Grading station- 1 A and B. The Thesis Statement, response to the prompt.
1 A- Thesis is interpretive and creates an argument.
Example #1-Prompt
1. Like many people in adverse circumstances, Ivan Ilyich wants to know why he has been afflicted with his illness, what he has done to deserve this cruel fate. Does Tolstoy in fact suggest that there is any cause-and-effect relationship, that his illness is in any way a punishment for the way he has lived? If not, what is the larger thematic function of his illness and suffering?
The life of Ivan Ilych in Tolstoy’s, The Death of Ivan Ilych, was a tragic one. Ivan accepts the dream of others, to be as rich as possible, with power, a large home, and aristocratic friends. This pursuit of a life in which others may envy blinds Ivan to what he later sees is important in life.Illych’s sickness was not a punishment of his materialistic, shallow life; his sickness was a blessing.The sickness served as an enlightenment towards what it means to live a fulfilling life that others in his aristocratic realm will never know.
The prompt asks for two parts for the answer. This thesis, with meaningful introductory dialogue, makes an argumentative claim to answer the question of whether the illness was a punishment. Additionally, the thesis creates an avenue for the discussion of a larger thematic context, Tolstoy’s criticism of the materialistic and vapid existence of members of the aristocracy.
Example #2 (same prompt)
Everyone takes some things in life for granted. Sometimes people see the things they take for granted just as things that are there to make them happy, and make life pleasant, and avoid them when they are not making the person happy. This way of seeing things creates a falsity to life. In The Death of Ivan Ilychby Leo Tolstoy, the main character, Ivan Ilych, takes his family, his job, and his position in society for granted, and sees them only as ways to please him; the author proves Ivan’s attitude to be a cause for his unbearable suffering as he dies.
Ultimately, this student missed the mark for the second portion of the prompt. They did make an argument, but a closed argument that will not lead to any meaningful analysis. In essence, the only task remaining is to explain that the events in his life (plot summary) are the reason he is suffering his illness, ignoring his epiphany at the end of the story. So, an argument exists, but is not thorough.
1B- Thesis answers all aspects of the prompt, including its more implicit characteristics.
Example #1 Prompt
Tolstoy writes: "Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible." How does Tolstoy use this story, and his character, to make sense of that statement?
Tolstoy emphasized how Ivan’s life was the ‘most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible’. Only after he suffered through a painful illness, did the protagonist realize that he had been living a superficial life.In “The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Leo Tolstoy, Ivan’s life is a symbolic representation of the moral conflict of one who struggled to thesatisfying the norms of societyand ignoring, and completely failing, to acquire a sense of self-fulfillment.
This prompt is short, but powerful. Thus, the thesis statement must capture and expand on the implicit expectations of the prompt. This thesis does just that by explicating the meaning behind the quote, and also by providing an avenue for analysis for the author’s intentions, and an argument for the value of the novel.
Example #2 (same prompt)
In, “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” Leo Tolstoyexplores the life of a seemingly satisfied and successful, but ultimately confused, man who questions whether the chronic illness plaguing him towards the end of his life is a just result of hislife choices. Only in the end does he realize that his pain represents the self-inflicted wound he has carved into his own soul.
Ok, not terrible. But, the implicit nature of the prompt, “making sense,” (which is quite ambiguous) is not made any more certain by the ambiguous nature of the thesis, “wound carved into his own soul.” It is possible that a reasonable paper could be salvaged from this “claim”, but the more likely result is for the reader to focus on proving how the idea that an ordinary life is “most terrible”, because that is the plot, and easy to do.
Example #3 (same prompt)
In the story The Death of Ivan Llychwritten by Leo Tolstoy the Author writes a quote saying “ IvanLlych’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” He explains this through the characterization of Ivan and the way he is described throughout the story.
This thesis fails on many levels. First, there is no argument, and thus the subsequent paper will most likely be summary. However, this statement also does not really address the specifics of the prompt, and certainly not the implicit nature of the question.