Using the Literary Present Verb Tense in Your Essays and Knowing When to Use the Past Tense
Link for knowing the difference between present and past verb tense in your essays
When It's Okay to Shift from Past to Present Tense in Your Essays
Using Present Tense in Literature and Film
Tenses in Literary and History Essays
Writing Complex Sentences Correctly
List of Subordinating Conjunctions
Defining Subordination Conjunctions
Using Subordinate Conjunctions to Make Dependent Clauses
Writing Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences
Some Students Are Writing Mixed Sentence Structure: (They are combining subordinating conjunction with coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) or conjunctive adverbs.
While man must find meaning, but he lives in the existential vacuum.
Although we all must suffer, however we can use suffering to find meaning.
Although we want to avoid suffering, but it is precisely suffering that forces us to fulfull our life purpose.
Also students are using "although" incorrectly by placing a comma after it when "although" begins a dependent clause.
Although, Sherry drives a Camry, she wants a BMW.
Although, reading Man's Search for Meaning proved difficult, the book changed my life.
Examples of Weak and Strong Thesis Statements
I sure wouldn't want to be like Ivan.
Ivan's marriage was a living hell.
Ivan's wife was a lousy person.
Ivan's death made him look at his life for what it was, a joke.
Ivan's life was full of vanity.
Ivan's life was all image, no substance.
Ivan cared too much about material things.
There's no point in writing this essay since the story is boring and there are no appealing characters. McMahon, I hate you. The very fact that you assigned this novel makes you the worst professor ever.
McMahon, next time can we watch a movie?
More Successful Thesis Statements
Ivan's failure to embrace meaning, and his society at large, creates a system of mutual dehumanization, which doesn't becomes revealed in all its horror until the process of Ivan's slow, agonizing death. This dehumanization consists of alienation of others (outcasting the dying for being "impolite"), commodification of human beings (using each other as trophies for a preferred image), narcissistic denial of death ("I'm too special. It wouldn't happen to me."), and the libido ostentandi (waiting for grand moments while real life passes us by).
Introducing Your Essay
You should have an opening paragraph that slaps the reader in the face, grabs the reader's attention, and establishes the relevance of your essay.
Some Good Introductory Techniques Followed by Transitions That Bridge Us to the Thesis Paragraph
A striking dramatic narrative:
An old woman at a bazaar in Buenos Aires was wearing a mink coat to show off her riches. When the hot weather made her overcome with sweat and discomfort, she forced herself to keep her jacket on, so adamant was her vanity. Soon after she died from heat stroke. Likewise, Ivan Ilyich was a victim of his own vanity and his refusal to embrace meaning, which resulted in _________, _________, __________, and ____________.
Use a Salient Quotation
George Bernard Shaw said there are two tragedies in life: The first is not getting what we want; the second is getting it. Indeed, Ivan Ilyich received all he wanted in the materialistic sense and that was his very tragedy, that he lived in the existential vacuum, which resulted in __________, __________, _________, and _____________.
Define an Important Term
The libido ostentandi is the need to show off your ostentatious lifestyle. It is of course a desire fueled by vanity. Surely, we can say that Ivan Ilyich was a man driven by the libido ostentandi, one of the symptoms of living in the existential vacuum. The other symptoms include _________, __________, ________, and __________.
Lexicon
1. empathy, being able to imagine and feel the suffering of others without condescening to them or pitying them in a way that insults their humanity.
The other characters cannot fathom Ivan's suffering. In spite of hiring a lot of experts, no one can grasp Ivan's illness and there is an implicit accusation that Ivan is being "difficult" as if his deathly illness were born from some immoral and impolite part of him.
Also the illness remains ambiguous and thus can be called an existential illness, one that transcends the physical and is in truth a spiritual disease in addition to being a physical affliction.
2. Contempt: Because no one wants to face death and because Ivan has become a conduit for death, everyone shuns him as a curse. Ivan becomes a plague to his family and community. Thus in his miserable deathly illness when he needs human compassion the most, the human race turns on him and he faces his sickness in insufferable solitude.
3. Cruel irony of the libido ostentandi: All the people that Ivan tried to impress, all the people whose admiration he desired above all else, turn out to be miserable, delusional, unworthy creatures and thus Ivan realizes he has pissed his life away on nonsense. His whole life has been a complete waste. This is the real source of his pain, even more than his terminal disease.
To pour salt into the wound, we see at the end of Part V as he lie on his bed that he and his wife's mutual hatred is more raw and chilling and ever. Their mutual hatred is bare to the bone. "He hated her from the bottom of his soul."
Contrast this with Viktor Frankl's love for his wife who becomes a spirit of solace, "accompanying" him in the concentration camps, giving him comfort and transcendence.
To pour yet even more salt into his wounds, he sees everyone waiting for him to die so that he will no longer be an inconvenience to them. See opening of Part VII.
4. We all have an "it" in our life, an obsession that consumes our thoughts no matter how much we distract ourselves. In Ivan's case, the "it" is his terminal illness if not death itself. For some of us it can be:
The Great Rejection
The Great Loss of Money
The Great Betrayal
The Missed Pot of Gold or The Missed Opportunity
Revenge
The Great Resolve (we try over and over to be good but we become our worst version of ourselves in spite of our earnest intentions)
(as an aside, it's been said that all fiction is about obsession)
One. What stages of accepting death do we see in the opening of Part VI? "I cannot die because my emotions are more significant than others, more deep." Therefore, Ivan is a narcissist. "No one of my unique and special grandeur and greatness could ever die."
Two. How is Ivan being stripped to a bare naked existence, as Frankl puts it, in Parts VI and VII?
For one, he is stripped of his status, all the things he did to build an image that would win the admiration of others.
For two, he sees that his life, especially his marriage, is a farce, a sham, and a lie. In other words, Ivan is stripped of his illusions about who is and what his life has become.
Three. How is Gerasim a Man of Meaning torn from the pages of Viktor Frankl’s book? He embraces compassion for another with a good spirit.
Compare this to comedian Louis CK who says he is evil for his selfish desire to own an Infiniti. Every day he drives an Infiniti he is responsible for hundreds of deaths of those starving. Why? Because he could sell his Infiniti, replace it with a cheap car and give the excess money to the poor. This is a familiar argument posited by Peter Singer in a New York Times article.
Four. Contrast Gerasim’s behavior and attitude toward Ivan with everyone else in the novella. Gerasim embraces the hard work of giving Ivan comfort with joy while everyone else looks at Ivan as a curse.
Five. What deception tortures Ivan in Part VI? Explain. Everyone believes, in a condition of willed denial, that Ivan is not deathly ill. He just needs to rest and in a while he will get better. This is a selfish deception so no one has to confront death. Their denial of his death justifies their self-indulgent lifestyle, luxuriating in delicious dishes, having wanton conversation, etc. This vision of selfishness sours Ivan but I wonder if deep down he knows he has would do the same if he were in their shoes.
Six. Why is there shame surrounding Ivan’s death when there should be courage and dignity? See Part VII. The shame lies in Ivan's longing for pity from people who are not even worthy of giving him pity.
In other words, Ivan becomes a misanthrope, a hater of the human race, and his hatred extends toward himself.
Seven. What bitterness awaits Ivan in Part IX? Even the Child Inside Him, the little boy with fond memories, has died. And then to make matters worse, he asks himself for what purpose did he live and he has no purpose other than to feed his vanity.
Eight. How does Part IX suggest we need a life of meaning to prepare ourselves for the times in life we are helpless? Contrast, Ivan's helpless state to the people Frankl profiles who are near death yet have found peace and dignity.
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