Strategies for Writing Your Essay (adapted from The Arlington Reader, Fourth Edition)
One. Know what type of writing your doing:
- Description
- Comparison and contrast
- Process analysis (how to do something)
- Narrative (we write narratives for many reasons: catharsis of demons, explanation of an epiphany that changed our lives, an account of remarkable suffering and resilience, an account of something that was excruciatingly funny, to name a few examples)
- Define a term that your reader needs to understand in greater depth
- Persuasion (persuade readers and/or listeners to act as opposed to argumentation which is to win people’s minds over an issue, but not necessarily change their behavior)
- Cause and effect analysis
- Argumentation
The takeaway from the above is that you should always know what type of essay is generated from the assignment options the professor gives you.
The wrong approach to an essay assignment:
Students were supposed to be content analysis of Tobias Wolff stories and what I got was ten percent analysis of Wolff’s stories and ninety percent of the student’s personal narrative.
Students were supposed to write an argumentative essay in which they either supported or refuted a book that argues we’re imprisoning too many Americans and rather than support or refute the author’s contention, these students merely summarized the book and included summaries of book reviews for their “argumentative paper,” which contained nothing of their own opinion.
Brainstorm of list of topics and thesis statements that are relevant to the essay.
Most writers need to get the bad stuff out of the way, so there’s no shame in coming up with five bad thesis statements before getting to a good one. That’s a natural course of events.
Always make sure your thesis addresses the essay prompt.
Your thesis is a single sentence that drives your whole essay. The thesis in argumentation is often called your claim.
Generally speaking, a thesis is the main argument or controlling idea of your essay. It makes a claim that intellectually sophisticated, challenging to common assumptions, compelling, and can is supportable with evidence.
The more obvious a thesis, the less compelling it is to write. The more a thesis reaches for insight or challenges common assumptions, the more compelling and sophisticated it is.
Bad thesis:
Smartphones are a nuisance in the class.
Better thesis
Rather than ban students from using their smartphones in the class, college instructors should integrate these and other personal technological devices into their classroom teaching.
Writing an introduction to your essay
Before transitioning from your introduction to your thesis, you should look at some effective introduction strategies:
Briefly narrate a compelling anecdote that captures your readers’ attention.
State a common false argument or false perception that your essay will refute.
Offer a curious paradox to pique your readers’ interest.
Ask a question that your essay will try to answer.
Use a fresh (not overused) quotation or parable to stir your readers’ interest.
Essay 1: Back in the World by Tobias Wolff, 150 points
Option One
We read in Judith Shulvit's Slate book review of Our Story Begins the following:
To read a collection of Wolff's work that spans the years is to realize that he is obsessed with the act of lying. Asked in an interview why so many of his characters lie, Wolff replied, "The world is not enough, maybe? … To lie is to say the thing that is not, so there's obviously an unhappiness with what is, a discontent." A recent outbreak of faked memoirs has set off a storm of outraged pontification about why people pass off false histories as their own, so it's satisfying to read about liars who lie for interesting reasons rather than the usual despicable ones. Wolff is, in fact, a genius at locating the truths revealed by lies—the ancient and holy tongues, you might say, the otherwise inexpressible inner realities that lies give voice to.
In a 5-page paper, typed and double-spaced, develop a thesis that analyzes the characters' need to lie in Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World. Address at least 4 stories in your essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 2
In one of his darker moods, our instructor McMahon said this about the human race:
"We are a lost and sorry lot, hopelessly imprisoned by self-deception: false narratives we rely on to define our identities; tantalizing chimeras that assuage the boredom of our banal existence, and willed ignorance that prevents us from seeing the grotesqueries roiling just underneath the facade that we present to the world and to ourselves. As a result, we are crazed and deformed creatures forever lost in a world of solipsism."
In a 5-page essay, analyze McMahon's remarks in the context of no fewer than 4 stories from Tobias Wolff's collection Back in the World.
For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Option 3
One camp of readers argue that Wolff's fiction is redemptive in that its characters are delivered from their delusions through life-changing epiphanies that propel them back into the world of reality and personal accountability. Another camp of readers say the epiphanies come too little too late and only serve to speak to the characters' lives, which can be defined by endless cycles of futility and as such Wolff's stories are not redemptive but nihilistic.
What camp are you in? Develop an argumentative thesis that defends your position in a 5-page essay. For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
Part One. Lexicon of Fake and Real Self-Esteem:
1. cipher, a nonentity, a nobody; a cipher like Mark is a narcissist whose self-esteem is GREATER than who he really is.
According to David Brooks' The Social Animal, most people suffer a disparity between their inflated self-esteem and their low competence and talent.
Irony: People with low self-esteem often are more competent and conscientious. This is probably because the term "low self-esteem" really means something else entirely: conscientious, having a moral conscience.
Another irony: A society like America that is obsessed with high self-esteem discourages the development of morality. In other words, America is a narcissistic culture hiding behind the robes of "self-esteem."
2. entitlement: I deserve good things in life without having to struggle to become worthy of those good things. Why should I have to work my butt off to get good crap? People should just love me for who I am. And this "love" should translate into me getting the stuff I want when I want it, which is now.
Entitlement is a form of self-crippling because you need character, toughness, discipline, and structured routine to achieve greatness.
In contrast, Mark is dependent on being bailed out by his parents to the point of being an entitled cripple. Thus we can conclude that parents who spoil their children cripple them and that the children unconsciously know this and resent their parents. Indeed, then, people do resent the hands that feed them.
Another irony: Unconditional generosity results in resentment from the benefactor of the generosity. Mark has no boundaries, no accountability, the adolescent dream of freedom, yet he is a slave to his immaturity, selfishness, spite, and rancor.
3. Audacity: stupid or inappropriate bold action; shameless boldness
4. Audacious, the adjective form of the noun audacity.
5. Thanatos, choosing death over life 137; perhaps Mark wants to die to spite his parents and to escape the unbearable truth that he has no talent and is doomed to failure.
6. Asinine, foolish 143
7. Hedonism; defining the ultimate form of happiness as the pleasure principle, a sort of religion whereby bodily pleasures are the supreme experience. At the root of hedonism is the desire to escape the self by losing oneself through self-abandonment. Often this self-abandonment is reckless and self-destructive. The bad boy rocker can pull off a binge of self-abandonment but not the anal accountant.
8. Acedia, depression from having no focus in life; your energy is sapped from you in the absence of a life purpose; I see a lot of acedia with potheads and alcoholics.
9. Nihilism, a sense that nothing matters for you or anything in this world; you’re beyond caring; a nihilist says, “I don’t give a damn about anything.” Or “It’s all B.S.”
10. Pushing the envelope (both husbands from "Say Yes" and "Desert Breakdown, 1968," push their wives to extremes until the wives have a "back in the world" moment) The irony is that people stay in their private hell because it's not hellish enough. Hell has to get really bad before we want to make our escape. In the absence of a hellish relationship, many people resign themselves to a slow, agonizing, low-simmering death.
Part Two. Mark’s Misguided Definition of Freedom Leads to Moral Dissolution
1. No boundaries, anything goes.
2. Self-indulgence; the self-indulgent man isn’t happy
3. Loyalty only to selfish whims, no accountability to anyone else, including one’s family
4. Make up reality as you go along to suit your needs and to justify your heinous actions
5. No accountability to anyone so that you’re free to piss away your life on nonsense.
6. To pursue one’s hedonistic vision of happiness.
7. The myth of Hakuna Matata
8. Use your money to get away with your most base impulses. Think of Arnold S and Maria Shriver. Arnold used big money to pay-off mistresses to keep silent but a love child for ten years finally emerged. Money can only keep secrets for so long.
Part Three. The Results of Misguided Freedom
1. immaturity
2. loneliness, lack of connection
3. a lack of focus, a wayward soul
4. moral dissolution, nihilism, despair, a lack of meaning, nothing matters anymore.
5. Your life will vacillate between self-pitying despair and bombastic grandeur. Think of Mark's Apex Fantasy: Being famous and humiliating his parents. His hatred of his parents parallels Donald's hatred of Peter.
Part Four. A More Accurate, Healthy Definition of Freedom
1. The discipline to do what it’s in your best interests.
2. Structured time that gives you increased responsibilities. The result is greater and greater maturity and fortitude.
3. Accountability to others, which strengthens your connections to others. Happiness is how connected we are to others.
Part Five. The Results of Real Freedom
1. Productivity
2. Maturity
3. High esteem in community
4. Connection to others
Wives and Husband in Wolff's Short Story Collection: What women discover or how they "go back into the world"
1. Crazy is the new normal
2. Auto pilot and passive acceptance
3. Husband pushes the envelope and shatters auto pilot
4. Wives resolved to self-sufficiency and control of their own destiny
Mark has no back in the world experience.
Krystal however does. What is it?
Oh my God. All of Mark's talk about being a singer, an entertainer, etc., is complete B.S. In fact, I am married to a louse, a cipher, a hideous, emotionally-arrested pig-man whom I must escape to improve the chances of a better life for my baby and me.
Back in the World Moment in "Say Yes": The wife sees her life as a lie and sees that her husband's life is a lie and always will be.
The Back in the World Moment in "Say Yes"
The husband's refusal to say yes in regards to marrying his wife if she were black makes the wife go back into the world in several ways.
One. The husband's reliance and dependence on cultural bias as a way of belonging to his tribe remains unquestioned and reveals him as an emotional child who lacks the independence of mind and courage to question why he thinks the way he does. In other words, he behaves blindly and stubbornly in all things and this puts a larger question at work for the wife: What is the meaning of my marriage?
Two. The wife suddenly needs to know: Are me and my husband playing empty roles? Are we playing house? Is our life merely a facade?
Three. The wife suddenly sees something hideous about her marriage: Oh my God. We live as a couple but it's all fake. We don't really know one another. We've been sleepwalking through life, going through the motions with our heads up our butts. I'm simply his "white" wife, an illusion.
Four. This marriage has no real intimacy or understanding. It's simply a domestic hell and I've acclimated to it successfully until now because I've been blind to its real status and substance.
Five. If my husband can't see me as a person and not a "white wife," then he doesn't love me for the real me but loves me as a superficial add-on, a trophy, a prop for his ideal image. How do I face him when I see my marriage for the farce that it is?
Five. The veil of my phony marriage has been lifted. The toothpaste is out of the tube and I can't put it back. What do I do now? I may be capable of change, but is my husband?
Six. The wife is revolted or disgusted by her husband. There's no going back. The marriage is over. We all have a Disgusting Experience that cuts off a relationship. I had one that I'll call the Snuggles Incident.
Seven. When it comes to race, thinking people realize that race is not a biological fact. Rather, race is 3 things:
1. It's a social construction.
2. It's random.
3. It's based on perception, not reality.
If the husband in the story received a letter telling him his wife has 10% African blood, what would he do? What if the letter stated she had 5%? What's his "cut-off" line? There isn't one. It's arbitrary.
The Need for Parallel Structure in Your Thesis and All Your Writing
Examples of Faulty Sentence Structure
The wife's back in the world moment consists of seeing her husband's racism, identifying his ignorance of who she really is, and to see his stubborn refusal to change.
"to see" should be replaced with "seeing"
To repair her marriage, the couple would be well advised to confront their sleepwalking existence, to acknowledge that they have been living not as one but as strangers in the same house, admitting they have not been listening enough to one another.
Replace "admitting" with "to admit"
Web Format
Consider these components that conceal, or reveal, the characters' true selves:
One. Jungian Psychology, the Shadow, or the Anti-Self, a reaction to our facade. Pete's facade of an assured rich man is shattered by his Shadow, an emotional cripple addicted to playing the role of Donald's mother.
Or look at Leo's Shadow, a reaction to his facade as the isolated pious religious man. His Shadow creates Slim, a worldly hustler.
Two. The Inverted Hakuna Matata (life with no worries). The more Pete and Mark pursue the Hakuna Matata, the more they suffer moral and spiritual dissolution or breakdown (hence the story's title "Desert Breakdown").
Three. The Extremes of Hell Produce Hope: In "Desert Breakdown" and "Say Yes" the doormat wives find hope and the courage to change, leaving their husbands, when their husbands' morally obnoxious behavior becomes extreme enough so that the wives can no longer see their marriage as "normal."
Approach for Writing About the Connection Between Symbiosis and Dishonesty: A symbiotic relationship defines a delusional and dishonest life.
Symbiosis, the unhealthy dependence between an individual and others, creates several ironies in the stories, "The Rich Brother, Desert Breakdown, and "Say Yes," not the least of which include the spoil-resentment effect; the enable-cripple effect; the submissive-power effect; and the escape-cling effect.
The spoil-resentment effect: spoiling results in crippling, moral dissolution, worthlessness, power envy. The enabler has assisted in the person's moral dissolution, learned helplessness, worthlessness.
McMahon's Approach to Writing a Thesis About Irony
Tobias Wolff's stories illuminate irony in many compelling, profound ways. Some include the irony of false wealth in "The Rich Brother"; the irony of self-knowledge in "The Missing Person"; the irony of marital power in "Desert Breakdown, 1968" and "Say Yes," and the irony of pride and blindness in "Our Story Begins."
Links for Parallelism
Part One: 3 Traps of Life As They Are Embodied in the Story's Characters
Trap One: Hopeless Despair: The doctor who wouldn't let go of his divorce pain and walked around an empty house.
In a similar trap, Charlie feels like a nonentity, a cipher, a nobody. He is looking for a sense of place, purpose, distinction, and belonging. He is looking for hope yet he feels like an outsider, a young man whose writing aspirations evidence a life of futility and vanity. As a result, he is overcome by the paralysis of self-pity. His hope lies in his passion and hunger for literature and writing in general. By the story's end, he identifies with the ship moving through the fog, an act of faith and desire kept alive.
Trap Two: Vainglorious Pride: A woman died because she wouldn't take off her body-length mink coat in Buenos Aries, an an outdoor bazaar.
Hipsters say "we're educated, hip, cosmopolitans, not like those close-minded provencial tribalists," and in doing so these hipsters become the very tribalists they claim to despise.
Pride always results in blindness.
Audrey and George, the two illicit lovers embody pride and vanity. They feel morally and spiritually superior to the man they’ve betrayed, Truman. They are in fact blinded by their vanity, which is ironic in the context of Miguel whose passions make him blind.
Audrey and George think they're better educated than most; they think they're special; as a result, they are blind to their vanity.
Trap Three: Self-Satisfied Mediocrity and Complacency: The couple in Torrance who have separate TVs and pills and fast-food refuse on their porch.
Truman is a man who evidences a lack of curiosity regarding anything beyond his small circle of interest; he shows a certain philistinism (disdain for arts) and is so lax and self-satisfied with his current station in life that he is blind to the fact that his wife Audrey his having an affair with his “friend” George.
Part Two. Thematic Elements
Fog is pervasive in the story. Fog appears to represent blindness, a struggle to see.
All the characters are blind in some fashion or other and this blindess brings them to one of Life's 3 Traps. Like a typical college student, Charlie is blind to his identity, his niche, his sense of belonging; Audrey and George are blind to their vanity that makes them repulsive and obnoxious; Truman is blind to his complacency that stagnates him and makes him fail to see his wife is venturing into adulterous waters; Miguel is blinded by fanatical love.
Irony
Story’s irony is that in the midst of all this blindness and fog there is hope: All the characters are starting their lives over. A new start suggests rebirth and the possibility of seeing things again.
Jahiliyya, this is the Arabic term for a long, protracted period of ignorance, the dark ages, if you will. Every character is stuck in the Jahiliyya, as we all are at one period in our lives.
Charlie is blind to his own life but he becomes the Third Eye of the love triangle, witnessing in an almost voyeuristic fashion the sad truth that Truman is about to confront.
Final paragraph shows a lobster flailing its pincers, perhaps a sign of desire. Perhaps our “salvation” is staying hungry, keeping our passion, as a sort of antidote from complacency and vanity and despair.
Part Three. Class Activity for Reviewing Irony in the Stories and Developing Your Thesis
Explain specific, distinguishing characteristics for irony for the following stories and then develop a thesis that allows you to put ALL the distinguishing characteristics for your research paper:
"Rich Brother" (example: The more assured Pete is in his identity as the "rich brother" the more he remains blind to his essential weakness: He is an emotional cripple, incapable of change, incapable of maturity and humility, and incapable of freeing himself from his sick addiction to playing the role of Mother to his brother Donald.)
"The Missing Person"
"Say Yes"
"Desert Breakdown, 1968"
"Our Story Begins"
Review of Essay Assignment
In a 6-page research paper, use no fewer than 3 stories from the book to write an extended definition of the word irony. You must chronicle an ironic experience you had in a personal narrative for the first 2 pages.
Some thesis statements to avoid:
Wolff's stories are rich in irony.
Irony really hits the characters with a wallop.
I really like all the irony in Wolff's stories.
We learned that irony is part of seeing the world in a new way and that once you see irony, really see it, you can't go back to your pre-ironic existence.
I feel better about myself now that I learned the definition of irony and have decided to change my major.
Understanding irony in Wolff's stories really opens your eyes to life's deeper truths and now that I've read this book I'm a better person. Thank you, McMahon.
Understanding irony makes me feel special, like I'm a member of an elite club, but the downside is now I feel lonely because so few people understand life the way I do. McMahon, you ruined my life.
I've studied irony in McMahon's class and read all the stories but now I'm more confused about irony more than ever and will probably drop McMahon's class and take 1A from another instructor.
Irony is not really that big of a deal. I see it everywhere. I don't see why McMahon has to make a big production of it. Frankly, I'm bored with the subject of irony and am ready to give up on McMahon.
Studying irony makes you a better person so spend a lot of time studying it and you'll see how much better your life is.
I don't believe in irony. It doesn't exist. It's just a cynical attitude McMahon has about life and he's trying to infect us with his cynical attitude. I resent him and I resent the class. At the end of the semester I'm filing a complaint.
You can't separate two sentences with a conjunctive adverb and a comma, so you better know the list of these adverbs. However, you can use a comma followed by FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).
I'm sweating in the sun; however, I must wait out here for my girlfriend.
I'm sweating in the sun, but I must wait out here for my girlfriend.
McMahon Grammar Exercises: Comma Splices and Run-Ons
After each sentence, put a “C” for Correct or a “CS” for Comma Splice. If the sentence is a comma splice, rewrite it so that it is correct.
One. Bailey used to eat ten pizzas a day, now he eats a spinach salad for lunch and dinner.
Two. Marco no longer runs on the treadmill, instead he opts for the less injury-causing elliptical trainer.
Three. Running can cause shin splints, which can cause excruciating pain.
Four. Running in the incorrect form can wreak havoc on the knees, slowing down can often correct the problem.
Five. While we live in a society where 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers are on the rise, the reading of books, sad to say, is on the decline.
Six. Facebook is a haven for narcissists, it encourages showing off with selfies and other mundane activities that are ways of showing how great and amazing our lives our, what a sham.
Seven. We live in a society where more and more Americans are consuming 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers, however, those same Americans are reading less and less books.
Eight. Love is a virus from outer space, it tends to become most contagious during April and May.
Nine. The tarantula causes horror in many people, moreover there is a species of tarantula in Brazil, the wandering banana spider, that is the most venomous spider in the world.
Ten. Even though spiders cause many people to recoil with horror, most species are harmless.
Eleven. The high repair costs of European luxury vehicles repelled Amanda from buying such a car, instead she opted for a Japanese-made Lexus.
Twelve. Amanda got a job at the Lexus dealership, now she’s trying to get me a job in the same office.
Thirteen. While consuming several cinnamon buns, a twelve-egg cheese omelet, ten slices of French toast slathered in maple syrup, and a tray of Swedish loganberry crepes topped with a dollop of blueberry jam, I contemplated the very grave possibility that I might be eating my way to a heart attack.
Fourteen. Even though I rank marijuana far less dangerous than most pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol, and other commonly used intoxicants, I find marijuana unappealing for a host of reasons, not the least of which is its potential for radically degrading brain cells, its enormous effect on stimulating the appetite, resulting in obesity, and its capacity for over-relaxing many people so that they lose significant motivation to achieve their primary goals, opting instead for a life of sloth and intractable indolence.
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