Outline Instructions
Use / adapt the thesis that you indicated in your freewriting and develop an outline. Ideally, the points for the outline should be drawn from your freewriting, but this isn't necessary, especially if your topic has mutated.
Your outline should consist of an introductory paragraph, concluding with a thesis statement, and ~6 lettered points below, representing ~6 future body paragraphs. Each point will need to be bolstered by ~3 pieces of evidence. Each point will be a topic sentence, and should clearly relate to the paragraphs around it and to the overall argument. Finish with a conclusion paragraph.
This assignment is not written in stone - feel free to adapt your outline as your ideas evolve.
Sample I
Introduction: Mary Montgomerie Lamb imagines an isolated, sad Queen, a characterization that was increasingly common during the last two decades of her life. Max Beerbohm's cartoon, "Sit in the Corner" and William Nicholson's woodblock, "The Queen" both capture a Victoria so monumental and immobile in her black widow's weeds that she appears remote and marmoreal. In both cases, one cannot help but pity the Queen, who appears to have outlived her usefulness and most of her contemporaries. In "Victoria, 21 June, 1887," Lamb's Queen is surrounded by pomp, but essentially alone, one whose private self has been sacrificed to an uncongenial political role.
A. Political Role
B. Private Self
C. The Private Queen
D. Other Works on the Same Theme
E. Feminist Assessment - Conclusion
Sample II - turn points into topic sentences & add evidence - this is what you turn in.
Introduction: Mary Montgomerie Lamb imagines an isolated, sad Queen, a characterization that was increasingly common during the last two decades of her life. Max Beerbohm's cartoon, "Sit in the Corner" and William Nicholson's woodblock, "The Queen" both capture a Victoria so monumental and immobile in her black widow's weeds that she appears remote and marmoreal. In both cases, one cannot help but pity the Queen, who appears to have outlived her usefulness and most of her contemporaries. In "Victoria, 21 June, 1887," Lamb's Queen is trapped in a carapace of formality, one whose private self has been sacrificed to an uncongenial political role.
A. The poem initially fosters a nationalist and imperialist tone of reflection on Victoria's reign.
1. References in first 2 lines
2. References in concluding sestet.
3. Exclamation points / St. George's interaction with the Dragon
B. The triumphant tone of most of the poem is undercut most noticeably in the last line, creating an awareness in the reader of the disjunct between the Queen's selves and her consequent sadness.
1. Last line
2. References to Albert's death
3. Queen's inactivity within the poem
C. The idea of Victoria as conflicted over her political role has a long history throughout her reign and must be seen in the light of Victorian gender constructions.
1. Quote from Victoria's coronation day expressing sense of inadequacy, or else the one about politics being a man's province.
2. Victoria's seclusion post-Albert
3. Mention other writers who had this same idea of Queen
4. Expediency of this construction of the Queen
D. Not all writers dealing with the Queen in the 80s felt a need to emphasize Victoria's loneliness and sadness.
1. Oliphant
2. Crawford
3. Usefulness of this view of the Queen
E. From a feminist perspective, the poem created the Queen as an ordinary person with familial cares and woes, thereby allowing her subjects to be able to identify with her. By narrowing the gap between empowered monarch and commoner, Lamb make Victoria available for feminist uses. That is, a subject could come to question why only one woman, of ordinary intellect, should wield so much power, while other women were legally disenfranchised. At the same time, the baneful effect that Victoria's powers seem to have had on her do not encourage women to give free reign to their ambitions.