Steven Doloff’s“The Opposite Sex” &Virginia Woolf’s “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”Pages 796-800

Don’t forget

• When writing about an essay, make sure you include the title in quotation marks.

• “The Opposite Sex”

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”

Checklist page 149

• Types of essays

• Would you classify the essay as narrative, expository, or argumentative? Explain. Is the classification clear? If not, why?

• “The Opposite Sex”- expository

• Although the support relies solely on personal anecdotes, this isn’t a narrative because it does not follow the plot structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. The essay has an attention grabber and thesis in the introduction. “100 essays…proved both entertaining and annoying” (796). The introduction if followed by body paragraphs. The first set of body paragraphs are focusing on how women responded to the prompt. The second set of body paragraphs focus on how men responded. Then the essay ends with a concluding paragraph. Uniquely, the conclusion is a series of questions ending with the prompt that was given to the students.

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- next slide

Checklist page 149

• Types of essays

• Would you classify the essay as narrative, expository, or argumentative? Explain. Is the classification clear? If not, why?

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- argument

• Woolf is arguing that “it would have been impossible…for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare” (798). Looking deeper, Woolf is fight for women writers, like herself, the freedom to be creative, write, and free of the oppression of society.

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• Language, Style, and Structure

• In general, is the essay formal or informal? How so?

• “The Opposite Sex”- great question. This essay tends to lean more towards the formal side. It follows the classic structure, although it isn’t strict in structure. The language tends to be eloquent with words such as fervent, obligatory, proverbial, vestigial, etc. A person could make a solid argument that this was informal. It uses personal anecdotes, not statistics, facts, or data, for support. He also uses figurative language; however, some of his figurative languages is for the well read. Specifically, the allusion to Mr. Hyde on page 796 is referring to the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- next slide

Checklist page 149

• Language, Style, and Structure• In general, is the essay formal or informal? How so?

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- informal. • Doesn’t have a strict structure. She starts out with her thesis as

the first sentence of her essay. She only has to body paragraphs. She has shifts within the paragraphs but does not start new paragraphs. For example, in the middle of the first paragraph, she shifts from how Shakespeare became successful to giving the same scenario but with a different outcome for a female with the same intelligence.

• Lots of “I think” and other personal thoughts

• Figurative language is present.

• Woolf is informal, but she has eloquent word choice using words and phrases such as “exercising his wits,” “agog,” “moon about with books,” “guffawed,” etc.

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• Language, Style, and Structure• How would you describe the writer’s voice? Do you find the

author believable? Why?

• “The Opposite Sex”- The author is both entertained and annoyed which he states in his thesis. The author gives his credibility upfront because he sates that he is a professor. This make him naturally believable.

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- while Woolf stays neutral by maintaining an informative tone, there is an underlying condescending tone towards how women have been treated in the past. This essay was written in 1929 during the height of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The fact that she has Shakespeare’s hypothetical sister committing suicide and discussing how women, not men, were always accused of being witches and possessed by the devil.

Checklist page 149

• Language, Style, and Structure• Was the voice of the author effective in conveying the essay’s

meaning? Why?

• “The Opposite Sex”- yes. The reader can see the author’s humor in phrases like “initial paralysis wore off” and annoyance in phrases like “those who accepted the assignment more seriously, if unenthusiastically” (796-797).

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- yes. The author shows extreme cases of women, who are genius and talented as writers/artist, are miserably treated in society; however, she does discuss the women that still wrote, despite society. Women such as Bronte and Austen. She even discusses the theory that “Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman” (799).

Checklist page 149

• Language, Style, and Structure

• Is the language formal or informal? What does the nature of the language tell you about the essay?

• “The Opposite Sex”- see other slide over formal vs informal.

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister” see other slide over formal vs informal.

Checklist page 149

• Language, Style, and Structure• Are there many instances of imagery and figurative language (simile,

metaphor)? If so, how do they connect to or support the essay?

• “The Opposite Sex”• “gratitude in returning to their correct gender after a day as Mr.

Hyde” is an allusion to the book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (796).• “fervent anticipation of masculinity returning with the dawn, seemed

equivalent to that of jumping up after having been forced to sit on a lit stove” is a metaphor (797).

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”• Cliché- “apple of her father’s eye” (798)• Allusions-

• “Elephant and Castle”• Authors- Bronte, Burns, Anon, & Austen• Professor Trevelyan- see next slide

• Note: Make sure you are not just identifying the figurative language, but that you are discussing why the author used each.

Allusion

Checklist page 149

• Language, Style, and Structure• Are there many instances of imagery and figurative language (simile, metaphor)? If so, how do

they connect to or support the essay? • Allusions-

• Professor Trevelyan- From “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf she discusses Prof T more.• “I went, therefore, to the shelf where the histories stand and took down one of the latest,

Professor Trevelyan's History of England. Once more I looked up "Women", found "position of," and turned to the pages indicated. "Wife-beating," I read, "was a recognized right of man, and was practiced without shame by high as well as low....Similarly," the historian goes on, "the daughter who refused to marry the gentleman of her parents' choice was liable to be locked up, beaten and flung about the room, without any shock being inflicted on public opinion. Marriage was not an affair of personal affection, but of family avarice, particularly in the 'chivalrous' upper classes.... Betrothal often took place while one or both of the parties was in the cradle, and marriage when they were scarcely out of the nurses' charge." That was about 1470, soon after Chaucer's time. The next reference to the position of women is some two hundred years later, in the time of the Stuarts. "It was still the exception for women of the upper and middle class to choose their own husbands, and when the husband had been assigned, he was lord and master, so far at least as law and custom could make him. Yet even so," Professor Trevelyan concludes, "neither Shakespeare's women nor those of authentic seventeenth-century memoirs...seem wanting in personality and character."...Indeed, if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room.”

http://www.haverford.edu/psychology/ddavis/psych214/woolf.room.html

Checklist page 149

• Theme

• What is the intention of the essay? Is it trying to inform us of something? To prove or convince us of something? To share an insight?

• “The Opposite Sex” -by informing his readers how other imagine their lives as a member of the opposite sex for a day, and then stating that both genders longed to return to their born sex, Doloff successfully convinces his audience to not only enjoy the sex they were born with but, more importantly, respect members of the opposite sex.

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- Already covered in slide on tone/voice

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• Theme

• What is the theme?

• “The Opposite Sex”- respect the opposite sex; don’t judge a person until you walk in their shoes

• “If Shakespeare Had a Sister”- women can be just as great of writers as men, but women need to be allowed to be free to be writers and thinkers.

Outline

• Intro

• Attention grabber

• Thesis

• Body Paragraph x3

• Topic Sentence

• Support

• Concluding sentence

• Conclusion

• Restate thesis

• Readdress main points of body paragraphs

Body paragraphs should analyze 3 different topics. Use the check list on pg 149 to help you analyze the essay.

Support should interweave your own thoughts/ideas/analysis with textual evidence. Don’t forget parenthetical documentation with your quotes.

Topics for body paragraphsGeneral

• Type of essay• Narrative

• Expository

• Argumentative

• Formal or Informal

• Voice & Tone

• Irony

• Word Choice & Figurative Language

• Satire

• Theme

“The Opposite Sex”

• Type of essay- Expository

• Formal

• Tone

• Figurative Language

• Theme

1) Analyze the essay2) Pick 3 topics that you could

discuss in your essay. One for each body paragraph

Topics for body paragraphsGeneral

• Type of essay• Narrative

• Expository

• Argumentative

• Formal or Informal

• Voice & Tone

• Irony

• Word Choice & Figurative Language

• Satire

• Theme

“If Shakespeare Had a Sister”

• Type of essay- Argument

• Informal

• Tone

• Figurative Language

• Theme

1) Analyze the essay2) Pick 3 topics that you could

discuss in your essay. One for each body paragraph