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The Research Project for English 201

Andrew Gottlieb

Students in English 201 are required to write a Research Project. The paper must be

6 pages and satisfy all of the specification in the syllabus to receive credit. On an additional seventh page students are required to list Works Cited. The purpose of the assignment is to familiarize students with the conventions and challenges involved in writing a research paper. These involve critical thinking, presenting thesis-centered arguments, and citing sources in accordance with the MLA (Modern Language Association).

The Research Project must focus on one to three primary texts. Primary texts are those belonging to one of the four literary genres: short stories, plays, poems, or novels. Primary texts for the Project cannot be a biography, a personal narrative, a magazine or a newspaper article. The work must also be published. Any unpublished work is not acceptable for this assignment. Students have the option to select a text of their own choosing as long as it meets with these specifications but are encouraged to use one of the three assignments done prior to the Project during the semester as a basis for the final paper. A further requirement for the Research Project is the use of two to four secondary sources. Secondary sources are: biographies, literary criticism, and historical works. These must be published. Do not cite online sources such as Wikipedia or Spark Notes. Do not put sources beginning with http. on your Works Cited page. If you do use Wikipedia, cite the published sources listed at the end of the document.

Regarding the structure of the Research Project, students are required to have an introduction and a conclusion. All arguments must be thesis-centered, meaning that they will be evaluated on the basis of how well they support the central idea and refute opposing viewpoints.I have provided a sample assignment and outline on the following pages.

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Specifications

1. Each essay must be stapled in the upper left-hand corner. Papers that are not stapled will not be accepted.

2. Each page of each essay must have typed page numbers in the upper right-hand corner. Papers without typed page numbers in the upper right hand corner will not be accepted.

3. Each essay must be typed. Essays that are not typed will not be accepted.

4. Font size must be 12.

5. Font style must be Times New Roman.

6. Each paragraph must be indented.

7. There must be no more than one double-space between paragraphs.

8. The name of the student, professor, course, and date must be flush left with a double-space between each. See example on the following page.

9. Each essay must be double-spaced.

10. For citations more than one sentences, use the following specifications. See example on page 9.

a. single-spaceb. font size 10c. left indent at 1 right indent at 5.5.

11. Quotation marks and the appropriate MLA citation for all quotes must be used. The absence of quotation marks where needed is PLAGIARISM. See example of internal punctuation on the following page. WARNING: Omission of quotation marks is grounds for an F for the paper and possibly for the final grade.

12. All sources used in the essay must be cited in a “Works Cited” page and be done according to MLA formats. See example on the page after the following page.

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FormatFirst Page This is an example of the top of the first page of a paper. Use double-spaces. The title must be a double-space below the date and centered. See MLA Handbook - Seventh Edition. 4.3. Heading And Title. 116.

Internal Punctuation

Long QuotationsThis is an example of how to do a citation longer than one sentence.

ksfsdfsalsfdjkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkks;dflkaks;fldskf;sdlllllllllllllllllwks;dlfk’safdksa;

Works Cited Page

This is an example of the top of the first page of a works-cited list. Entries are in alphabetical order with second lines of each entry indented (hanging indentation).

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John Smith

Professor Abraham

English 201

May 7, 2009

Greek Tragedy

When citing a source in the text do as follows: “Oedipus in the play is a free agent” (Fagles, 149).

When paraphrasing do as follows: Fagles maintains that Oedipus has free will (Fagles, 149).

“In the very first year of our century Sigmund Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams offered a famous and influential interpretation of Oedipus the King:

Oedipus Rex is what is known as a tragedy of destiny. Its tragic effect is said to lie in the contrast between supreme will of the gods and the vain attempts of mankind to escape the evil that threatens them. The lesson which, it is said, the deeply moved spectator should learn from the tragedy is submission to the divine will and realization of his own impotence. (Trans. James Strachey)

This passage is of course a landmark in the history of modern thought, and it is fascinating to observe that this idea, which, valid or not, has had enormous influence, stems from an attempt to answer a literary problem – why does the play have this overpowering effect on modern audiences?” (Knox, Bernard. Sophocles – The Three Theban Plays. Translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin Books. Copyright by Bernhard Knox, 1982. 132. Print.)

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See MLA Handbook - Seventh Edition. 131.

The Works Cited page must be on a separate page.

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Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. Edited by Edward Hubler.

A Signet Classic. Copyright by Edward Hubler, 1963. Print.

Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays – Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oeidipus at Colonus.

Translated By Robert Fagles. Penguin Books. Copyright by Robert Fagles, 1982, 1984. Print.

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Guy de Maupassant

A Research Project:

The paper must be 6 pages and satisfy all of the specifications and the format on pages 14-15 of this handout to receive credit.

The Life and Work of Guy de MaupassantWrite about the life and work of Guy de Maupassant. Explore the following question: How is Maupassant’s life reflected in his work?

You can use the paper you wrote about one of Maupassant’s stories as part of your Research Project. If you do this, you will need to replace your introduction and conclusion with another. You can put the biographical information in your new introduction and how this information relates to the writing of the author in the conclusion.

Outline for a Research Project about Guy de Maupassant:

Introduction:Write about Guy de Maupassant using reliable biographical sources.

Body:Write an interpretation of one or several of Maupassant’s stories.

Conclusion:Discuss how the life of the author is reflected in his work

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Books about de Maupassant

1. Maupassant: A Lion in the Path, by Francis Steegmuller - Call Number:   PQ2353 .S8 2007

2. Maupassant and the American short story :  the influence of form at the turn of the century, by Richard Fusco - Call Number:   PS374 .S5 F87 1994

3. Guy de Maupassant from the Harold Bloom's Major Short Story Writers series - Call Number:   PQ2356 .G89 2004 

4. Guy de Maupassant, by Albert H. Wallace - Call Number:   PQ2353 .W3

5. Maupassant, a biography by Michael G. Lerner - call number PQ 2353 .L44 is in our Reference

6. Maupassant in the Hall of Mirrors: Ironies of Repetition in the Work of Guy de Maupassant, by Trevor A. Le V. Harris, Call Number: PQ2357 .H37 1990

7. Maupassant the Short Stories, by Edward Daniel Sullivan, Call Number PQ 2355.S8 1962.

8. Albert, Henri René Guy de Maupassant. A Stroll. classicreader.com/book/610/1/.

9. Albert, Henri René Guy de Maupassant. All Over. Translators: Albert M.C. McMaster, A.E. Henderson, Mme. Quesada, & others. E-texts.

10. Guy de Maupassant. By Albert H. Wallace. Twayne Publishers. New York. Copyright 1973.

11. Guy de Maupassant – A Day in the Country and Other Stories. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by David Coward. Oxford University Press. 1990.

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Andrew Gottlieb SAMPLE RESEARCH PROJECT

Professor Gottlieb

English 201- (section number)

July 12, 2013

The Misery of Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant is regarded as one the foremost of French writers. The goal of this

paper is to discuss Maupassant’s vision of life and how it may have been, at least to some extent,

the cause of his suffering and his attempted suicide. It was on New Year’s Day 1892 that

Maupassant made the attempt. He was “removed to a clinic, suffering from the syphilitic paresis

which had driven him mad. He died on 6 July 1893, at the age of 42” (A Day in the Country and

Other Stories).

Maupassant was not the most joyful of men. In his book Guy de Maupassant, Albert H.

Wallace refers to a letter Maupassant wrote to his mother in which he speaks of his loneliness.

“I fear the arriving winter. I feel alone, and my long, solitary evenings are sometimes terrible.

Often when I’m alone seated at my desk with my lamp burning sadly before me, I experience

such complete moments of distress that I no longer know where to turn” (IVCXXVii) (45).

Wallace explains that “loneliness was a major factor in the development of Maupassant’s

affliction. Living too much to himself, he formed certain ideas whose very inalterability was

their poison” (105). He quotes Maupassant who wrote, “Fixed ideas have the tenacity of

gnawing, incurable maladies. Once entered into the mind, they devour it, leave it no longer free

to think of anything, to be interested in anything or to have an inclination in the slightest toward

anything” (XIV, 277) (105). Wallace explains that in Maupassant’s story Miss Harriot “solitude

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leads to suicide,” that “it was loneliness that caused the heroine to cast herself into a well” (106).

Wallace goes on to quote Maupassant who writes, “We are the eternal playthings of ever

renewing, stupid and charming illusions” (XXVI, 231). “The statement,” Wallace explains, “is

also in complete accord with Maupassant’s disillusionment with life that is so prominent a factor

in his work and in his mental difficulties” (114).

The key in all of these comments is disillusionment. In his introduction to A Day in the

Country and Other Stories, David Coward provides a vivid account of Maupassant’s cynical

view of the world. Of the authors world view he writes, “All the things which commonly pass

for the charm of life – love, friendship, happiness – are so many illusions which nature allows us

to compensate for the iron grip in which we are held” (xvi). Maupassant’s misery and possibly

his suicide attempt were rooted in the loss of illusions. In one of the most insightful passages in

his book, Wallace writes, in reference to Maupassant’s story Suicide, “The letter’s words provide

a foreboding of what must have been Maupassant’s thoughts when he contemplated suicide. The

hero has decided to kill himself because of an awareness of the irremediable brutality of

existence in which he has failed to find a single strain of poetry his youthful naiveté has

assigned to it” (114).

Maupassant was not born a cynic. As a young man he had a poetic and possibly naïve

view of life. As time went he was persuaded by experience to adopt a darker view of things.

This change is a loss of faith, a loss of what, after an apparent awakening has occurred, comes to

be viewed as illusions. Whether love, friendship, and happiness are illusions is a matter for

debate. It is important to note that such a loss is not necessarily predicated on a realization of

truth. It may often be the result of a shift in perception. One day the world seems beautiful and

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loving, the next it seems ugly and cruel. One day one may see himself as a success; the next he

may see himself as an utter failure. One perception is not more or less real than another.

Maupassant’s loss of illusion may well have been a loss of faith. He may have lost faith

in the things that for him made life worth living. As we get older, we go through certain

experiences that disturb or shock us. It is our vulnerability in these matters that may lead us

to abandon our beliefs, to disavow our faith, and to lose our confidence and our resolve. This,

I believe, is what happened to Maupassant. It is no thus not surprising that disillusionment is a

recurrent theme in his stories. Two such narratives are All Over and A Stroll.

In All Over, the protagonist, Lormerin, a middle aged bachelor, undergoes a devastating

shift in self-esteem. The story opens with Lormerin gazing admiringly at himself in the mirror.

“Lormerin is still alive!” he proclaims. It is evident that Lormerin is aware that he is no longer

young but that he is still attractive. We may also infer that Lormerin’s self-esteem is dependent

in large part upon his appearance. Various details in the narrative may also lead us to conclude

that he is narcissistic. In preparation for his rendezvous with Lise, a woman with whom he had

a love affair in his youth and who has now sent him an invitation to dine with her, he inspects

himself “from head to foot” and thinks, “She must look very old, older than I look.” This seems

to delight him for he feels “gratified at the thought of showing himself to her still handsome, still

fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone

days so far, far distant” (2). He then proceeds to make “his toilet with feminine coquetry” (2).

Apparently, Lormerin’s motivation for seeing Lise is not so much to enjoy the pleasure of her

company and to give her the pleasure of his so much as it is to fortify his vanity and to do so at

the expense of hers. It is for this reason that we may hesitate to feel too much sympathy for

Lormerin when by the end of the day his confidence is so painfully compromised. We may

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argue that Lise is the one responsible for Lormerin’s loss of self-esteem, that she has

manipulated the situation to bring her quarry down, but this could only have been accomplished

if the quarry had not made himself vulnerable. Lormerin would never have been so easy to

manipulate had he not placed such a high premium on his appearance. An identity predicated on

externals is a flimsy one indeed, and so Lormerin’s self-esteem is an easy target for the woman

who seems to see as clearly through him as she might to the bottom of a shallow pond.

When Lormerin looks at himself in the mirror at the end of the story, he sees a very

different man than he had earlier that day. At the moment that he sees this “lamentable image,”

and proclaims “All over, Lormerin,” he has in essence adopted a new identity. Yet, as far as his

physical appearance is concerned it is highly unlikely that any significant physical change if any

has occurred. The only alteration in Lormerin is in his mind. The cause of this change is his

encounter with Lise and her daughter Renee.

The question is: which of the two images is genuine? From Lormerin’s point of view,

the last one is more objective. Yet, it is the way Lormerin looks at himself and the way he feels

that has altered his perception. It is reasonable to say that neither of the two images is more

genuine than the other. Each is a manifestation of Lormerin’s state of mind. It’s true that he

may have not paid attention to some of his wrinkles when he looked at himself in the morning,

but it is his way of focusing on such details at the end and the idea he has come to embrace about

himself that alters his self-esteem. To say that he is disillusioned implies that his earlier, more

cheerful impression of himself is false.

Perhaps, this is what Maupassant wants us to think. We cannot be sure of this, but we do

have some idea of how he felt about his own life. Based on the citations mentions at the outset

of our discussion, we have good reason to believe that Maupassant was suffering from feelings

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of disillusionment, that he had adopted a cynical view of life and that, like Lormerin, he may

have been suffering from a loss of self-esteem. It is in this respect that it is reasonable to assume

a commonality between the author and the protagonist of All Over. Like Lormerin, Maupassant

may have come to the conclusion that his life, or rather his vision of life and of himself, was all

over.

Another one of Maupassant’s stories in which the suffering of the protagonist hinges on

disillusionment is A Stroll. Leras, an old man working as a bookkeeper for Messieurs Labuze

and Company, undergoes a realization, if so it can be called, that has a far more devastating

consequence than that of Lormerin’s. Leras commits suicide. We are led to believe that this

rash act is precipitated by an experience he has in the Bois de Boulogne, a park in Paris

frequented by lovers and prostitutes. During his stroll Leras is approached by prostitutes.

It is then that he feels as though he is “enveloped in darkness by something disagreeable” (2).

He thinks of “all this venal or passionate love, of all these kisses, sold or given, which were

passing by in front of him” (2). Not only is Leras confronted with the feeling of being an

outsider. Now, he sees through the veneer of romance. The charm of the evening has

transformed into something dark and disagreeable. Whatever may have passed for love he now

realizes is only a masquerade, a façade behind which is something sinister and ugly. But it is not

so much the tawdriness of the scene that Leras finds disturbing, although that may be a part of it.

The source of his dismay is that, unlike the people before him, he has “scarcely” known love.

Now, he looks back “at the life which he had led, so different from everybody else, so dreary, so

mournful, so empty,” and has an awakening. “And suddenly, as though a veil had been torn

from his eyes, he perceived the infinite misery, the monotony of his existence: the past, present

and future misery; his last day similar to his first one, with nothing before him, behind him or

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about him, nothing in his heart or any place” (2). Leras sees, possibly for the first time, the

emptiness of his life. Everyone else, the “whole of humanity” seems to be “intoxicated with joy,

pleasure and happiness. He alone is looking on and he sees that “tomorrow he would again be

alone, always alone, more so than anyone else.” Leras imagines how “pleasant it must be in old

age to return home and find the little children.” But Leras has no wife, no children and is

consigned, as far as he can tell to spend the rest of his life in solitude.

What is significant here is that he sees himself as a being entirely different from everyone

else. He doesn’t stop to consider that there may be others like him. Nor, is he apparently able

to see the beauty of the evening he had been enjoying. It is the same evening, the same place.

The only thing that has changed is Leras’ way of seeing it. Even his room, the one he has lived

in for so many years, is no longer the same for him: “…a feeling of distress filled his soul; and

the place seemed to him more mournful even than his little office” (3). It is not Leras’ room that

has changed but the way he sees it.

In the end, Leras hangs himself on a tree. The cause of the suicide “could not be

suspected. Perhaps a sudden access of madness!” The author does not conclude his tale by

offering a definitive explanation of Leras’ decision to end his life. He has however given us

good reason to believe that the reason his protagonist takes such a drastic action is because he

has had a revelation. Leras’ vision of himself and his life has been altered by his experience in

the park. It is not, however, the scene that has altered Leras. Leras has altered himself. He is

the sole agent of his transformation.

The question remains, has Leras really had a revelation? Is he really more awake at the

end of the story than he has been his whole life? Has a veil truly been lifted or has another come

along to take its place? Does Leras see the truth of his life or is he simply blind to the

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possibilities that surround him? If he is enveloped in darkness, is it not because he is doing

the enveloping? Perhaps, one veil was lifted only to be replaced by another. In the end, Leras

may never really have opened his eyes. He lives in Paris, a city full of beauty, charm, and

opportunities but is unable to participate in all it has to offer. It is not circumstance that destroys

Leras but the way in which he perceives it.

What the protagonists in All Over and A Stroll have in common is disillusionment. They

experience a loss faith in the image or idea they had of themselves and of their lives. Because he

no longer sees himself as a youthful and attractive man, Lormerin feels that his life is all over.

Leras, who is confronted with the realization that he has been leading a loveless existence and

the feeling that there is no hope of changing this, commits suicide. One wonders if Maupassant

went through a similar revelation prior to his suicide attempt or if he had been living with the

pain of such a revelation for years before he made it.

It is not difficult to see the connection between Leras, Lormerin and Maupassant.

Maupassant’s writing was in large part a vehicle through which he expressed his feelings about

his own life. His characters, or at least some of them, are reflections of the dark and cynical

view which engulfed the author and which in the end augmented the pain that led to his

attempted suicide. Maupassant’s physical condition due to syphilitic paresis had much to do

with the deterioration of his mind and spirit, but we cannot discount his cynicism as a

participating factor in the suffering he endured and in his attempt to end his life.

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Works Cited

Albert, Henri René Guy de Maupassant. A Stroll. classicreader.com/book/610/1/.

Albert, Henri René Guy de Maupassant. All Over. Translators: Albert M.C. McMaster, A.E. Henderson, Mme. Quesada, & others. E-texts.

Guy de Maupassant. By Albert H. Wallace. Twayne Publishers. New York. Copyright 1973.

Guy de Maupassant – A Day in the Country and Other Stories. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by David Coward. Oxford University Press. 1990.

Your name

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Course number and section

Name of your professor

Date of completion

Title

Introduction:Write about Guy de Maupassant using reliable biographical sources.

Body:Write an interpretation of one or several of Maupassant’s stories.

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Conclusion:Discuss how the life of the author is reflected in his work

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Works Cited

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