WRITING THE WORKING THESIS STATEMENT



WRITING THE WORKING THESIS STATEMENT

THINGS TO CONSIDER…

➢ Steps that should be completed before writing the working thesis:

1. Selection of author and primary source(s) for study.

2. Identification of secondary sources.

3. Identifying possible topics.

4. Completion of research outline.

➢ The thesis that you turn in at this point in the research process is called a “working thesis” because it is not finalized. Rather, it will change and evolve as you continue to research and compose your paper. It is a work in progress.

➢ The purpose of the thesis statement is to limit the scope of your topic and control the direction of your research from this point forward, making your thinking and note-taking more focused and efficient. For this reason, your thesis should clearly reflect the specific research lens you have selected (e.g. historical, biographical, Freudian, etc.).

➢ The thesis statement of a research paper should contain all of the same ingredients as the thesis statement of the five-paragraph essay we have practiced all year, including your topic, statement of author’s purpose, and controls. Your controls, however, should be somewhat broader and might not be literary devices.

EXAMPLES

Genric Analysis

Huckleberry Finn is an American recreation of the Spanish picaresque novel in which Twain recreates the picaro in the form of Huck and relocates the happenings-on-the-road plot to the Mississippi River in order to offer a sweeping criticism of America’s social ills.

Literary Movement Analysis

The most arresting quality of Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is its use of the Metaphysical paradox in which the ideal of detached Platonic love is undermined by the immediacy of sexual desire, represented in imagery patterns of openings and barriers.

Biographical Analysis

The sensational happenings and colorful characters in Huckleberry Finn are based on actual events and persons Twain encountered in Hannibal, Mississippi, and in other towns up and down the Mississippi River.

Historical Analysis

Andrew Marvell’s life and times heavily informed the composition of “To His Coy Mistress,” manifesting themselves in the poem’s syllogistic structure, classical and Biblical allusions, and paradoxically hedonistic and pessimistic tone.

Moral Analysis

In Huckleberry Finn, the stark contrast between the detached satire of Twain’s narrator and the impassioned rhetoric of his characters serves to illuminate humankind’s destructive treatment of the Other, a theme that is central to the novel’s social criticism.

Philosophical Analysis

In “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne makes a frontal attack on Calvinism by indicting certain reprehensible aspects of Puritan culture, ultimately suggesting that pervasive legalism such as that practiced in Salem town invariably promotes moral hypocrisy and even paralysis.

Archetypal Analysis

Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” employs archetypal notions of hedonism and eternal salvation in order to explore the moral and relational tensions that plague human desire.

Psychoanalytic Analysis

The narrative of “Young Goodman Brown” dramatizes the literary relevance of Jungian shadow, anima, and persona, which are represented in Brown’s suffering from failure of personality integration, his inability to relate to his own inner world, and his inflexible and false projected self.

Goodman Brown’s journey is not merely physical; rather, it is a primarily psychological journey in which the everyman is impelled by a libidinal force toward a traumatic experience that forces a classic Freudian conflict between the superego and the primal id.

Feminist Analysis

“Young Goodman Brown” presents a moral parable in which the rejection of the archetypal female in favor of the Satanic father figure reveals Hawthorne’s own sympathy with female values and rejection of Brown’s misconstrued masculinity. This is revealed in the sexual undertones of Brown’s mission, the patronizing symbols associated with his wife, and his misguided view of the Devil as a man among men.

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