For the past four or five
years, most of you have been taught to create a three-pronged thesis and a
five-paragraph essay.This format will continue to be invaluable
to you—throughout college—for timed, in-class writing.
However, for out-of-class writing, and especially for longer assignments,
the rigid, five-paragraph format is seldom adequate.Instead,
you will have to rely on your judgment, experience, and common sense to
determine paragraphing of an organized and focused paper.The
following rules will help you stick to your thesis and keep your writing
organized while you practice creative paragraphing
Example 1|2|3|A|B|Suggestions 1-5
1. Your thesis must be arguable and as specific as
possible, whether it has zero or four “prongs”
2.
Each topic
sentence must be arguable and must relate directly back to your thesis
3.
Try to include a
transition at the beginning of each paragraph and a sum
4.
Begin a new
paragraph as you introduce each major new idea
5.
Paragraphs that
are close to two typed pages (about 300-350 words) are often unwieldy; reread
an abnormally long paragraph to see if it needs to be cut into two or more
shorter paragraphs
6.
You may discuss
more than one piece of textual evidence in a paragraph, if in doing so, you
maintain
paragraph
unity (follow suggestions 1-5, above).See “Example One.”
7. You may discuss more than one source in a
single paragraph, if in doing so, you maintain paragraph
unity
(follow suggestions 1-5, above).See “Example
Two.”
8. You may analyze a single quote in as many
paragraphs as are necessary.There is no
rule that
states you must have one paragraph per quote. The analysis of a particularly
rich quote
might easily
extend through two or more paragraphs.In such
situations, simply follow suggestions
1-5, above.See “Example Three.”
Thesis: In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
Twain’s social criticism is apparent in several ironic
passages that reveal Huck’s individual conscience to be
superior to society’s moral codes.
A.
In a corrupt
environment, an honest man must often practice small deceptions to effect good,
and thus Huck counters his society’s cruelty and selfishness by telling
white lies.
*telling white lies about rich Jim Hornback’s niece being on Sir Walter Scott so
that intended murder
victim will be
rescued (73)
B.
Huck,
instinctively recognizing that most people are wholly self-centered and that
slavery is a terrible
injustice,
must lie again to save his new friend Jim from the horrors of slavery.
*Huck tells the men that his father,
suffering from small pox, is on the raft. As Huck knew they
would, the
men flee.Ironically, Huck has been conditioned by his
society to feel guilty, when in fact
he has behaved
virtuously: “They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and
low, because
I knowed
very well that I had done wrong, and I could see that it warn’t
no use for me to try to learn
to do
right” (89).
C.
Twain also uses
Huck’s innocence ironically to point out society’s hypocrisy and
cruelty.
*The Grangerfords
and Shepherdsons go to church together on Sunday morning.They take their
guns to
church and lean on them during the sermon on brotherly love (106).Once out of
church,
they begin to
kill one another.Only Huck, who ran away from the
widow so he would not have to
attend
church, is disturbed by the savage behavior (112)
D.
Twain again uses
irony to suggest the superiority of the individual’s moral conscience
over society’s
moral
code when Huck, conditioned by his society to believe that he is going to hell
for helping to free Jim, chooses hell over the betrayal of a friend.
*“’There was the
Sunday-school you could a gone to it; and if you’d a done it they’d
a learnt you there
that people
that acts as I’d been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting
fire’” (205).
Conclusion: With humor and irony, Twain
seems to suggest that man is capable of virtue only when he has the courage to
reject the corrupting influence of his society.
and one paraphrase)
Topic Sentence: Ironically, Twain presents Huck’s virtue
through white lies that the boy must tell to transform humanity’s greed
and self-interest into compassionate behavior.
Introduce and cite first
evidence: quote or paraphrase (73): Huck says that Jim Hornback’s
niece
is on the wrecked steamboat because he knows the men can
be motivated only by their greed for money, not by kindness or compassion.Fully develop analysis of first evidence
to expose irony of lying as a virtue. Sum
Please excuse spacing and
format, which do not follow MLA format
Topic Sentence:
should make a specific and arguable statement that applies to both works.
In
Introduce and cite
evidence from first work: One
afternoon, Giovanni grows suspicious as observes Beatrice through his window.
“With these words, the beautiful daughter of Rappaccini
plucked one of the richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten it to
her bosom.But now, unless Giovanni’s draughts
of wine had bewildered his senses, a singular incident occurred. A small
orange-colored reptile of the lizard or chameleon species chanced to be
creeping along the path, just at the feet of Beatrice.It
appeared to Giovanni—but, at the distance from which he gazed, he could
scarcely have seen anything so minute—it appeared to him, however, that a
drop or two of moisture from the broken stem of the flower descended upon the
lizard’s head. For an instant, the reptile contorted itself violently,
and then lay motionless in the sunshine”(1235).Fully develop
analysis of evidence from first source: the supernatural quality of the
flower can be explained away by Giovanni’s distance and/or drunkeness—if Giovanni is an unreliable witness, the
supernatural (gothic) doesn’t necessarily exist. Sum
Example 1|2|3|A|B|Suggestions 1-5
Example
Three: more than one
paragraph analyzing a single quote.
First Topic Sentence: Twain’s irony clearly suggests that the
individual’s conscience is superior to society’s moral code when Huck,
deciding not to return Jim, believes that he is both a sinner and a hypocrite.
Introduce Quote:Just before Huck tears up the letter that
would return Jim to Miss Watson, Huck muses, Quote: And I about made up
my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of boy
I was and be better.So I kneeled down.But
the words wouldn’t come.Why wouldn’t they?It warn’t no use to
try and hide it from Him.Not from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come.It was because my heart warn’t
right; it was because I warn’t square; it was
because away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all.I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right
thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger’s owner and
tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it
was a lie, and He knowed it.You
can’t pray a lie—I found that out. (205)
Develop full analysis (at least twice as long
as quote) here.Examine first irony (Huck’s
painful guilt and self-examination in thinking that he is committing a terrible
sin by practicing compassion.)Conclude with a sum
Example 1|2|3|A|B|Suggestions 1-5
A.
In Jude the
Obscure and Madame Bovary, windows often suggest a freedom from
conventional marriage that the individual can envision but cannot achieve.
1.
Sue jumps out the
window when Phillotson comes to her bed—but he
retrieves her and returns her to her confinement
2.
“Twice a
day
1.
“His little
room, more like a cupboard than a place to live in, was tucked away under the
roof of the high five-storied building”(Dostoevsky 1).
2.
“Why are
you looking around my room?Mama
here says it is like a coffin” (Dostoevsky 202).
1.
Jude, after
mercifully killing the trapped rabbit, seizes Sue’s hand through the open
window and exclaims, “‘There is a stronger
one left’! he said. ‘I’ll never care
about my doctrines or my religion any more!Let
them go!Let me help you, even if I do love you, and
even if you…’”(Hardy 170).
2.
Madame Bovary
tries unsuccessfully to repress her adulterous yearnings by becoming a
religious zealot. The moment of inspiration for her fleeting transformation is
recounted-- “One evening when she was sitting by an open window, watching
Lestiboudois, the sexton, trim the boxwood, she
suddenly heard the ringing of the Angelus”(Flaubert 78).
by religious
conventions, Hardy and Flaubert use natural settings and landscapes to suggest
literal
and figurative
escape from restraint .
1.
To escape
punishment from her strict school, Sue jumps through a window and into a river
to reach her illicit companion, Jude.
2.
Conversely, when
Emma’s adulterous inclinations are temporarily thwarted by Rodolphe’s departure,
she falls
ill and her habits at the window change.“Madame
Bovary’s convalescence was slow.On good days
they wheeled her arm-chair to the window that overlooked the square, for she
now disliked the garden, and the blinds on that side were always down.She wanted her horse to be sold; what she formerly
liked now displeased her” (Flaubert 153).
marital, or
financial constraint—is apparent when not Raskolnikov,
but his mother, comments to
Dunya:
“’It will be good for him to go out and get a breath of
air…it’s terribly close in his room…but
where can one get
fresh air here?Even in the streets it is like an
unventilated room…stop; move out
of the way!You will be crushed; they are carrying something.Why it is actually a pianoforte!How
they
push!’” (Dostoevsky203).
Example 1|2|3|A|B|Suggestions
1-5
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