Welcome to How To Theme, chapters posting Tuesday/Thursday weekly, available now for pre-order in print, in ebook, and on Amazon. All chapters are also up on Patreon, including the bonus information on genre-specific themes that’s in the final book, but won’t be appearing here on the blog.
Chapter Two Part 2
If you’re happy enough with this, feel free to move on to chapter three now. But if you’d like to consolidate your understanding even further, have a look at the sample introduction below to see some thesis statements in context.
In each instance, you can see that the thesis statement clearly outlines the main argument of the essay, which is then supported by (usually) three key pieces of evidence, or parts of the proof, before then restating the point for clarity, or building on it to make very clear how this idea impacts life outside the text.
(English is actually really logical when you break it down, despite how it might feel. It’s just the opposite of maths: you start with the answer, and then provide your working out to prove how you got there. A paragraph is just a maths problem in reverse—answer, show your working out, then repeat your answer to conclude. Ta da!)
The novel Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey demon-strates through Charlie’s journey that while moral duality is often demonstrated by adults in authority, it is never demonstrated by people who have truly ‘grown up’. While initially Charlie is ignorant of the moral duality rampant in his community, his relationship with Jasper exposes him to the cruel reality of racial discrimination and the dual standards people are willing to apply. This is further exposed by Charlie’s relationship with Jeffrey Lu, and the discrimination Jeffrey faces in his efforts to join the cricket team. However, moral duality is best demonstrated by Charlie’s relationship with his own mother, who demonstrates most clearly the idea that growing older does not necessitate growing up. Through Charlie’s growing understanding of the experiences of these three characters, the novel clearly presents the idea that morals and ethics should be upheld regardless of the situation, and that this is a prerequisite for being a grown-up, contributing member of society.
There are a couple of things that I would change about this introduction still—I’m not claiming it’s perfect—but it does demonstrate the idea that you have a thesis statement that answers what, how and who cares, then you have the three key ideas you’ll discuss in your paragraphs, and then a concluding sentence for the paragraph.
Here’s a slightly more complex introduction, in response to the question, “Even when texts seek to challenge some gender stereotypes, they ultimately reinforce others. To what extent is this true for Jasper Jones?”:
Throughout Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones, violence is shown to be an inextricable part of stereotypical masculinity; however, Charlie’s shift from seeing one’s physicality as the primary source of power, to believing in one’s integrity as the ultimate source of personal power, does suggest that it is possible to rise above this. Thus, superficially, this novel is an exhortation to shun society’s stereotypes (particularly violence) in favour of developing empathy in order to help those in need, and showing integrity above all else. Upon deeper examination, however, the text reveals many contradictions. Despite his journey towards self-acceptance, Charlie still buys into the need to appear classically ‘masculine’ like Jasper, idolised by Charlie as the epitome of masculinity. However, Jasper is hardly an ideal to aspire to: alone, ostracised, and living in abject poverty. Even Jeffrey Lu, Charlie’s charming and affable sidekick, becomes less clear on closer inspection: although he is obviously intended as the ‘Superman’ figure of the text, proclaiming nothing to fear and no fears worth having, in actual fact there is plenty in his life that needs overcoming, and it is only because he endures his trials with such apparent abandon that we care for him at all. Thus, although the message of the text regarding masculinity is clearly that men should develop and embrace their own identities, striving always to act with integrity, nonetheless there are difficulties inherent in many of the male characters that, while breaking down some masculine stereotypes, nevertheless reinforce many others.
This introduction is much more complex than the first one because the question is correspondingly complex (and again, it’s not perfect!). The question is asking you to look at the ways in which the text both challenges some stereotypes, and reinforces others, so you need to do a bit more groundwork to set the scene for your thesis in order to convincingly prove your point. You can still see the general structure there, though: a two-part set-up for the thesis, the three key points for discussion (Charlie, then Jasper, then Jeffrey), and finally the summing up, restating the thesis statement clearly in response to the question with consideration for the influence of this idea on life outside the text.
So there you have it: the basics of a thesis statement, which is just the fancy name for ‘the point of your essay’.
(BONUS! If you go back and have a look at all those ‘Why’ statements… Guys? They are the themes of the texts!)