Final Project proposal:
My paper will incorporate the literary works “Death of a Salesman” and “The Bell Jar” to support my argument that society puts so much pressure on mankind that often leads to extreme loneliness and self-alienation of the individual. This is able to prove that because there will always be this loneliness in the world, human nature is unlikely to change.
Thesis:
It is my belief that human nature is unlikely to change due to the fact that alienation, loneliness and societal pressures, which are contributions to human nature, have shown to lead to a decline in the progress of mankind. These negative aspects of human nature can be seen not only throughout Jimmy Corrigan, and The House of the Seven Gables, but also throughout Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
Counterargument:
Many could argue that human nature does have the potential to change due to the positive aspects of human nature such as working together to achieve potentials, the tendency of humans to be optimistic, and the determination the humans have to make things better for themselves.
Research:
I plan to use mainly online articles for my research. I will probably the Contemporary Literary Criticism data -base to find articles about Death of a Salesman and The Bell Jar that support my thesis. Hopefully I will be able to find some articles that
3 comments:
Unquestionable alienation and despair are common themes in literature, especially literature since the Romantic period. Your examples are worthwhile ones, which can relate productively to the books we've read as a class.
That being said, I'm not sure how you can demonstrate that humanity is unlikely to change through strictly *literary* sources. Here's my counterargument, which tries to bring in the "real world" (I see it as a more specific version of yours): with psychopharmacology, we can to some extent eliminate alienation and despair, with the promise of future drugs which can fully eliminate these conditions. Literary alienation will become an anachronism once our moods are all chemically (and maybe ultimately genetically) adjusted.
The literary imagination, in turn, might argue that people will never willingly surrender their alienation and despair - which could take us in interesting directions.
My approach isn't the only possible one - but if you're going to make an argument which relates literature to "reality" (as you are doing) then "reality" needs to talk back in some way.
You have a lot of solid ideas and support for them already, a great place to begin. Lilith's Brood might also work to support your ideas of loneliness, Lilith and Akin both having struggled with the feeling. Your counterargument is really strong so it is going to be important to disprove it in some way. This might be a good opportunity to bring in some non-literary based research. For example, I think that social movements and wars would be really good things to look into. There are a lot of parallels out there from the past to the future and I think that they will suffice to show that despite people being optimistic after one struggle ends, it doesn't prevent the next one from beginning.
You focus here, i beleive, should rely heavily on Jimmy Coorigan, simply because he is a prime example of what you are trying to say. Your thesis and counter arguement need to be rethough i think. If you are saying the negative aspects of life are causing human meaning to decline, then for your counter arguement you are saying positive aspects of life are causing human nature to increase, It seems like those to are agreeing with eachother more than argueing. Saying that there is hope for people with these negative aspects of life and the cycle can be stop would work better as a counter argument. Research can be tricky but i have not read the other 2 novels you mentions so i cant help you out on that. Good luck.
Post a Comment