The thesis I chose to re-do was in the paper “'Almost at times, the Fool': Shakespeare’s Fool as a Rhetorical Device in Modern Media". I thought that this paper was interesting and it was good to read it, but the thesis was a little weak (in my expertise :P) The premise is that fools are used to tell the truth in Shakespeare's comedies. While that is definitely true, it's something I've learned in every English class I've ever taken. Not really something to get educated people at each other's throats. I thought that this thesis could use a bit more bite, so I changed it up like so:
Original Evaluation Claim: Fools, represented by Feste in Twelfth Night, are carefully crafted in Shakespeare’s comedies to comment on established institutions because their outsider status insulates them from consequences and frees them to be truth tellers for the characters and translators for the audience.
Edited Evaluation Claim: By using fools to tell the truth in his plays, Shakespeare asserts that those outside of social norms are insulated from negative consequences.
I like this new thesis. Although it does take the paper in a slightly different direction, it is interesting and controversial enough to write an interesting paper.
ReplyDeleteI was really impressed that you were able to keep the same wording from the original thesis but find a different direction that could lead to a richer, more interesting paper.
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