Assignments
ENG 3950 – The Literature of War
Baruch College
PAPER ASSIGNMENT
Due to instructor Thursday 09/30
LENGTH: 4 double-spaced typewritten (word processed) pages (800-1000 words) [20 points]
TOPIC: Read the following paragraphs and pick the one you want to discuss:
- “To be sure, the best general is not the one who is most familiar with the idea of friction, and who takes it most to heart (he belongs to the anxious type so common among experienced commanders). The good general must know friction in order to overcome it whenever possible, and in order not to expect a standard of achievement in his operations which this very friction makes impossible” (Clausewitz, On War, Book One, Ch.7).
- A complaint which you make about the abuse of authority [p. 200] brings me to another suggestion for the indirect combating of the propensity to war. One instance of the innate and ineradicable inequality of men is their tendency to fall into the two classes of leaders and followers. The latter constitute the vast majority; they stand in need of an authority which will make decisions for them and to which they for the most part offer an unqualified submission. This suggests that more care should be taken than hitherto to educate an upper stratum of men with independent minds, not open to intimidation and eager in the pursuit of truth, whose business it would be to give direction to the dependent masses. It goes without saying that the encroachments made by the executive power of the State and the prohibition laid by the Church upon freedom of thought are far from propitious for the production of a class of this kind. The ideal condition of things would of course be a community of men who had subordinated their instinctual life to the dictatorship of reason. Nothing else could unite men so completely and so tenaciously, even if there were no emotional ties between them. But in all probability that is a Utopian expectation. No doubt the other indirect methods of preventing war are more practicable, though they promise no rapid success. An unpleasant picture comes to one’s mind of mills that grind so slowly that people may starve before they get their flour. (Freud, “Why War”).
Write an argumentative essay in which you explore the main concern of one of these paragraphs by using an example from other class materials, such as films and stories that present war from the perspective of the ordinary soldiers.
Please use evidence from booth texts to support your response.
WRITING THE ESSAY:
. Your essay should take into consideration the following questions, yet not necessarily in this order:
- How does the point in the paragraph relate to the argument developed in the rest of the text? What are the key concepts defined here?
- Pick wisely an example that will help you problematize various aspects of Clausewitz or Freud’s ideas. Why is this example relevant in this context? What aspect of the concept of war or of military strategy does it illuminate?
- How does this example prove its point? Explain how literary or filmic devices make these works of art effective.
RECOMMENDED FORMAT:
1. Aim for substantial, unified paragraphs with strong topic statements; avoid clusters of short, one-or two-sentence paragraphs that don’t build upon each other.
2. Write an introduction that identifies texts and authors and sets the context for the reader. (To decide how much you need to say in order to establish the context, imagine that the reader of your essay is a fellow student who has done the reading but has not thought about it.) End your introduction with your thesis statement. DO NOT BE CONTENT WITH A VAGUE THESIS THAT SAYS OBVIOUS OR GENERAL IDEAS ABOUT THE TEXT.
2. In the body of your essay, justify this thesis by drawing on specific textual examples. When you have finished this close examination of your evidence, conclude not by repeating what you have already said, but perhaps by speculating on what you found out about the topic while writing this paper.
Be sure to give your paper a title. A good title is worth 10% of the whole grade.