Reading for the Motivated Thesis Read each of the following six introductions to essays that measure 5-­‐10 pages in length. Highlight the part of the paragraph that establishes the motive of the argument by raising an important question or problem of interpretation. Double underline what you perceive to be the thesis, which invariably arrives after the motive. Notice the purpose of the essay is not just to argue the thesis, but first to establish a context in which arguing the thesis seems like an important thing to do. Check the ANSWER KEY to compare your own mapping of the motivated thesis in each paragraph with the explanation given there. For a further discussion of what qualifies as a motive, see the last part of the ANSWER KEY: “More on Motive.” * * * * * 1) The [adapted] introduction to “Heritage and Identity in Morrison’s Song of Solomon” by Sophia McKinley (2003): During and after the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-­‐20th century, African-­‐American writers wrestled with the theme of racial oppression in the modern context. To what extent did post-­‐slavery society continue to oppress African-­‐Americans, and what methods could they use to overcome negative forces in their lives to create empowered identities? Two writers who disagreed about the contemporary situation of blacks in America and how to deal with it were Malcolm X and Shelby Steele. Whereas Malcolm X concluded in 1964 that blacks were justified in using violence to change an inequitable system that denied African Americans equal rights and opportunities, Steele later postulated that “raceless” middle class values were the means by which blacks in America could rise above undesirable social circumstances. The main character of Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon, Milkman, struggles to achieve self-­‐empowerment as a middle-­‐class black American in the twentieth century. Throughout the novel, Milkman tries to determine how a modern African-­‐American can develop a free, independent identity by overcoming the past and present oppression of blacks. Through the dichotomy of the major role models in Milkman’s life, and through the process of Milkman’s eventual self-­‐discovery and spiritual empowerment, Morrison’s novel responds to the ideas that Malcolm X and Shelby Steele set forth and proposes its own answer to the dilemma of empowered selfhood for black Americans. 2) The [adapted] introduction to “Darrow’s Defeat at Dayton” by Jordan Schreiber (1992): The Scopes monkey trial has become part of America’s mythic psyche. It has been immortalized by countless books, articles, and essays, as well as the play—and later the movie—Inherit the Wind. The sustained interest in the trial and the potency of the myth of a heroic and decisive confrontation at Dayton suggest that this event epitomized a conflict between core values in American culture: intellectual freedom vs. religious purity, science vs. faith. With the crescendo it reached at the Scopes trial, this conflict threatened to either uproot the foundations of the traditional belief system of many Americans or firmly establish intolerance as a doctrine for American education. In the end it did neither, and what has been hailed as a glorious triumph for evolutionism was neither as glorious nor as triumphant as is commonly supposed. The introduction to “The Murder of Captain Cook Reconsidered” by Mike Passaportis (1997): On Saturday, February 14, 1779, a group of Hawaiians slew Captain James Cook somewhere on the northern shores of Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii. Cook was, in his native England, well-­‐respected for his colonial ambitions and achievements. Despite his humble beginnings, he had worked his way up the ranks of the Royal Navy and claimed massive tracts of land in the South Pacific for the Crown. He had remedied the awful disease that sailors faced on long voyages—scurvy—by ensuring a steady supply of fruits and vegetables for his crew. Reputedly magnanimous and just, Cook epitomized the civilizer. But to the stone-­‐age Hawaiians, Cook and his crew surely appeared daunting and awful, perhaps even divine. American anthropologist Marshall Sahlins has argued, in fact, that Cook came to be regarded as a Hawaiian deity in the course of his visits to the islands. Conversely, Sri Lankan scholar Gananath Obeyesekere maintains in The Apotheosis of Captain Cook that it was English historians—not Hawaiian islanders—who apotheosized the navigator. In their accounts of Cook’s death, says Obeyse-­‐kere, many ethnographers have compromised their academic standards by manipulating, misconstruing, and outright fabricating the evidence of the case. Chief among the culprits is Sahlins, whose Islands of History is dismissed as a “pseudo-­‐history” of Captain Cook’s exploits. Yet Obeysekere himself appears guilty of the very charges he levels against Sahlins. I will contend that both Sahlins’ and Obeyesekere’s interpretations of Cook’s death rest upon overly crude canons of understanding human action. Both writers depict Hawaiian society as united and free from faction, ad this, I believe, betrays a poor grasp of the political situation that Cook confronted. Despite the dearth of Hawaiian primary sources to shed light on this matter, it would be historically naïve to preclude the possibility that Cook became the victim of civil unrest. The [adapted] introduction to “Holy Terrors” by Regina Schwartz (2006): In Osama Bin Laden’s view, “the world is split into two camps: the camp of believers and the camp of infidels.” His rhetoric of violence is filled with God: “God attacked America at its heart and filled the American people with fear.” Rather than being the language of a deranged person, it is an invocation of an all too familiar monotheistic God of vengeance, a God who destroys his enemies and rejoices at their defeat, the God invoked at the Crusades to destroy Muslims, during the conquest of the New World to destroy Natives, during the Spanish Inquisition to expel Jews, during the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, during the invasion of Iraq—and the list of religiously authorized violence goes on. The holy scriptures have not only inspired charity and hope, they have also been deployed as a weapon to degrade peoples who have been classified as infidels, pagans, and idolaters. How does this happen? What gives rise to such perversity? In theory, monotheism should be heir to the philosophical problem of the one and the Many, [which supposes a fundamental unity behind all things in the universe, including all peoples and all faiths]. Parmenides, Plato, and Plotinus should be its companions. But in practice, monotheism was born and reared in a very different soil—the climate of group identity. The monotheistic God was first the God of a people; hence, from the start, there was a particularism built into monotheism. There may be only one God but he is not the God for everyone: he is the God of a group. In its beginnings, belonging to the group was the focus of monotheism’s energy. This belonging is fraught with tension: its condition is possession, and as I will show, that understanding of identity as belonging, as possession, is the wellspring of religious violence. The [adapted] introduction to Rachel Ahern’s “The Paradox of Gardner’s Gateway of Cemetery” (1999): A solitary figure bends to his task in the shadow of the gateway pictured in Plate 39 of Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War. The partially transparent figure appears to be in motion, but even a close examination of this figure does not reveal exactly what action he is performing. His location and posture suggest two likely possibilities: he could be planting the sapling that appears to his immediate right in the photograph, or he could be digging a grave. These are two profoundly different readings, yet the photograph is ambiguous enough to allow for either one. This interpretive difficulty is characteristic of the entire scene depicted in Plate 39, entitled Gateway of Cemetery, Gettysburg, July, 1863. A number of elements in this scene could be taken as signs of the battle destruction and the aura of death that clings to the field around the gateway, but other elements—or even the same ones interpreted in a different light—might suggest hope for the renewal of this landscape. Such doubt as to what Gateway of Cemetery is depicting seems to belie the nature and purpose of documentary photography itself. Since a photograph is supposed to be the exact visual record of a scene, the viewer might expect it to be an objective and self-­‐
contained record. Yet photographs—perhaps because they depict their subjects without context or continuity—are often curiously suggestive of ideas, provoking in the viewer a quest for some meaning beyond the concrete, for a coherent interpretation of the impassive objects or actions portrayed. And old photographs such as this one, in which the scene’s ambiguity is heightened because of flaws in the photographic process itself, can be particularly evocative in this way. The introduction “AgJOBS: A Voice for the Unheard” by Rohaid Ali (2011): In 1787, as part of a speech to the Constitutional Convention, James Madison declared,
“America is indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity.” It is clear that
sentiments toward immigrants have changed since one of our country’s most influential
founding fathers spoke these words. The attacks of 9/11, a profoundly failed war on
drugs, and fears about job security during the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression have all led to a spike in the culture of discontent toward illegal immigrants
in the United States. These events have undeniably dealt a damaging blow to America’s
sense of invulnerability, but the response to them has been far from level-headed. We
now have armed vigilantes patrolling the border, and states like Arizona are passing
historic and discriminatory laws targeted at both legal and non-legal residents.
Unsurprisingly, these expressions of hatred have put many innocent migrants in harm’s
way and have distorted the debate on good economic policy. Perhaps most irrationally,
our heated national discourse about immigration has caused us to overlook the AgJOBS
bill, which would benefit both farmers and migrant workers. If President Obama wishes
to save a downward spiraling American farming industry while simultaneously
addressing the plight of migrant workers, he could do no better than to push the AgJOBS
bill through Congress.