ENG 3UI
Novel Study
Thesis Preparation and Development
1. Your thesis statement acts as a map to your essay. You must include the main ideas you will explore and
introduce the themes you will present. Please read the following thesis statements and identify the main
ideas for each essay.
Thesis
A commentary on the struggles between social classes in America
during the 1920s and 1930s, The Great Gatsby emphasizes that it is
better to be born poor and stay poor than to be a self-made man
like Jay Gatsby, whose acquired wealth has limited power in
others’ eyes, influence over those of lower classes, and social
standing when compared to those with inherited wealth.
It is through self-discovery, sexuality maturity, and assertion of
power, that the women in the novel The Color Purple are able to
free themselves from male dominance and abuse.
In Lullabies for Little Criminals, Baby’s path to self-destructive
behaviour can be attributed to the loss of her mother at an early
age, causing her love for her abusive father to manifest into an
unhealthy pattern of sexually, emotionally, and psychologically
damaging actions.
While a sense of geography, the time period, and racial dynamics
of the time would enhance the “realistic” interpretation of the
text, for The Alchemist to truly have an effect on a reader, that
reader must simply be open to the broader themes of the text:
Personal Legends exist for each individual; there is one language to
communicate with the world; and “the journey is the destination”.
In The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Duddy’s burgeoning
obsession with money and greed ultimately sacrifice the significant
relationships he has with Virgil, Yvette and his Grandfather,
affirming the notion that money cannot buy happiness.
Main Ideas
Course Theme
/ Critical Lens
ENG 3UI
Novel Study
Novel Study Essay: Planning Your Thesis Statement
Instructions:
To construct your thesis statement, choose one entry from each column (typically, you will choose the theorist’s
idea that matches with your choice of criticism). Highlight your choices.
Criticisms/Theories
Feminist/Gender
Criticism
Marxist/Class
Criticism
Quotation from a Theorist
“Feminism is, at its core, very simple: the belief that men and
women should have equal opportunity for self-expression”
(Foss 51).
Course Theme
Suffering/Pain
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles” (Karl Marx)
Power
Appearances are
deceiving
Betrayal
Psychoanalytical
Criticism
“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us
pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must
therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes
collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to
pieces.” (Sigmund Freud)
or
"The ego is not master in its own house." (Sigmund Freud,
1917)
Reader Response
Criticism*
In FORMAL TONE
Influence
Decision-Making
“Readers do not passively consume the meaning presented to Triumph
them by an objective literary text; rather they actively make
Blindness
the meaning they find in literature" (Tyson 154).
*a reader response essay must analyze the text with an argument about the “implied reader” of the text and
should not be a personal reflection on how your own personal experiences enhanced your reading of the text.
Assessment: Use your analysis of your novel through your chosen lens, in relation to a course theme, to write
a thesis statement that meets all of the following criteria:
The thesis statement does
The thesis statement
Self Assessment
6 Marks:
does not:
o
state
a
realistic,
provable,
opposable
opinion
(not
just
an
Date:
observation of the text)
o include a plot
/10
o that includes reading of the text through a particular lens
Peer Assessment
Date:
/10
Teacher Assessment
Date:
/10
(1)
that addresses the idea in the chosen theorist’s words (1)
that develops a course theme (1)
that outlines three supporting main ideas (3)
o
o
o
1 Mark Each:
o make a specific, focused and clear point
o use elevated language and correct grammar/punctuation
o use the formal tone effectively
o take one sentence to say
o
o
o
o
summary
involve a personal
opinion
ask a question
use general or vague
terminology “Since
the dawn of time” 
sound like “In this
essay it will be
proven...”
ENG 3UI
Novel Study
FEMINISM
Typical questions:
 How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
 What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters assuming male/female roles)?
 How are male and female roles defined?
 What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
 How do characters embody these traits?
 Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this change others’ reactions to them?
 What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of
patriarchy?
 What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy?
 What does the work say about women's creativity?
 What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the operation of
patriarchy?
 What role the work plays in terms of women's literary history and literary tradition?
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Typical questions:
 How do the operations of repression structure or inform the work?
 Are there any oedipal dynamics - or any other family dynamics – in the work here?
 How can characters' behaviour, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts
of any kind (for example...fear or fascination with death, sexuality - which includes love and romance as well as
sexual behaviour - as a primary indicator of psychological identity or the operations of ego-id-superego)?
 What does the work suggest about the psychological being of its author?
 What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about the psychological motives of the reader?
 Are there prominent words in the piece that could have different or hidden meanings? Could there be a
subconscious reason for the author using these "problem words"?
MARXISM
Typical questions:
 Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is accepted/successful/believed, etc.?
 What is the social class of the author?
 Which class does the work claim to represent?
 What values does it reinforce?
 What values does it subvert?
 What conflict can be seen between the values the work champions and those it portrays?
 What social classes do the characters represent?
 How do characters from different classes interact or conflict?
READER RESPONSE
Typical questions:
 How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning?
 What does a phrase-by-phrase analysis of a short literary text, or a key portion of a longer text, tell us about the
reading experience prestructured by (built into) that text?
 Do the sounds/shapes of the words as they appear on the page or how they are spoken by the reader enhance or
change the meaning of the word/work?
 What does the body of criticism published about a literary text suggest about the critics who interpreted that text
and/or about the reading experience produced by that text?
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/1/