Note how the thesis statements become more restricted, precise and unified in each progression.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
Topic: The significance of Chris’s journey to find his mother
Question: How does the journey to find his mother help him reconnect with his father?
Sample Thesis Progression (from the weak to strong)
1. Chris’s journey to London is unpredictable.
2. When Chris reunites with his mother, things don’t run out great.
3. When Chris reunites with his mother in London, there is a lot irony. She is happy to see him but unable to support him.
4. Chris wants to start a new life in London, but his mother’s world isn’t stable enough. And her new partner isn’t supportive.
5. Although Chris hopes to start a new life with his mother in London, her unstable situation actually makes him reconnect with his father because she is forced by a lack of many and an unpredictable partner—Mr. Shears—to retreat back to Swindon, where Chris will have much better support.
(Note: this last thesis statement is a “working thesis.” In the essay the ideas would be presented more artfully, perhaps, in more than one sentence.)
Cry, The Beloved Country, by Alan Paton
Topic: Stepehn Kumalo’s struggles in Johannesburg
Question: How does the journey to find his son affect Stephen Kumalo?
Sample Thesis Progression: (from the weak to strong)
1. Kumalo encounters a lot in Johannesburg.
2. Stephen Kumalo becomes confused when he travels from Ndotsheni to Johannesburg.
3. Stephen Kumalo struggles going from his village of Ndotsheni to enormous Johannesburg, where he searches for his family and has a crisis of faith.
4. Stephen Kumalo struggles during his trip from his village of Ndotsheni to Johannesburg because his search for his missing son
unnerves him and tests his faith.
The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Topic: Hester’s two “marriages”
Question: Why do her marriages fail?
Sample Thesis Progression (from the weak to strong)
1. Hester is married to Chillingworth, but she had a child with Dimmesdale.
2. Hester is bound to Chillingworth by marriage and Dimmesdale by love.
3. Hester has two marriages, one real and one illusory, but both fail.
4. Hester has two marriages, one real and one illusory, but both fail because she is ill suited to be a wife.
5. Hester has two marriages, one real and one illusory, but both fail because she is too rebellious to be any man’s wife.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Topic: Gatsby in love
Question: What is the danger of love in the novel?
Sample Thesis Progression (from the weak to strong)
1. The Great Gatsby deals with love.
2. Love has a major effect in The Great Gatsby.
3. Love is shown to be important in Gatsby’s life.
4. In The Great Gatsby, love is primarily a destructive force that brings the characters to ruin.
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Topic: the role of rivers
Question: Are rivers good or bad symbols in the novel?
Sample Thesis Progression (from the weak to strong)
1. Rivers play an interesting role in Beloved.
2. In Beloved, Rivers transport people from place to place, and they’re also obstacles.
3. Although rivers transport both Sethe and Beloved from place to place, they also present confusing obstacles at times.
4. Although rivers transport both Sethe and Beloved from place to place and between “worlds”—from slavery to freedom and from death to life—they also present confusing obstacles at times.
5. Although rivers transport both Sethe and Beloved from place to place and between “worlds”—from slavery to freedom and from death to life—they also present confusing obstacles because one cannot easily escape the past.
Sonnet 18, by William Shakespeare
Topic: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is about the speaker’s love for a friend.
Question: Why is the poem concerned with both love and immortality?
Sample Thesis Progression (from the weak to strong)
1. The speaker compares his love/friend to summer.
2. While summer’s beauty fades, the friend has a loveliness that endures.
3. The speaker knows that he can capture his friend’s loveliness in a poem, and this is one of the reasons why the friend’s loveliness will be immortal.
4. Both summer and the speaker’s friend are lovely; however, the speaker’s views on the power of poetry lead to a deeper theme, that even though beauty in the physical world must fade and die, poetry which is true and which has a worthy subject can immortalize loveliness.
The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel, by Gwendolyn Brooks
Topic: Brooks’s poem “The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel” is about the lives of seven dropouts.
Question: Are the dropouts really having fun playing pool and getting into trouble?
Sample Thesis Progression (from the weak to strong)
1. The dropouts seem happy.
2. The lively tone of the poem makes it seem as if the dropouts are having fun.
3. The dropouts seem to be having fun, but the fact that they will die early shows that their lives are not as happy as they seem.
4. Although the dropouts seem to be enjoying the exciting, carefree lives, the speaker is not praising the group but condemning it for its mindless, destructive ways.
since feeling is first, by e. e. cummings
Topic: The poem’s message about love
Question: are the poem’s sentiments modern or traditional?
Sample Thesis Progression (from the weak to strong)
1. Cumming’s poem “since feeling is first” is about love.
2. Cumming’s poem “since feeling is first” explores how love is best communicated.
3. Cumming’s poem “since feeling is first” explores how love is best communicated through sensation and not intellect.
4. Although ee cummings “since feeling is first” is a traditional love poem, it is modern in its assertion that love is best expressed through the senses and not the intellect.