Three-Part Thesis

(Analytical Writing)

Opening = Three-Part Thesis

1. Context: background we need in order to be able to understand the topic; could be any of the
following:
a. plot/scene summary
b. technique summary
c. introduction of terminology
d. introduction of characters
e. historical background
f. many other possibilities

2. Analytical Claim: your statement linking what the author/text is doing to what the
author/text is suggesting or saying
a. Don’t use a specific line—find a pattern in word choice or phrasing
b. The author isn’t doing something to get you to think more deeply or to understand
the text better or to enjoy something more
c. The “doing” and the “saying” can’t say the same thing
i. The author isn’t using negative images to make the scene more negative, for
example.

3. Reasoning: explains how the “doing” suggests the “saying”

a. Often this is the “because” in a thesis
b. Clarifies the connection between a technique or pattern and its function or purpose

*Your thesis will typically be 1-3 paragraphs

Context:
In his 1927 short story “The Hills Like White Elephants,” Hemingway explores the complicated
relationship between a seemingly older man and his younger mistress. Presumably unmarried and
in the midst of an affair dependent on foreign travel, the two find themselves in a purgatory of sorts,
waiting for a train to Madrid, drinking rather too much, and talking around the “elephant in the
room”: the impending abortion of their unborn child. Most of the story itself revolves around their
conversation, but it becomes clear that though the two say a great deal to one another, neither is
speaking the same language.
Analytical Claim:
Indeed it seems Hemingway saturates his story with alcohol—the archetypal symbol for
blindness—to emphasize how the man’s selfish, limited view of reality alienates his wife as she
continues to notice and take seriously many things that he simply cannot understand.
Reasoning:
As the girl searches incessantly for life beyond the railroad tracks, the man can offer expertise only
on how to take absinthe and on the simplicity of the operation to end what he sees as the culprit of
their current stagnation. Yet, though the man seems to be the wiser and more experienced
drinker—and seemingly more ignorant because of it—the girl does not abstain from his lifestyle,
suggesting that both characters will be unable to see the right solution for their unhappiness.

Juxtaposition, as a rhetorical device, allows an author to pair characters or actions in order to emphasize
their similarities or mark their contrasting traits. In her short story “Roman Fever," Edith Wharton has crafted two
parallel characters: two middle-aged companions, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, who have led very similar lives
since childhood. Both women have moved among the wealthy and the privileged, traveling to Europe at significant
periods in the lives: the first time, we assume, to catch husbands; the second time, ironically, to let them go. As the
story opens, both women have returned to Rome, with their husband-seeking daughters. The two, it seems, have
reached a reflective, nearly idle stage in their lives, and as they first gaze upon the ruins of the city, they are
confident in their understanding of the other. However, the more their lives are juxtaposed, the more Wharton
suggests that the ladies’ polite attachment to each other is, in fact, dying and that the surface similarities
between them can no longer mask their lack of intimacy or the cracks in their moral characters. As Wharton
removes the layers of their relationship, she parallels this revealing with their own realization that they know little
about each other. As the relationship falters, the light of the afternoon dwindles and darkness falls upon the ruined
city before them. Furthermore, almost implicitly, Wharton parallels the women’s ignorance and recklessness with
the potential of their daughters to live similar lives. As Wharton sets these elements side by side, we are better able
to understand how the mask of perfection has hidden very real flaws and how all seemingly grand things come to
an end.