English 101
More instructions for Comparative Outline and Essay
Open the outline for your essay. (Your should have written and submitted it on Blackboard.)
- Use your outline as a map to write your five-paragraph essay. Note, that the outline has your thesis and the topic sentence and citations for each body paragraph.
- Here’s a review of the key elements you need in each paragraph:
- Intro paragraph:
- Your intro paragraph should have a summary of the main story you will be analyzing.
- Your intro paragraph should end with your thesis.
- Body Paragraphs:
- Topic sentence:The topic sentence is the first sentence in your paragraph. It should connect back to your thesis. You can use the topic sentence you wrote for the paragraph in your essay outline.
- Citations:Each of your body paragraphs should have at least two citations pulled from a primary text (the story we read in class) or a secondary text (the online articles you found for your annotated bib). The primary text and secondary text are sources. You need to have at least 2 sources for your paper, but you can use the sources as much or as little as you like.
- Analysis:You should analyze each citation to explain how the citation supports the argument you are making.
- Restate Topic Sentence:You should end each body paragraph by restating your topic sentence. This will remind the reader about the main idea of the paragraph.
ANSWER
Influence of Role Models among Main Characters
Paragraph I: Intro Paragraph: Summary of Stories + Thesis
In this essay, a comparison of “Dead Men’s Path” and “The Finger” is conducted. The Finger revolves around Dread Lanfe, whose armed robbery went wrong after chopping off a finger in the quest for a golden ring, which killed him. The Dead Men’s Path revolves around a Nigerian headmaster, Michael Obi, found at a crisis of culture and modernity.
Thesis: In both “Dead Men’s Path” and “The Finger,” the main characters have role models they admire in their life and emulate professionally, whereby as they pursue those ‘foreign’ standards, they get in trouble.
Paragraph 2: In “Dead Men’s Path,” Michael Obi is obsessed with modern standards associated with white culture, and seeks to modernize all school practices and replace traditional beliefs.
- In their two years of married life, she had become completely infected by his passion for “modern methods” and his denigration of “these old and superannuated people.” (Achebe 10)
- That day, the white Supervisor came to inspect the school and wrote a nasty report on the state of the premises.” (Achebe 12)
Paragraph 3: In “The Finger,” Dread Lanfe looks up to the military people as his role models in life and profession, hence he covers the ‘thug’ life with political activism before he is accepted in the police force.
- He liked to talk like the military, copy the way they acted and put on their look of mean dogs (Victor 43)
- He was a former Tonton Macoute turned political activist, like Dread Lanfe (Victor 42)
Paragraph 4: The main characters from “Dead Men’s Path” and “The Finger,” get into trouble while trying to meet the set foreign standards emulating their role models.
- Obi woke up next morning among the ruins of his work (Achebe 12).
- He dropped the gun in an attempt to snatch the finger from his chest (Victor 48).
Paragraph 5: Conclusion
The main characters in both stories emulate certain people in their lives; Lanfe emulates military people, where he engages the military practices in his life as an armed robber. Obi emulates the White culture seen in his obsession with modernity and replacing traditional cultures.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. “Dead Men’s Path.” Achebe, Chinua. Girls at War and Other Stories. file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/Dead_Mens_Path(1).pdf, 1972. 10-13.
Victor, Gary. The Finger. 2010. https://genius.com/Gary-victor-the-finger-annotated. 12 August 2020.
