Writing PinLit

Writing Papers for Philosophy In Literature

For this class, as for any class, spelling, grammar and composition are important. Whether or not English is your native language, your written English should be perfect by the time you graduate. This course is intended for students in their third year of study, just one year away from graduating, so it would be inappropriate to make any allowances for those of you for whom English is a second language.

You will receive a mark out of five for grammar, and a mark out of five for composition. By ‘composition’ I mean your ability to plan a well-structured paper. There should be neither waffle nor repetition, and the paper should have a clear focus. Ideally, you should analyse the text carefully, and find some philosophical point that the author presents. Ask yourself whether the author's idea is one that is better presented through narrative than it would be in a straightforward philosophical treatise. Then consider whether the author is persuasive: evaluate the ideas that your analysis has revealed.

In this class, you are free to choose a title of your own, but do so carefully, bearing in mind the title and objectives of the class. The essay must analyze at least one of the works of literature we have been discussing in class. It should demonstrate to me that you have read this work of literature carefully. You do not demonstrate that you have read a book carefully by summarizing the story, or simply reporting your reactions as you read it. A careful reader is one who spots things that a casual reader misses: what details did you notice that appear to be trivial, but are not? Why are they important? During class, I will draw your attention to interesting points in the passages that you have just read, but remember that in your paper, it is not enough to repeat things that I say in class. Of course, you are not barred from discussing something just because I have mentioned it, but your goal should be to draw my attention to take the discussion a stage further.

Engaging in a careful reading of the text is not enough however. The class is not just Literature, it is Philosophy In Literature, and there should be some philosophy in your paper as well. The interesting passages that you find should be connected to some philosophical theme.

You will receive a mark out of 10 for literary appreciation, and a mark out of 10 for philosophical arguments. These are the two essential requirements of the paper: show you have read the novel carefully, and show that you are capable of engaging in reasoned philosophical thought.

During class, I will try to generate ideas by drawing attention to philosophical themes in the books we are studying, and finding things to say about them. In many cases, I will draw attention to the ideas of other philosophers who have worked on such problems. These class discussions may provide you with a starting point for your essay. Remember however that, particularly in a 3000 level class, the onus is on you to provide some originality in your papers. One of the main aims of a paper like this is 'synthesis', that is drawing attention to interesting connections.

In 1984, Orwell predicts a future in which everyone is under constant surveillance by the government. In a way, this has come true: the government can easily monitor on-line transactions, and there are security cameras everywhere that we go. When you have a conversation on a cell-phone, you never know who might be listening in. Things may not be quite as bad as Orwell predicted in 1984, but we must be on our guard against the dangers that he warned against.

This is the kind of writing one expects of a high-school student. The writer points out nothing that a twelve year old child could not have figured out after reading 1984. Yet many students seem to think that this level of writing is acceptable at university level.

Consider two of Orwell's criticisms of Dickens, in an essay he published in 1940. First,he observes that Dickens does not really have many working class characters:

But the ordinary town proletariat, the people who make the wheels go round, have always been ignored by novelists. When they do find their way between the covers of a book, it is nearly always as objects of pity or as comic relief. The central action of Dickens's stories almost invariably takes place in middle-class surroundings. If one examines his novels in detail one finds that his real subject-matter is the London commercial bourgeoisie and their hangers-on — lawyers, clerks, tradesmen, innkeepers, small craftsmen, and servants.

Secondly, he observes that Dickens, although he is angered by injustice, views all the problems of society, and consequently their solution, as the product of individual moral weakness. He never stops to consider that a whole system - whether that of the economy or education - might be in need of reform:

There is no clear sign that he wants the existing order to be overthrown, or that he believes it would make very much difference if it were overthrown. For in reality his target is not so much society as ‘human nature’. It would be difficult to point anywhere in his books to a passage suggesting that the economic system is wrong as a system. Nowhere, for instance, does he make any attack on private enterprise or private property. Even in a book like Our Mutual Friend, which turns on the power of corpses to interfere with living people by means of idiotic wills, it does not occur to him to suggest that individuals ought not to have this irresponsible power.

How does 1984 fare, judged by these standards? There is, in fact, really only one working class character in the book, the old prole to whom Winston talks in the pub. The conversation is not a success. Winston hopes to discover the truth about what life was like before the revolution, but although the prole is able to give him many details, what is missing is the big picture that Winston craves:

...the few scattered survivors from the ancient world were incapable of comparing one age with another. They remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister's face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago; but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones.

These endless details, irrelevant and yet unforgetable, that Winston receives from the old prole are precisely the kind of "unecessary detail" that Orwell describes as being Dickens
"outstanding, unmistakeable mark" as a writer, and the reason for his continued success. Orwell may criticise Dickens for his lack of proletarian characters, but when he himself attempts to create a true working class character, he gives him both the gifts and deficiencies that he associates with Dickens.

This is what I mean by synthesis. The fact that Orwell wrote an essay about Dickens is not, in itself, an interesting observation. The conversation in the pub is not the most memorable scene in 1984. But when you put these two things together - not just the fact that Orwell wrote about Dickens, but the particular points that he raised, and the similarity to Winston's criticism of the old man - an interesting theme starts to emerge. By pointing out that Dickens never even tries to present the system as an object of criticism in his novels, the writer opens our eyes to Orwell's own aspirations: to write a book that will enable people to see the big things, to give us a level of vision that is better than that of an ant. This, at least, is leading somewhere. Also notice the level of precision that is involved. The correlation is between "a million useless things" and "unnecessary details". This kind of connection would not be noticed by someone who has read both 1984 and the essay on Dickens, but only remembers, in a vague kind of way, that the man in the pub is drunk and unable to help Winston, and that Orwell thinks Dickens' writing is too middle class. Compare that again with the example I gave of bad writing. The bad writer notes simply that, in 1984 , people are under constant surveillance. This is true, but it hardly shows that the reader has been playing close attention (it would be like someone who describes a Bond film by saying: "There were some action scenes in it, and lots of women": something that is true of any Bond film, and so tells us practically nothing). And how deep is the connection? Does having security cameras on campus strike you as sinister, do you imagine that someone is making notes on what we say in class - or is it simply a sensible security measure? Just to make the point that we are observed by security cameras, just as in 1984 people are observed by Big Brother is lazy.

Here, I've been trying to show the difference between good writing and bad writing based on two short extracts. But remember, a good essay is not just a collection of lots of bits of good writing strung together. In a good essay, all the good pieces of writing should lead somewhere - they should be supporting an interesting philosophical conclusion. If the passage about the connection between the prole in the pub and Orwell's criticisms of Dickens had no connection to the rest of the essay, then it would be better to get rid of it. Great editors are not afraid to cut good material if it doesn't help the whole work.
Never forget that your paper should have a clear focus.