are contracts with the reader. In them, you promise your reader what your paper will perform, so you want to make sure it lays out precisely what you’re going to do.
Sample Thesis: In Pride and Prejudice, Austen criticizes Regency class stratification by writing a novel whose happy ending requires a class intermingling portrayed as pure fantasy. Structure: Structure your essay by topic sentences (TS). Topic sentences are advantageous because they
1) Tell the reader what the point of the following paragraph or paragraphs is, and
2) How that point ties to the thesis
3) In addition, they make you consider what organization is best, so that you’re not just putting things down as they occur to you, in random order, but actually thinking about the structure of the essay as an essential part of its success.
Topic sentence hints: 1) If you can’t write them, it’s because you don’t know what the point and function of the section is. If you don’t know, how will I know?
2) Consider if the problem is that you have too many ideas bundled together into one section, ideas that need to be separated out into their own defined TS. 2
3) TS are required, not optional
Analysis: The bulk of the paper will be literary analysis. Since I’m not letting you use any sources (other than the dictionaries), all you have as evidence is quotation from Pride and Prejudice and close reading of those quotations in which you show how the language of the novel, properly analyzed, supports your thesis.
Close reading hints: 1) We have been doing close reading all term, literally since day one on “Ozymandias,” so don’t panic. You do know how to do this. I’m just asking you to write down what we’ve been doing, orally, all term.
2) In a good close reading, the critic (that’s you!) shows that there’s more at work in the language than appears on the obvious level. This is a matter of getting inside the language through such things as checking the particularly important-seeming words in the OED and Green’s to see if there are any interesting definitions that might open up the quotations in new ways (remember how “Ozymandias” opened up in totally new ways when we realized all the things the words in line eight could mean?). It can also mean paying attention to things like sentence structure and punctuation—these things are analyzable. So, too, is the narrative voice. Who’s narrating? How? What’s the effect of that? There are many things a critic can consider to move beyond the literal level.
3) Be judicious in your use of the dictionaries. There is no point in using a definition that is the overt definition. That doesn’t add anything since you’re not deepening our understanding of the novel’s language. Be careful, too, not to over-rely on the dictionaries. Look up key words, not every word. Papers bogged down with definitions become cumbersome.
4) For examples of close reading do’s and don’t’s see the Close Reading Handout. Introduction: Your introduction should offer the context for your thesis, preparing your reader for the argument you’re about to make. For instance, let’s reconsider the sample thesis I gave above: In Pride and Prejudice, Austen criticizes Regency class stratification by writing a novel whose happy ending requires a class intermingling portrayed as pure fantasy. I can’t just drop that on readers without preparing them. Readers will have no idea what the Regency notion of “class” was, so they will have no idea what issue I’m saying Austen’s tackling. My introduction, then, might usefully give a brief introduction of Regency social class boundaries. Then, I can present my thesis, and the reader will know what I’m talking about.
Introduction Hints: 1) In a paper of this length, keep the intro to one paragraph unless there’s a burning reason to exceed that.
2) Don’t include close reading in the introduction. Since you haven’t established your argument yet, we won’t know how to interpret it. 3) Don’t begin with a dictionary definition unless you need one.
4) Don’t begin with biographical or historical information unless you need it. If you do need it, that’s fine.
5) Don’t begin with praise of the author or work (ever).
6) Don’t begin by discussing the process of writing the paper (ever).
7) Place your thesis as the last sentence of your introductory paragraph (there are other options, but this will help me locate it). Do not italicize it, bold it, or do anything else to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraph. Conclusion: Your conclusion should offer your readers a way to make sense of the entire argument that you’ve just written. To return to my thesis, imagine my readers reading my paper and saying, “Okay I get that Austen offers this criticism of class leveling as an unattainable fantasy, but so what? What does that tell me?” In my case, I might use my conclusion to explore the significance of my argument for an understanding of Austen as an “apolitical author,” a charge that has been often leveled against her.
Conclusion Hints: 1. In a paper of this length, there is no need for the conclusion to exceed one paragraph.
2. Don’t summarize the paper! I’m old, but I remember what I just read.
3. Don’t include praise of the author or work (ever).
4. Don’t end with rhetorical questions (questions not designed to be answered), like “When we will finally address the sexism in our society?”
5. Don’t end with grand rhetorical flourishes that sound important but … aren’t. This is what I call the “We are Woman/God bless America” conclusions.
Title: Your title should communicate your specific argument to the reader, as well as what text you’re working on. Since everyone knows who wrote Pride and Prejudice, it is permissible to leave Austen’s name out of the title. There are multiple ways of doing this, but one is to open with a quotation from the novel that is key to your interpretation, either one you use in the paper or one that you wanted to—edited for brevity—and then follow with a phrase that encapsulates your thesis and names the novel.
Example: “Give a loose rein to your fancy”: The Fantasy of Class Subversion in Pride and Prejudice.