Of the many ways to structure a good thesis, my go-to method is to take two conflicting ideas and pit them against each other to reach some form of resolution. The thesis can be a two-part sentence that states the two ideas and how they relate. To give an example of how this works, I’ll use the Handmaid’s Tale.
Question: why do some women ally themselves with the men of Gilead and not support other women?
Idea 1: Many of the women in the book are oppressed by men and face similar problems, so they form a group identity and look after each other.
Idea 2: the best life is the life that the patriarchal system can give, and some women have higher status because of their granted position, so they choose to protect that status.
Thesis: Even though most of the women in the Handmaid’s Tale support and protect each other because of their shared experience of oppression, women who benefit from their status in Gilead’s society prioritize their own status over their gendered experience as a woman.
We can make a diagram out this method. On one column, orange, we have the first idea of violent suppression of women by men, for the benefit of men. The corresponding and conflicting idea is that some women use similar tactics against members of their own gender. To bridge this gap we need to acknowledge a conflict. The point of the essay is to resolve the conflict.
In Point One, we lay out the situation. What is the system? What are women’s roles in the system? How do they live and function? Who benefits? In this point, the analysis is linking some form of broader societal happenings to the characters experience.
Point Two is where you want to develop some form of analytical structure. In this case, we can apply apply a feminist or Marxist lens to look at group identity and how people align their identity with a particular group.
Point Three is where you need to combine the first two. We’ll dig into the Marxist system and the concept of gendered identity to realize that each character can choose how they identify within the system, based on what they want. We resolve the conflict by understanding identity formation, which links the societal to the personal.
A lot of students think a concluding paragraph just re-states everything. But it also needs to state the new truth that we realized through the analytical approach.
Here is an empty template that could be used to populate a thesis-generator. ChatGPT won’t give you a thesis-generator this good. Suck it, GPT.
First fill out a question. Then you want to find some overarching conflicting ideas that don’t seem to be able to coexist in the same work. Once you have that, you should use Point One to set the stage and flesh out the conflict. Point Two will be about whatever drives the story: characters, society, weather, the Gods, Nature, fate, etc. These are more thematic elements and often good for an analytical structure.
Point Three is where we hit truth. What does the analytical structure tell us about the conflicting characters? Once you have these things laid out it’s not so hard to make a good thesis.
This looks linear, it never is. Some students fixate on making a good thesis before doing anything else and forget to hone it as they work or make a simplistic thesis. Other students (like me!) get lost in the weeds of setting up analysis and forget to make a good thesis. Just find what works.
Template:
| Question: | |||
| Thesis: | |||
| Supporting Points | Idea 1: | Analysis (bridge the gap) | Idea 2: |
| Point 1: | |||
| Point 2: | |||
| Point 3: | |||
| Conclusion: | |||
Hey Mr. Crowe, if you see this, I intentionally made my example different enough from the essay prompts that it can’t be copied. I’m just a raging Marxist who likes feminist theory, I went with my interests.
Ian Weatherall 