TJ Puckett, English 1A
Essay #1, The Sunflower
Due Dates:
Length:
Format:
Think Papers: 6/25
Typed, Rough Draft (3 copies): 7/2
Final Draft: 7/3
1250 words (approximately 5 typed, double-spaced pages)
Put your name, my name, the course number, and the due date in the upper left corner of
the first page of the essay. All essays should be typed, double-spaced, and should have
one-inch margins. In addition, this essay requires that you use correct MLA
documentation (in-text citations) for this essay.
This essay asks that you develop a thesis-driven essay that addresses some of the issues that Simon
Wiesenthal raises in his book, The Sunflower. In his book, Wiesenthal presents his terrorizing story in a
seemingly neutral way, leaving the reader to answer what s/he would have done in the situation instead
of giving definitive answers of his own.
As a starting point, you might want to consider the question that Wiesenthal raises at the end of his
narrative: “What would [you] have done?” While you may, in the end, find this an impossible question
to answer, addressing it in your freewriting may help guide you to a strong focus for your essay.
As you begin drafting your essay, you can use the essays in “The Symposium” part of the book as
models for your own essays. Look at some of the issues they address in their responses and at some of
the questions they attempt to answer. While these responses are much less formal than your essays, they
will be invaluable to you as you begin the process of writing this essay.
This assignment is intentionally broad and intentionally ambiguous. This book raises too many complex
issues for me to narrow your focus down to one topic. Most of you will quickly realize that the above
question is virtually impossible to answer with absolute certainty. Most of my past students started by
answering Wiesenthal’s question personally, but as they continued exploring issues surrounding the
situation, they realized that their personal views and beliefs don’t really apply.
In the end, students focus on different aspects of the text, such as Karl’s mother, Wiesenthal’s
uncertainty, why Wiesenthal leaves the question unanswered, whether or not Wiesenthal actually
forgives Karl, the notion of God being “on leave,” the role of “silence” in the book, etc. Most
importantly, you will want to make sure that the focus of your essay is on the book itself and not on the
larger issue of forgiveness or World War II. Your thesis should clearly reflect this, and you will be
citing extensively from the narrative portion of The Sunflower throughout your essay (as the Illustration
component of your P.I.E. paragraphs).
In addition to citing from the primary text, you should also cite from 2-3 of the essays in “The
Symposium” to help you address the situation in a more informed way. These responses come from a
variety of authority figures, all of whom take a slightly different take to the issues that Wiesenthal raises.
Some of you might also find that you want to do a bit of outside research to help better inform you;
however, please do not turn this into a research paper. Limit your outside research to one source,
perhaps the article that you find for your second think paper (due 2/13).