Steven Doloff’s
“The Opposite Sex” &
Virginia Woolf’s
“If Shakespeare Had a Sister”
Pages 796-800
Don’t forget
• When writing about an essay, make sure you include the title
in quotation marks.
• “The Opposite Sex”
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”
Checklist page 149
• Types of essays
• Would you classify the essay as narrative, expository, or
argumentative? Explain. Is the classification clear? If not, why?
• “The Opposite Sex”- expository
• Although the support relies solely on personal anecdotes, this isn’t a
narrative because it does not follow the plot structure: exposition,
rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. The essay has an
attention grabber and thesis in the introduction. “100 essays…proved
both entertaining and annoying” (796). The introduction if followed
by body paragraphs. The first set of body paragraphs are focusing on
how women responded to the prompt. The second set of body
paragraphs focus on how men responded. Then the essay ends with
a concluding paragraph. Uniquely, the conclusion is a series of
questions ending with the prompt that was given to the students.
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- next slide
Checklist page 149
• Types of essays
• Would you classify the essay as narrative, expository, or
argumentative? Explain. Is the classification clear? If not, why?
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- argument
• Woolf is arguing that “it would have been impossible…for any
woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of
Shakespeare” (798). Looking deeper, Woolf is fight for women
writers, like herself, the freedom to be creative, write, and free of
the oppression of society.
Checklist page 149
• Language, Style, and Structure
• In general, is the essay formal or informal? How so?
• “The Opposite Sex”- great question. This essay tends to lean
more towards the formal side. It follows the classic structure,
although it isn’t strict in structure. The language tends to be
eloquent with words such as fervent, obligatory, proverbial,
vestigial, etc. A person could make a solid argument that this
was informal. It uses personal anecdotes, not statistics, facts,
or data, for support. He also uses figurative language;
however, some of his figurative languages is for the well read.
Specifically, the allusion to Mr. Hyde on page 796 is referring
to the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- next slide
Checklist page 149
• Language, Style, and Structure
• In general, is the essay formal or informal? How so?
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- informal.
• Doesn’t have a strict structure. She starts out with her thesis as
the first sentence of her essay. She only has to body paragraphs.
She has shifts within the paragraphs but does not start new
paragraphs. For example, in the middle of the first paragraph, she
shifts from how Shakespeare became successful to giving the
same scenario but with a different outcome for a female with the
same intelligence.
• Lots of “I think” and other personal thoughts
• Figurative language is present.
• Woolf is informal, but she has eloquent word choice using words
and phrases such as “exercising his wits,” “agog,” “moon about
with books,” “guffawed,” etc.
Checklist page 149
• Language, Style, and Structure
• How would you describe the writer’s voice? Do you find the
author believable? Why?
• “The Opposite Sex”- The author is both entertained and
annoyed which he states in his thesis. The author gives his
credibility upfront because he sates that he is a professor. This
make him naturally believable.
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- while Woolf stays neutral by
maintaining an informative tone, there is an underlying
condescending tone towards how women have been treated
in the past. This essay was written in 1929 during the height of
the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The fact that she has
Shakespeare’s hypothetical sister committing suicide and
discussing how women, not men, were always accused of
being witches and possessed by the devil.
Checklist page 149
• Language, Style, and Structure
• Was the voice of the author effective in conveying the essay’s
meaning? Why?
• “The Opposite Sex”- yes. The reader can see the author’s
humor in phrases like “initial paralysis wore off” and
annoyance in phrases like “those who accepted the
assignment more seriously, if unenthusiastically” (796-797).
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- yes. The author shows extreme
cases of women, who are genius and talented as
writers/artist, are miserably treated in society; however, she
does discuss the women that still wrote, despite society.
Women such as Bronte and Austen. She even discusses the
theory that “Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing
them, was often a woman” (799).
Checklist page 149
• Language, Style, and Structure
• Is the language formal or informal? What does the nature of the
language tell you about the essay?
• “The Opposite Sex”- see other slide over formal vs informal.
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister” see other slide over formal vs
informal.
Checklist page 149
• Language, Style, and Structure
• Are there many instances of imagery and figurative language (simile,
metaphor)? If so, how do they connect to or support the essay?
• “The Opposite Sex”
• “gratitude in returning to their correct gender after a day as Mr.
Hyde” is an allusion to the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (796).
• “fervent anticipation of masculinity returning with the dawn, seemed
equivalent to that of jumping up after having been forced to sit on a
lit stove” is a metaphor (797).
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”
• Cliché- “apple of her father’s eye” (798)
• Allusions• “Elephant and Castle”
• Authors- Bronte, Burns, Anon, & Austen
• Professor Trevelyan- see next slide
• Note: Make sure you are not just identifying the figurative language,
but that you are discussing why the author used each.
Checklist page 149
• Language, Style, and Structure
• Are there many instances of imagery and figurative language (simile, metaphor)? If so, how do
they connect to or support the essay?
• Allusions•
•
Professor Trevelyan- From “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf she discusses Prof T more.
“I went, therefore, to the shelf where the histories stand and took down one of the latest,
Professor Trevelyan's History of England. Once more I looked up "Women", found "position of,"
and turned to the pages indicated. "Wife-beating," I read, "was a recognized right of man, and
was practiced without shame by high as well as low....Similarly," the historian goes on, "the
daughter who refused to marry the gentleman of her parents' choice was liable to be locked
up, beaten and flung about the room, without any shock being inflicted on public opinion.
Marriage was not an affair of personal affection, but of family avarice, particularly in the
'chivalrous' upper classes.... Betrothal often took place while one or both of the parties was in
the cradle, and marriage when they were scarcely out of the nurses' charge." That was about
1470, soon after Chaucer's time. The next reference to the position of women is some two
hundred years later, in the time of the Stuarts. "It was still the exception for women of the
upper and middle class to choose their own husbands, and when the husband had been
assigned, he was lord and master, so far at least as law and custom could make him. Yet even
so," Professor Trevelyan concludes, "neither Shakespeare's women nor those of authentic
seventeenth-century memoirs...seem wanting in personality and character."...Indeed, if woman
had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the
utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and
hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is woman in
fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about
the room.”
http://www.haverford.edu/psychology/ddavis/psych214/woolf.room.html
Checklist page 149
• Theme
• What is the intention of the essay? Is it trying to inform us of
something? To prove or convince us of something? To share an
insight?
• “The Opposite Sex” -by informing his readers how other
imagine their lives as a member of the opposite sex for a day,
and then stating that both genders longed to return to their
born sex, Doloff successfully convinces his audience to not
only enjoy the sex they were born with but, more importantly,
respect members of the opposite sex.
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- Already covered in slide on
tone/voice
Checklist page 149
• Theme
• What is the theme?
• “The Opposite Sex”- respect the opposite sex; don’t judge a
person until you walk in their shoes
• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- women can be just as great of
writers as men, but women need to be allowed to be free to
be writers and thinkers.
Outline
• Intro
• Attention grabber
• Thesis
• Body Paragraph x3
• Topic Sentence
• Support
• Conclusion
• Restate thesis
• Readdress main points of body paragraphs
Topics for body paragraphs
General
• Type of essay
• Narrative
• Expository
• Argumentative
•
•
•
•
Formal or Informal
Voice & Tone
Irony
Word Choice &
Figurative Language
• Satire
• Theme
“The Opposite Sex”
•
•
•
•
•
Type of essay- Expository
Formal
Tone
Figurative Language
Theme
1) Analyze the essay
2) Pick 3 topics that you could
discuss in your essay. One
for each body paragraph
Topics for body paragraphs
General
• Type of essay
• Narrative
• Expository
• Argumentative
•
•
•
•
Formal or Informal
Voice & Tone
Irony
Word Choice &
Figurative Language
• Satire
• Theme
“If Shakespeare Had a Sister”
•
•
•
•
•
Type of essay- Argument
Informal
Tone
Figurative Language
Theme
1) Analyze the essay
2) Pick 3 topics that you could
discuss in your essay. One
for each body paragraph