Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner both capture the experience of alienation and loss felt in the wake of WWI. In the novels The Sun Also Rises and The Sound and the Fury the authors present worlds that no longer make sense to their inhabitants where the characters have been separated from the wholeness and comfort of their prewar lives. While Hemingway’s Jake Barnes is so overwhelmed by the emasculating war wound that precludes even the possibility of a relationship with Lady Brett that he retreats entirely from the world into a thoughtless and superficial existence, Faulkner’s Quentin
Compson fully immerses himself in his troubles, futilely struggling to recreate the lost family unity he feels was precipitated by the departure of his sister
Caddie. The characters’ differing reactions are captured with each author’s unique style. Hemingway’s simple narration with terse sentences and detailed attention to the minutia of Jake’s actions rather than his thoughts reveals the withdrawn approach Jake takes to dealing with his loss. Faulkner, however, creates the desperate and chaotic thoughts of Quentin as he struggles to regain an irrevocably lost family through stream of consciousness and complex, unstructured sentences.

Step 1: Identify and describe situation of Jake
Step 2: Illustrate how EH’s style reveals Jake’s reaction to situation
Transition: EH Avoidance / simplicity  WF Immersion / complexity
Step 3: Identify and describe situation of Quentin
Step 4: Illustrate how WF’s style reveals Q’s reaction to situation
Step 5: Conslusion
NOTE: SECTIONS ARE NOT PARAGRAPHS. It would likely take this writer multiple paragraphs to effectively complete sections 2 and 4.

From the beginning of the novel, Hemingway establishes Jake Barnes as a man wounded by the war and unable to make sense of his loss. His injury has rendered him impotent, leaving him incapable of gaining access to the one thing that may bring him comfort with his new post-war reality: Lady Brett
Ashley. A very sensual woman, Lady Brett requires sexual satisfaction in order to have a relationship with a man. This is a condition that Jake simply cannot meet, making a relationship between the two of them and the resultant solace such a relationship would bring Jake impossibilities. Looking at himself in the mirror naked, Jake briefly considers the nature of his injury and laments "Of all the ways to be wounded. I suppose it was funny. I put my pajamas on and got into bed” (Hemingway 387). Being left without a penis but with his testicles intact has rendered him incapable of having sex but has not robbed him of his desire to have sex. Simply put, he wants a relationship with Brett, but the war has taken from him the ability to have that relationship. As a result, Jake can neither move forward with in his new wounded reality, nor return to a time when he was whole. So he chooses to simply exist in a continuous, eternal present where he acts without thought to avoid dealing with a loss that it is too much for him to bear.

Hemingway captures the withdrawn thoughtlessness of Jake with his simple narration. As Jake’s way of dealing with his loss is to avoid thinking about it,
Hemingway provides simple yet intricate detail about Jake’s actions that highlight the absence of his thought. Even when contemplating the nature of his injury, Jake follows the lament, “Of all the ways to be wounded. I suppose it was funny” with a simple description of what he did next, “I put my pajamas on and got into bed” (Hemingway 387). Hemingway provides no further indication of
Jake’s thought about his wound because there is no further thought about his wound. Critic John Newbury describes Jake saying, “His terse narration is a representation of the sterility of his reaction to the war. Jake avoids dealing with loss by focusing only the meticulous details of ordinary life” (27). The simple detail with which Hemingway provides description of Jake’s actions highlights his lack of thought as his thoughts about something so obviously troubling to him are conspicuously absent. Jake’s lack of thought, however, should not be confused with a lack of complexity. On the contrary, Hemingway’s stylistic choice to render Jake’s actions in simple and meticulous detail, even in the face of what is clearly overwhelming emotion, reveal his desperate focus on a superficial present to avoid thinking about what the war has taken from him.

1.
Topic sentences should not be details. What part of your argument will you prove in this paragraph? I should be able to follow your POT just by reading your topic sentences.
2.
Transitions between paragraphs should be smooth. The two paragraphs on the previous two slides are consecutive. Note the transition begins at the end of the first paragraph and continues to the beginning of the second paragraph.
3.
Provide context for quotations from the novel; do not just drop them in without setting them up.
4.
ANALYZE—DO NOT SUMMARIZE. Explain how your details support the point you make in your topic sentence.
5.
KEEP YOUR THESIS IN MIND. WILL THE POINT YOU ARE MAKING
IN THE PARAGRAPH SUPPORT YOUR THESIS?