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Author Topic: I'm done with my paper - let's celebrate! Or rant about papers we hated writing
Belle
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Yeah, I know - I'm an English major so why should I be celebrating finishing up an English paper when I've two years of college left and who knows how many more papers to write?

Because this paper was on a work that's on my list of the top five worst literary works I've ever had to suffer through.

You know it, you love it (or don't love it) - The Scarlet Letter. Any redeeming qualities about the work were sucked out of it long ago by the huge preponderance of scholastic writing on the work and I've now read most of it.

Can I just say I'm done with the Puritans? I mean, yeah, important to our history, blah, blah blah but man I'm done with them. I don't want to study them anymore do you hear me? Not anymore!

[Wall Bash] <--- Belle over the last week working on this paper

My husband then encouraged me greatly by saying that after I get my teacher's certificate and take a job in the public high schools I'll probably be saddled with the joy of inflicting this work on poor young minds.

A girl at church this morning told me it wasn't so bad, at least it wasn't something crazy like Beowulf, or Heaven forbid, poetry.

Are you kidding me? Give me Beowulf anyday! I love Beowulf, I'm planning on taking an entire semester on Beowulf! And as for poetry, I love analyzing poetry too. I'm just really, really, not a Hawthorne fan. I mean, not at all.

The only thing that could have been worse is if the paper was on The House of the Seven Gables Thank God for small favors.

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Uprooted
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I hated Puritan lit as well. I don't think I've touched any of it since I finished that course.

[Party]

Woo-hoo for being done w/ the Scarlet Letter!

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Stasia
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quote:
Originally posted by Belle:

Can I just say I'm done with the Puritans? I mean, yeah, important to our history, blah, blah blah but man I'm done with them. I don't want to study them anymore do you hear me? Not anymore!


Heh. This is exactly how I felt in the tenth grade after we did two and a half solid months of Puritan literature, including, of course, the Scarlet Letter (the book and then the movie). Fortunately I didn't major in English so I never had to read any Puritan lit again nor will I have to inflict it on young minds, but I just wanted to say I feel your pain.
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Joldo
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I love the Puritans.
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Dagonee
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Yay, Belle.

I had to review my Note before sending it off to the proofreader, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. It still reads well to me and still holds tightly together.

Too often I reread school papers and go, "Ugh! I wrote that?"

Not this time. [Big Grin]

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Robin Kaczmarczyk
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My deepest condolences. Nobody should have to do a paper on the Puritans, by Jove!
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larisse
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Belle... Congrats on finishing the paper. I feel the same way about The Scarlet Letter. The only work I dislike more is The Great Gatsby.
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CRash
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quote:
Originally posted by Stasia:
quote:
Originally posted by Belle:

Can I just say I'm done with the Puritans? I mean, yeah, important to our history, blah, blah blah but man I'm done with them. I don't want to study them anymore do you hear me? Not anymore!


Heh. This is exactly how I felt in the tenth grade after we did two and a half solid months of Puritan literature, including, of course, the Scarlet Letter (the book and then the movie).
The curriculum for my next semester sounds exactly like this. Should I be worried?
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pH
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Yay for finishing your paper! I'm not a huge fan of the Scarlett Letter, myself.

I am a huge fan of Jude the Obscure. All essay questions can be related to Jude the Obscure. I wrote one of my GMAT essays mostly about Jude the Obscure. I mean, I love the book to begin with, and it has so many uses. So I say this: when in doubt, Jude the Obscure.

-pH

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TomDavidson
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You know, I disliked The Scarlet Letter, but actually really enjoyed Hawthorne's short stories.
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Bob_Scopatz
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Did you get to use the phrase "bosom snake" in your paper? I read that in a Hawthorne short story and just figured the guy was more than a little odd.

Glad you finished your paper.

So...how long before you get to analyze the metaphorical significance of a massive white whale named...

Oh never mind.

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Jeesh
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Teachers take the fun out of reading books in one step:

1) Give homework

[Razz]

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Joldo
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I like Hawthorne . . .
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Eisenoxyde
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I have a 5-10 page paper on welding in a zero gravity environment due Thursday. Just be glad your paper isn't like this. The only information I can find is in regards to spot welding and friction stir welding. Thankfully I have a few leads that might pan out tomorrow and give me more to write about.

Jesse

P.S. Although I am not enjoying the prospect of writing this paper, I would take it hands down any day over writing a paper on Hawthorne.

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Celaeno
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I'm in the middle of writing a research paper right now, and while the topic fascinates me, I can't seem to get it going. I'm discussing religious diversity on campus from the students' perspective. I interviewed a dozen students, and my biggest problem is organizing the data to form a cohesive thesis.

In a few hours I'll be celebrating, in the words of a good friend, like whoa. I'll come back in here to join you.

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Phanto
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The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books :/. The opposite, of course, applies to the Scarlet Letter ^^.
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katharina
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Matt wrote a fascinating paper on the Puritans detailing how, when they excommunicated someone, it is clear that it was done in hopes that the person would return to the fold. That the church from which the person was expelled still held themselves responsible for overseeing the ex-member's welfare. When Anne Hutchinson was ex-communicated, they didn't mean that she would leave forever. They were hoping to wake her up to what they saw as the seriousness of her errors. Absolutely fascinating. I feel much more warm and fuzzy towards to Puritans now.
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Belle
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quote:
So...how long before you get to analyze the metaphorical significance of a massive white whale named...

Actually my next paper is indeed on Melville. But not on Moby Dick. Oh no, because it's at least interesting in parts. Nope, it's on Billy Budd. Ugh. What person was so cruel as to put Hawthorne and Melville together in one semester?

Kat, Matt's paper sounds interesting, but I can't garner up much sympathy for the Puritans in re: the Hutchinson incident. Maybe I should read his paper, and look at it another way, because in all the reading I've done (and actually, this paper was ON Hutchinson and her link with Hester Prynne) I haven't found much to make me feel warm and fuzzy at all.

In fact, from what I've read they denounce her by saying they gave her a chance to repent and she didn't. And she wasn't just excommunicated, she was banished from the colony - something that eventually led to her death. I haven't found anything to suggest they wanted her back in the fold, but maybe I've just read the wrong source material - certainly possible since I limited my research to those materials that helped me draw a connection between Hutchinson and Prynne. One of the papers I referred to the most was this one:

quote:
Anne Hutchinson and the economics of antinomian selfhood in colonial New England. Michelle Burnham.
Criticism v39.n3 (Summer 1997): pp337(22).

In that paper is a section on the rhetorical excesses during her trial and the names they call her and the accusations levied against her are certainly not endearing.

Not that my two-week's worth of research on Hutchinson makes me any kind of expert, but I tend to look at the incident and see people who were trying to protect their power base rather than people who were concerned about a poor woman's soul.

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Bob_Scopatz
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Oh...Belle...Billy Budd???

WHY???

It's all part of the left-wing homosexual agenda if you ask me.

Seriously, though, I was going to make a joke about how you could expose the homoeroticism in Billy Budd and then I thought I'd better Google that to see if it's been done.

Um...yeah...there are like 100's of pages out there on the homoeroticism of Billy Budd. It's also not nearly a good yarn.

Ugh...

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Belle
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I know, Bob, I know. *sigh*

Well, at least this is the last dratted "survey" course I have to take. From now on I choose literature courses that are much more focused and I'll have the ability to choose something I actually like.

I'm still ticked about missing the class last semester on the lore that led to the Lord of the Rings. Dratted cancer making me unable to go to school. [Mad] And are they teaching it again? No, of course not. [Wall Bash]

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katharina
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Yes, that's what I mean - there's more to the story to the Puritans. If we don't like how the Puritans are and wonder how any human society could be so heartless, I think it's much more likely that our interpretation is wrong than that an entire society WAS that heartless. In other words, more reading is in order to get a real picture than is usually presented in a survey class.
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TomDavidson
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quote:
I think it's much more likely that our interpretation is wrong than that an entire society WAS that heartless.
Why? As a general principle, I mean.
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BlackBlade
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Gratz on your paper Belle. I didnt mind my Puritan section of American History but I would be content to not revisit it.

The Great Gatsby really just did not rub me the right way though I think it was worth a read. I LOVED Upton Sinclairs: The Jungle.

In terms of a paper I hated writing, for a political science course I had to write a book report on the book On Democracy by Robert A. Dahl. The book made MAYBE 1-2 interesting points and the rest of it was just mind numbingly boring for me and I had to write 10 pages on it. Political Scientists typically suck as writers. They should form a literature club with Philosophers, they would enjoy each others writings.

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Belle
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Made a B plus. Could have been worse.
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Irami Osei-Frimpong
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I think Billy Budd is a fascinating story on many levels. The first immediately relevant one is the tendency for people who can't communicate in this world to resort to violence.

The second is the Dansker. He is the one man, I believe, that had he not been so used to taking orders, could have stopped the whole affair.

The third is Vere. Was Vere "doing what he had to do," Or was it Vere a glorified bureaucrat? And why does Melville mention that Vere doesn't read any fiction?


Billy Budd is a perplexing story. Nobody but Vere wanted Budd to die at the trial. The trial could have and should have been postponed. The crew was closer to mutiny after the execution than before. Did Vere just misapprehend his duty?

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Kristen
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One of my friends is getting her PHD in Puritan literature, which means that she will be studying them exclusively for the next 6 years. I cannot imagine, but she will be happy--she has a list of her top 20 favorite Puritans, no joke.

I personally hate writing papers. I can pretty much effortlessly take any test, but writing a paper and making it be understandable is practically insurmontable. Luckily, most of my papers the later half of college used postmodern theorists, which worked well with my lack of ability in producing clear, eloquent, argumentation.

Congrats on your B+!

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