Today's Agenda:
1. Review sentence fragments
2. MLA citations for web sources
3. "North American Martyrs" Study Questions
4. "Deep Kiss" Study Questions
5. Brainstorm a thesis statement example
6. MLA format review
7. Claim, evidence, warrant for your essay
8. In-class tentative thesis
Review Sentence Fragments
prepositional phrase:
In the summer of 2002 where the blossoms bloomed in Rosemary Fields,
At the intersection between nihilism and redemption,
participle phrase (modifies a noun like an adjective):
Weeping in front of my computer with no idea where to begin on my research paper and feeling overwrought with fear that I would fail my composition class,
Trying to understand the ramification of the nihilism in Wolff's fiction,
I saw my favorite car. A BMW growling on my front porch.
I gave the protein bar to Karen. My personal trainer from Ventura.
Brian gave Dave all the treasure. Including the diamonds from their previous heist.
noun clause:
Many of the students who cannot think of a good thesis for their research paper and who are procrastinating by drinking coffee at the local Starbucks
The stories with the most lies addressing self-deception, denial, and willed ignorance . . .
dependent clause or subordinate clause:
Even though my thesis has clear mapping statements and addresses the writing prompt,
While we can all agree that Wolff's stories are larded with a degree of crippling nihilism,
Look at MLA in-text citations 12, 22, and 23 on this Bedford list.
In "The Garden of North American Martyrs" Study Questions
One. What “lie” defines Mary’s life?
Fear, striving to not offend, disappearing act, seeking safety but becoming invisible, being overly cautions (4).
In other words, Mary's lie is that being off the radar screen, being the affable doormat, keeps you safe. Wrong. You will be trounced upon. You will be prey for the predators. You will be the Fall Person when people need one.
Two. What lie does the New York committee tell Mary?
They’re maintaining a façade by performing an interview quota. Mary will be the pawn in their game. Why? Because she's the "safe" lady who doesn't make a stink when people ruffle her feathers (sorry for the cliches).
Three. What is Louise’s psychological profile?
She is a pathological liar, a vain narcissist, a delusional victim of her own selfishness (7). She is upset that her husband doesn't "understand" when she cheats on him. Her lie is that spouses are supposed to be "understanding" during these circumstances. She is a selfish cipher who uses people.
Four. Explain the story’s title.
Darwin is the toothy jaw behind the façade of gentility, meritocracy, higher education, America’s aspiration to “exceptionalism.”
Our myth of innocence, the "garden," is dismantled when we look at the innocent blood that flows to keep the garden tended.
To maintain this façade, America uses scapegoats, martyrs, who are fed to the beast. They are a people without pity (13).
In his essay "Our Quiet Tragedies," Micah Mattix writes this about Mary's lack of redemption:
For Wolff, however, if small decisions can have tragic consequences, these consequences can, in turn, be redeemed, even if opportunities for redemption arise unexpectedly in fragile moments of circumstance. Such an opportunity arises for Mary, and she tries to take it, but ultimately fails. Mary arrives for the class she is supposed to teach, and she has decided that she will indeed “wing it.” She rattles off a number of facts about the brutality of the Iroquois; in particular, she reminds the students that the college has been built on the land where the Iroquois used to hunt, torture and eat people, to the great consternation of the faculty present. The head of the search committee stands up and shouts “That’s enough!” but Mary refuses to stop. Paraphrasing Micah 6:8, she urges her audience to “mend” their lives: “You have deceived yourselves in the pride of your hearts and the strength of your arms. Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, thence I will bring you down, says the Lord. Turn from power to love. Be kind. Do justice. Walk humbly.” She turns off her hearing aid “so that she would not be distracted” and seems to speak her mind, her self, into a fuller, more present existence.
Yet, what seems to be a moment of redemption turns out to be merely one of substitution or displacement. Instead of coming to know herself—in the classical, not modern relativistic, sense–Mary merely substitutes one version of her constructed self (the quirky, silent academic) for another (the female victim of powerful male cut-throats). Thus, Mary’s initial tragic decision to stop speaking her beliefs and values into existence is compounded by her refusal to recognize later in life that her present situation is at least in part a consequence of that initial decision. Here, she blames the academic “machine” for its oppression while at the same time refusing to acknowledge her own failings. And so when Mary compares herself to the Catholic priests who were martyred at the hands of the Iroquois, she both exaggerates her own victimization and misses the ironic sense in which she has, in fact, already become a very North American sort of martyr. After all, it is Mary herself who chooses at the beginning of her academic career to give up her ideas and beliefs to save her so-called “quality of life” rather than, as is the way with most martyrs, giving up her life for her ideas and beliefs.
While few of Wolff’s characters experience redemption, most, including Mary, desire it. In this sense, Wolff is both a reluctant pessimist and a pessimistic optimist. While he understands the “human position” of our private tragedies–that we often bring them on ourselves in the small, seemingly meaningless decisions that we make in our lives—he also affirms that our longings for redemption are universal, and, therefore, as much a part of what makes us human as pain and suffering.
***
The tragedy of Wolff's fiction, we learn from Mattix, is that not only do Wolff's characters fail to find redemption; they are the own cause of their damnation. Their "little" decisions add up to create a form of self-betrayal that has life-long consequences.
Mattix's essay affirms the notion that Wolff's characters are their own worst enemies who dig a hole for themselves so deep that they can never climb out. They rarely experience even a whiff of redemption.
While "our longings for redemption are universal," as Mattix observes, Wolff's characters finding their longings remain unfulfilled as his fiction paints a bleak picture of the human condition.
"Deep Kiss"
Brainstorm
One. Adolescence is about the power of hormones and the inclination to make everything dramatic and adrenalin-filled. We would be deluded to think that we could sustain the intense emotions of adolescence into adulthood.
Two. It appears that the males in Wolff’s fiction are stuck in the adolescent stage, which defines them more than anything. This could speak to American culture, which encourages adolescence as the highest ideal. We can see this in TV ads, most of which target young people.
Three. The story is about memories and how these memories can overtake us so that we can’t live in the present.
Four. The story is about how love can make us go crazy. Joe’s mom knows that he has gone crazy and she wants him to move away from his “drug addiction.” Even when Joe and his mom do move, he is still living in his past love.
Five. “Champagne love” or nectar leaves a mark on our brain so that everything we experience afterwards is lackluster, dull, boring. As a result, life is no longer worth living.
Six. Even if the “champagne love” is not real, even if it exists in the imagination, if we believe it’s true, then it becomes our “truth” and this “truth” destroys us.
Seven. It seems that all of Wolff’s characters have used their deluded minds to create a “truth,” actually a lie, which destroys them. This speaks to the absence of redemption in Wolff’s stories.
Eight. Wolff’s characters have convictions. The tragedy is that their convictions are not based on truths but lies, fantasies, and self-delusions.
Nine. All men have a memory of “champagne love” that haunts them till their grave.
Thesis:
While there may be glimpses of redemption in a spattering of Wolff stories, by and large his stories are conspicuously absent of redemption because the characters develop false convictions as a result of ___________, _____________, ________________, and _______________________.
narcissism
solipsism
perpetual adolescence
cowardice
symbiotic relationships
Why is "Deep Kiss" pessimistic? Because it's saying that once you taste "champagne love" and you're convinced it's gone, your life is ruined forever.
Review Basic MLA Research Paper Format
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 six page paper, typed and double-spaced, develop a thesis that analyzes the characters' need to lie in Tobias Wolff's collection Our Story Begins. Address at least 4 stories in your essay. Be sure to have a debatable claim that is argumentative, cause and effect, definition, or claim of value.
For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
This appears to be a cause and effect thesis and the level of difficulty is very high.
Option Two
In one of his darker moods, our instructor McMahon, inspired by Wolff's fiction, 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 six-page essay, support, refute, or complicate McMahon's remarks in the context of no fewer than 4 stories from Tobias Wolff's collection Our Story Begins.
For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
This appears to be an argumentative thesis and the level of difficulty is extremely high. In fact, I discourage you from choosing this one unless you "have" to do it.
Option Three
One camp of readers argues 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 and 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 6-page essay.
For your Works Cited, use Wolff's collection, my blog, and a book review.
This is an argumentative thesis with moderate and appropriate difficulty. When I teach this book again, this may very well be the ONLY option available to the students.
In-Class Exercise: Write a tentative or working thesis statement for your Tobias Wolff essay and show me at end of class.
Remember, your thesis should be a claim of cause and effect, a claim of definition, or a claim of argument.
Also remember that an effective thesis maps out your essay.
Finally, the best way to succeed in addressing an essay prompt is to convert the prompt into a question that you can answer with a thesis.
For Option One:
What forces (or causes) drive both normal and pathological people into a world of falsehoods, delusions, deceptions, denials, and lies?
For Option Two:
What evidence of solipsism is there in Wolff's stories?
For Option Three:
What forces (or causes) negate any evidence of redemption and render Wolff's stories nihilistic and deterministic (characters have no free will)?
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