Day 7
English 101 Section 1668
(7:00 to 8:30 p.m. and 8:40 to 10:10 p.m.)
For Today:
7. W 10/16
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Hacker: Word Choice. Second read: Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises.
From website: John Dos Pasos: Hemingway’s First Year in Paris.
(Hemingway discussion: context, Southern France & Spain. Research
paper topic. Research Thesis: how to find, how to nurture.) ESSAY SIX:
REVISION (100).
Peer review of rewritten essay. Attendance.
Nurturing a thesis. (Three submissions rule.)
How to create a Writing Plan.
Highlight context of SAR: WWI & After. Paris, Lost Generation, Roman à clef.
Discuss first part of novel.
Review: Hacker: MLA Papers. And Sentence Style.
For Next Class:
8. W 10/23
Hacker: Researching. From website: Michael Soto: Hemingway among
the Bohemians. Also from website: Gertrude Stein: selections from
Buttons. (Hemingway discussion: language and structure.) Plagiarism:
spotting & avoiding.) RESEARCH THESIS DUE. WRITING PLAN DUE.
PRESENTATION OF RESEARCH TOPICS TO THE CLASS.
••••
Things to include in a good Writing Plan:
o Dates when assignments are do.
o Other obligations and assignments that you need to attend to.
o Breakdown of the tasks to achieve each assignment.
 Brainstorming.
 Library search time.
 Internet search time.
 Research reading.
 note taking.
 Free writing.
 preliminary outlining.
 Discussion with classmate (and reading his/her assignment).
 Revising.
o Estimation of time needed for each task and assignment.
o Breakdown of time slots for large tasks.
o Build in fall back time periods in case something doesn't go as planned.
English 101 Research Paper: The Sun Also Rises
For your paper, you will conduct research in order to develop a thesis and support for one
of the topics below. It is crucial that you gather enough information about your subject to
develop an informed opinion. Your knowledge must support your thesis with your own
insight in conjunction with specific references to sources.
Research Paper Topics: (Choose one)
 Harold Bloom said, “A great style is itself necessarily a trope, a metaphor for a
particular attitude toward reality.” If this is the case, what can we surmise about
Hemingway’s attitude toward reality, based on the style of The Sun Also Rises?
 Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast was published nearly forty years after The Sun Also
Rises and, not surprisingly, gives a different view of life and times in expatriate Paris
during the 1920s. Examine some of those differences and account for them.
 Certain critics have referred to The Sun Also Rises as a war novel even though not a
single shot is fired. Speculate on whether this is true, and if so, on what implications
this has for the themes and style of the novel.
 Paris, Pamplona, Madrid, San Sebastian -- the locations of Hemingway’s story take
on certain attributes as if they were characters themselves. Address the role setting
plays in A Sun Also Rises, using specific details, and speculate on Hemingway’s
thematic designs for using his settings.
 Brett Ashley is, to say the least, one of the most singular woman characters of
modern fiction. Androgynous and sexually liberated, abused, alcoholic, infantile – all
these words have been used to describe her. What was Hemingway getting at and
was he being fair?
 A great part of The Sun Also Rises immediate success was due to its roman a clef
nature. Most writers use personal experience as subject matter, but Hemingway was
accused of calculating the value of this guessing game. Is this a valid accusation?
 Topic of your choice related to the novel (must be approved in advance).
Requirements:
Research papers must be thesis based arguments of 2000 words (about 10 pages)
submitted in Times New Roman, 12 point font, and double-spaced. Sources must be
documented according to MLA specifications. All steps must be completed in sequence
in order to receive a grade for the final paper and a grade for the class.
Steps (All must be completed in sequence):
 Library workshop.
 Thesis proposal (and revised proposal if necessary).
 Writing plan.
 Annotated bibliography.
 Research paper outline due.
 Research paper 1st draft due (two copies).
 Research paper 2nd draft due.
Hemingway: Quiz #1
1. What is a fine in the context of the novel?
2. Who wrote The Purple Land.
3. What is a poule, in the context of the novel?
4. What did Jake do during WWI?
5. What is a brioche?
6. When Jake sees Harvey Stone on p.49, Harvey has a “pile of saucers” in front of him.
What does this mean?
7. What is Veuve Cliquot?
8. What does daunted mean in the context of the novel?
9. What does pestilential mean?
10. What is a stud-book?
11. What is a “snapper” in the context of the novel?
12. What is a kepis?
Prequel:
France aids American Revolution. Franklin. Jefferson.
The Belle Epoque. France at height of cultural & industrial power.
Tour Eiffel. World’s Fair.
1908: Wilbur Wright flies first real flights in France.
The Great War and after:
WWI 1914-1918. 16 mil dead. 21 mil wounded. (48K American.)
U.S. enters war late. Spain & U.S. reap economic boom.
Aristocracy dying. European economies weak. Huge war debt.
Stateside: rise of Klan, prohibition, normalcy, xenophobia.
Paris in the 20s. Laissez-faire culture.
Modernism: in painting, literature, music, in social and sexual arrangements.
As a reaction to the catstrophe of WWI. Cubism. Dada, Surrealism.
Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Djuna Barnes, Natalie Barney, Sylvia Beach,
Adrienne Monnie, Pauline & Virginia Pfeiffer, Janet Flanner.
Picasso, Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Cocteau,
Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Pasos, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce. Ezra Pound.
Aspects to look at:
1) Biography of the man and his career.
Rock star status of major writers. Faulkner. Thomas Wolfe, Fitzgerald.
Other works.
Early life. Mother. Father.
Influences.
Personal life.
2) Paris: the post-war literary and art scene.
The armistice.
The economics in Europe and the US. (& Spain).
Favorable exchange rate.
Apartments for rent – not since the Black Plague.
Prohibition in the US. 1919 to 1933. Temperance movement. Volstead Act.
The laissez-faire culture of Paris: sexual lifestyles, political exiles, artistic exiles.
The Dada Movement.
The Surrealists.
Picasso, Picabia and the cubists.
Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford, Silvia Beach
and Adrian Monée, John Dos Pasos, Ogden Nash, James Joyce, .
Lesbian chic: Djuna Barnes.
3) Paris: the city as Hemingway uses it.
4) The so-called “Lost Generation”.
• Writing style: Influenced by Mark Twain but also by Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass.
• Hem is considered a master of short fiction.
• Bloom says Hem’s cosmos was American Gnostic, even though a Catholic nostalgia
lingered.
• Master of understatement and irony. (Later in life he began to seem a parody of
himself).
• Bloom calls the whole Robert Cohn thing “an annoyance.”
• He also says, “Brett and Mike are period pieces. Fitzgerald did them better.”
• He also says, “A great style is itself necessarily a trope, a metaphor for a particular
attitude toward reality.”