This is optional but if you have questions, or are feeling proud of your theisis paragrpah, or are feeling just downright community minded and kind, please post your paper's initial paragraph here--anytime you are ready to do so.
I'll check in on the blog and try to comment when comments are asked for or seem needed.
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I figured since no one has posted anything, I'd be the guinea pig. Here is my work-in-progress opening paragraph. While I may change it or the thesis slightly, you can get the gist of what I'm talking about:
Identity and the discovery of the self are themes present throughout many fictional novels. Characters in the these works experience different and new aspects of life while at the same time learning and acknowledging who they are. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac and Tripmaster Monkey by Maxine Hong Kingston both deal with these issues and at the end show life is about accepting personal beliefs, challenges, culture, and heritage. Both works take place in California’s Bay Area, mainly San Francisco and Berkeley, and have males as the main characters: Ray Smith in The Dharma Bums and Wittman Ah Sing in Tripmaster Monkey. As the books move along, the characters move to different places and meet new people, helping them with their struggle of finding themselves. While both Ray and Wittman go on a journeys, both physical and mental, they approach their lives differently but also similarily in order to create an identity that they can accept.
Any comments or opinions any one wants to give are fine with me.
Seems like a perfectly fine intro paragraph to me. I don't particularly like where you say "as the books move along, the characters move to different places..." it just seems kind of weird to use move for such very different meanings. And, it's a very bourgeois thing to say, but I think 'novels' or something would be a better choice for 'books' as far as just retaining the "scholarly" facade of it.
Intro paragraph:
Spontaneity is not a characteristic that is easily associated with most people. It is a trait that, if not intrinsic, is arguably impossible to cultivate, yet still many people rely on it as a form of expression. Jack Kerouac, for instance, coined the term ‘spontaneous prose’ to describe his methodology for writing novels in an unpredictable manner. In a set of formal rules, Kerouac sought to concentrate all of the tenets of spontaneous prose into a single thematic doctrine. Which begs the question: is it possible for anyone to write ‘spontaneously’ like Kerouac, or is it an intrinsic characteristic that is inevitably unachievable even through practice? The only way to find out would be for someone with ordinary literary prowess (myself, perhaps) to attempt to write ‘spontaneously’.
here's my bold claim/discovery:
Despite the marginalization of the Beat poets, through their poetry it becomes clear that a dichotomy between margin and mainstream can never really exist. Mainstream culture is too pervasive for anyone to completely escape the ideologies forced onto them from birth, and yet, the Beats use this fact to their advantage by working within mainstream culture to alter these ideologies through their art. In order to efficiently shift mainstream ideologies ever-so-slightly through their counter-culture art, the Beats had to be very careful in regards to how they represented themselves—avoiding misinterpretations of counter-ideologies. While mainstream "demonized [the Beat poets] as perpetual adolescents, unable to mature into responsible tax-paying American," the Beats exposed the threats of atomic proliferation, capitalistic materialism, and the limiting, purist views of sexuality (Davidson 270). Focusing on Jack Kerouac's novel The Dharma Bums and Allen Ginsberg's poems "Howl" and "America," I will show the importance of representation within the Beat culture and the Beat's ability to broaden mainstream ideology from within.
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