Essay #2 EN 104 Due Monday 4/4 @ midnight Write a thesis defense essay in response to the following topic. Your essay should be typed using MLA formatting, and no less than two (2) pages long. Make sure that your essay has a thesis; don't tell me what happens in the story, I've read it, Instead, you should be focusing on the question(s) posed in the topic. Try to write from a third person, omniscient point of view, which means you should stay out of the essay. Do not use personal pronouns such as I, you, your, etc. under any circumstances. Although some folks like to use we, our, and us, I would advise against it as any personal pronoun minimizes the academic nature of an essay. If you just can't help yourself, then at least use the latter minimally. Remember that the introductory paragraph should include a mention of the work(s) involved, the author(s) of the work(s), as well as some introductory sentences to set up the rest of the essay. The thesis statement should appear at or near the end of the introductory paragraph. Do not spit it ‘out as your first sentence. You will need to include one outside source in your essay. You are at liberty to select your own source as long as it isa reliable one, In other words you can't use Google, Wikipedia or any other general knowledge website, If you find a source by using the research links through the Evans Library you should be safe. There are sources out there in which the author (Olds) comments on her own interpretation of these two poems. Be sure to include the outside source you select, as well as the poem above, and the primary source in your Works Cited page. Use the outside source minimally in your essay. Having read and discussed Sharon Olds's "The Victims," now proceed to read the following: "The Lifting" Suddenly my father lifted up his nightie, I turned my head away but he cried out Share! my nickname, so | tuned and looked. He was sitting in the high cranked-up bed with the gown up, around his neck, 5 to show me the weight he had lost. I looked where his solidly ruddy stomach had beenand I saw the skin fallen into loose soft hairy rippled folds lying in a pool of folds 10 down at the base of his abdomen, the gaunt torso of a big man who will die soon, Right away saw how much his hips are like mine, the lengthened, white angles, and then 15 how much his pelvis is shaped like my daughter's, a chambered whelk-shell hollowed out, 1 saw the folds of skin like something poured, a thick batter, T saw his rueful smile, the cast-up eyes as he 20 shows me his old body, he knows 1 will be interested, he knows I will find him appealing, If anyone had ever told me I would sit by him and he'd pull up his nightie and I'd look at his naked body, at the thick 25 bud of his glans, his penis in all that sparse hair, look at him in affection and uneasy wonder I would not have believed it, But now I can still sce the tiny snowflakes, white and 30night-blue, on the cotton of the gown as it rises the way we were promised at death it would rise, the veils would fall from our eyes, we would know everything. Bibliographical information for "The Lifting": From: The Father publishing info: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. 15. Bibliographical information for "The Victims": From The Dead and the Living publishing info: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. 34. Of course, it's another poem about Olds' father. In this one, he is lying on his deathbed. He of the "dark carcasses" and the "double bourbons” has withered into an old man, too dotty (or is it the "second childhood" of age?) to feel embarrassed in front of his daughter. The image of a grown ‘woman confronting her dying father's nakedness is a powerful one. In seeing her father reveal himself to her, and, in turn, revealing him to us, do you think Sharon Olds is being reconciled to him, or is she simply, and finally, gaining control over the man she so resented as a child? In this essay discuss how reading this poem potentially changes our reading of "The Victims.” What does it add to Olds’ characterization of her father in the first poem? What does it add to her characterization of herself? Does it change your assessment of how she feels about her father? ‘And why is the poem titled "The Lifting"? What is being lifted, literally or figuratively?The Victims By Sharon Olds When Mother divorced you, we were glad. She took it and took it, in silence, all those years and then Kicked you out, suddenly, and her kids loved it. Then you were fired, and we grinned inside, the way people grinned when Nixon's helicopter lifted off the South Lawn for the last time, We were tickled to think of your office taken away, your secretaries taken away, your lunches with three double bourbons, your pencils, your reams of paper. Would they take your Suits back, too, those dark carcasses hung in your closet, and the black noses of your shies with the large pores? ‘She had taught us to take it, to hate you and take it until we pricked at your annihilation, Father. Now I pass bums in doorways, the white slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their suits of compressed silt, the stained flippers of their hands, the underwater fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the lanterns lit, and [ wonder who took it and took it from them in silence until they had sziven it all away and had nothing left but this From The Dead and the Living Publishing info: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. 34. 10 20 25General guidelines for formatting, and finding reliable sources for. a poetry-based literary essay. The following will give you general direction to the necessary information needed to write this particular type of essay. 1am not going to give you every detailed bit of information; you'll have to search and learn as part of the experience. You are always at liberty to ask my advice even if you think your question is stupid or foolish. (Some of them are, but ask anyway!) ‘The FMCC Evans Library is a fantastic and reliable source for any type of essay. By clicking on the Resources tab on the course page in Angel you will have access to the library. You need a college ID to Use the function, as it requires signing in. If you do not have one { would recommend getting one. ‘Tofind a reliable outside source: On the course page, click on the Resources tab. Click on the FMCC Evans Library link. Click on the Find Articles icon (you may use the book tab, but for this particular assignment it may be easier to use an article from a Literary Journal or something of that nature). Click on either the Humanities Topics or Literature Topics tab. Trya variety of search words or combinations. Use full-text versions; do not get quotes from the abstracts. ‘Tomanage the MLA formatting requirements: On the course page, click on the Resources tab. Click on the FMC Evans Library link. Select the Guides and Citation Help icon. Select the MLA citation help tab, Inctext citation On the left side of the page click on the Owl at Purdue MLA Guide. (This is an excellent resource for any formatting concerns in any essay you write across the curriculum.) ‘On the left menu select MLA in-text Citations. Read the general information, then proceed to Citing ‘Multiple Works by the Same Author, since you have two different poems by Olds. ‘Next, | think i's on that same page, take a look at MLA Formatting Quotations and take note of the specific conventions for Poetry. *There are many helpful tips on the MLA Sample Paper (left menu) as well. So don’t be afraid to visit it.Works Cited information Once you've figured that out, on the left menu again select MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format where you will learn the basics of the Works Cited page. Look specifically at More than One Work by an Author since you have two. ‘Also look at MLA Works Cited: Books to find A Work in an Anthology, which is the type of book both poems are found in. For your extra source check out the MLA Works Cited:?7? (based on the type of source you've selected). “Again, on the menu select MLA Sample Works Cited page to get a good look at what the WC page should look like, “Many of the sources have a citation link, but I've found most to be highly undependable, so even if you access those double check them for accuracy. They usually contain the necessary information, but not the appropriate formatting Feel free to ask for help, advice, or tips at any time, Don’t be embarrassed.