Eng 2850 Fall 2013 Smith

Eng 2850 fall 2013 Smith A Model of Thesis Development: How Asking the “So What?” Questions Makes a Thesis a (More Interesting) Thesis

In “A Carcass,” Baudelaire links female sexuality and death.

Okay. Yeah. Pretty obvious. So what? What’s the impact, message, meaning behind this linkage?

Hmmm… How about, In “A Carcass,” Baudelaire links female sexuality and death, thereby challenging Petrarchan notions of female purity as the ideal.

Ummm, yeah, and…? I’m still thinking, so what?

In “A Carcass,” Baudelaire links female sexuality and death, thereby challenging Petrarchan notions of female purity as the ideal. In doing so, Baudelaire provocatively suggests that the baseness, ugliness, and messiness of sex and female sexuality should be elevated instead of the classical female ideal, which is unreachable and forces women to face an impracticable challenge: be something you can’t possibly (or sustainably) be. By undoing the classical ideal, Baudelaire frees women to take on other sorts of more manageable challenges.

Okay, yeah, getting interesting. Now you’re on to something!

And say this were the thesis of an essay you were writing on “The Carcass.” Where could you go with the above statement by your conclusion? You’ve got to take it somewhere—because the best essays start off with a sharp thesis but still have somewhere to GO, they still evolve through the presentation of strong evidence and insightful analysis.

Well…

So, even though the portrayal of the carcass is so in-your-face and aggressive as to cause a reader’s discomfort—even though the portrayal reads, in places, like an attack on women and seems to border on misogyny—in fact, Baudelaire’s imagery releases women from the real misogyny of unrealistic ideals for feminine behavior. Baudelaire poetically elevates the potential ugliness of female sexuality, acknowledges its connection to death, and still links it to classical Petrarchan images: “Oh sun…and star…my angel in one!” (39-40). In this way, he represents— even honors—a fuller female identity and potential. At all stages of life (and death); in all postures and moments of weakness; even freed from the clothing, makeup, hairstyle of the moment, and other costumes created to sanitize unruly femininity: even in all these states of undoing, women are worthy muses.