“Sonny’s Blues” and Soul

by | Dec 8, 2022 | art

 

Pick from the stories we have read so far and use two outside sources (some will be available on the class blog) and write a three page critical essay. Use quotes from the stories and from your two outside sources.
Include a works cited page with all sources and PLEASE look at the example paper under Class Information!
Here is the link to the blog:
https://eng102fall21.blogspot.com/
Refer to the example MLA paper in class resources for how to set up the paper. MAKE SURE YOU USE CITATIONS FOR QUOTES! This was not required in the short essay!
Pick ONE (not one from each section, one overall of the essay topics below for your paper. USE TWO OUTSIDE SOURCES!!!

Following You Dreams
1. In “Sonny’s Blues” and Soul, both main characters struggle with convincing people in their lives that their dream is worthy enough to be followed. How does each character try to explain this to their loved ones? What obstacles do they face? What do they achieve at the end of their stories? Use examples from the texts along with outside sources to support your thesis.
Living With the Internet/Social Media
2. Use “The Veldt”, Nosedive (the Black Mirror episode) to explain how each uses technology as a warning to the readers. Use examples from the texts along with outside sources to support your thesis.
3. In “The Veldt”, we discussed the parents and how they were not very involved with the lives of their children. For this essay, explain how technology played a role in that. You can compare to real world situations but DO NOT USE I in any formal essays. Use examples from the texts along with outside sources to support your thesis.
SOME IMPORTANT REMINDERS FOR ALL MLA STYLE PAPERS:
Do not use unreliable sources…for example:
Sparknotes
Bookrags
Wikipedia
Cliffnotes
123Helpme
Shmoop
Rewordify
Any site that has example papers and just tells you what to think. USING THIS SITES, OR ANY LIKE THEM, WILL RESULT IN FAILURE.

NEVER INTRODUCE NEW IDEAS IN YOUR CONCLUSION.
AVOID USING DIRECT QUOTES IN YOUR INTRODUCTION OR CONCLUSION. Sometimes a quote from an outside source is okay if it captures the point of your thesis but avoid quoting primary texts.
You need to include in text quotations and citations from whatever primary texts you are discussing and TWO OUTSIDE SOURCES!
Make a connection between the outside source you are using and your thesis and primary text.
Do not retell the story! Analyze and explain your thesis (which is your main point).
ONLY USE RELIABLE OUTSIDE SOURCES! Do not copy and paste or simply change a few words around from an unreliable source. If it was easy for you to find information to copy and paste from the internet, it’s just as easy for me to find it.
Make sure you get the character’s names right, as well as the author. It comes off as sloppy if you mix up characters or what author wrote what.
Read over your work. Have someone else read over your work. If I wrote on your paper to get help from The Learning Center, do it! Take your paper with you and they can help you out.
“Short Stories” (Quotation Marks)
Novels and films get italics.

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

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