Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [161]
EVOLVING A THESIS IN A LATER-STAGE DRAFT: THE EXAMPLE OF EDUCATING RITA
In this example, we will apply the Six Steps in order to make a thesis evolve within the draft, rather than to select among various as yet unformed competitors for the role of thesis (as was the case with Las Meninas). The process of thesis evolution we will trace here would remain visible in the writer’s final draft as a means of sharing her thought processes with her readers. By contrast, the writer of Las Meninas would probably not include in her final draft the competition among her three potential thesis statements—only the evolution of the “winning” one.
In the film Educating Rita, a working-class English hairdresser (Rita) wants to change her life by taking courses from a professor (Frank) at the local university, even though this move threatens her relationship with her husband (Denny), who burns her books and pressures her to quit school and get pregnant. Frank, she discovers, has his own problems: he’s a divorced alcoholic who is bored with his life, bored with his privileged and complacent students, and bent on self-destruction. The film follows the growth of Frank’s and Rita’s friendship and the changes it brings about in their lives. By the end of the film, each has left a limiting way of life behind and has set off in a seemingly more promising direction. Rita leaves her constricting marriage, passes her university examinations with honors, and begins to view her life in terms of choices; Frank stops drinking and sets off, determined but sad, to make a new start as a teacher in Australia.
Step 1: Formulate an idea about your subject, a working thesis.
Working thesis: Educating Rita celebrates the liberating potential of education. The film’s relatively happy ending and the presence of the word educating in the film’s title make this thesis a reasonable opening claim.
Step 2: See how far you can make this thesis go in accounting for evidence.
The working thesis seems compatible, for example, with Rita’s achievement of greater self-awareness and independence. She becomes more articulate, which allows her to free herself from otherwise disabling situations. She starts to think about other kinds of work she might do, rather than assuming that she must continue in the one job she has always done. She travels, first elsewhere in England and then to the Continent. So, the thesis checks out as viable: there is enough of a match with evidence to stick with and evolve it.
Steps 3 & 4: Locate evidence that is not adequately accounted for by the thesis, and ask So what? about the apparent mismatch between the thesis and selected evidence.
Some evidence reveals that the thesis as stated is not the whole picture. Rita’s education causes her to become alienated from her husband, her parents, and her social class; at the end of the film, she is alone and unsure about her direction in life. In Frank’s case, the thesis runs into even more problems. His boredom, drinking, and alienation seem to have been caused, at least in part, by his education rather than by his lack of it. He sees his book-lined study as a prison, not a site of liberation. Moreover, his profound knowledge of literature has not helped him control his life: he comes to class drunk, fails to notice or care that his girlfriend is having an affair with one of his colleagues, and asks his classes whether it is worth gaining all of literature if it means losing one’s soul.
Step 5: Reshape your claim to accommodate the evidence that hasn’t fit.
The idea that the film celebrates the liberating potential of education still fits a lot of significant evidence. Rita is arguably better off at the end of the film than at the beginning: we are not left to believe that she should have remained resistant to education, like her husband, Denny, whose world doesn’t extend much beyond the corner pub. But the thesis also leaves