NOT FLAWLESS BUT STILL “A” ZONE SAMPLES OF
2ND PAPER (FIRST SEVERAL PAGES ONLY)

Sample 1 Frankenstein: “The Individual and the Family in Shelley's Frankenstein”

            Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is, above all else, about the alienation of the individual from the family unit. The concept of separation from the family or the inability to establish or maintain such ties is present throughout the novel. This disconnection between the individual and the family can be seen first in Victor's relationship with his family, and it begins to occur while he is still a child. It is also evident in the monster, both in his relationship with Victor and the relationship he longed for with the family he spent time observing, and perhaps in a greater sense with society as a whole. By looking at the novel from this perspective, one is able to see how the characters, and perhaps most importantly the monster, progress and develop. In this context, it can be said that the novel shows the progressive effects on an individual that is separated from the family unit in a concrete sense, and also in an abstract sense such as the general separation from the family and society experienced by the unfortunate monster. This lack of acceptance or socialization that the monster experiences greatly influences his personality and his psychology, so the concept of alienation from the family is indeed central to the novel as it shapes this central figure and basically decides what actions and activities he will engage in.

            Victor's alienation from his family is where we first see separation between the individual and the family unit or society in the novel. Due to his blind ambition and thirst for knowledge, he is away from his family and exploring things that in the end lead to nothing but trouble. Early on in the book, it becomes known that when he was young Victor developed an affinity for indulging in science books, but that he unfortunately was unable to share his passions with his family. He recollects his desire to engage with his father in discussions about the books that were now becoming his obsession and main interest but holding back, and also sharing his thoughts with Elizabeth but being met with a sort of disinterest, and so finally being left to engage in his studies alone (Shelley 34). It seems Victor truly had no one to connect with, and would simply retreat into his books and hide in his fantastical thoughts involving science, life, and death. Just before this, he laments how his father cast aside his interests with a snide remark, instead of explaining to him that the reason he should not indulge in these books is that their science was outdated and inferior to that of their own time which had developed into something more "real and practical" (Shelley 33). Perhaps this is indicative of an early connection between Victor's family life and what would come to consume and destroy him- had he been closer to his father and been able to candidly discuss his interests, perhaps he would not have ended up following the morbid impulses that these books created in him, which Victor himself admits to. In spite of this, Victor appears to look back on his childhood rather fondly, with only those connections that lead his thoughts to his present life being negative or unsettling to him.

            But how happy was Victor's childhood, really? Zimmerman suggests that Victor's fond reminiscence is more of a defense mechanism and that there is little truth to his happy memories. In this view, as in other views, the monster can be seen as a sort of double of Victor, but the difference here is that his supposedly good relationship with his family is challenged (Zimmerman 135-37). Zimmerman goes on to say that though his family might have appeared to accommodate him and provide him with a happy life, they failed to "acknowledge or strive to accommodate his inner world, and instead inflict their own version of reality on him." The basic idea here is that his family appeared to be perfect on the outside, public, but Victor's private life was stifling and left him with psychological problems and frustrations that he would carry into adulthood (137). If one agrees with this view, it is very clear how the theme of separation or isolation from the family unit is pervasive even from the beginning of the novel. It is not unlikely that Victor's childhood was more as Zimmerman views it and less how he describes it, as there are indications provided by Victor himself that his familial connections were superficial and that inside he was very lonely and isolated. This isolation he felt led him on the path that would decide his fate and would lead him to create the monster. . . .

Sample 2 Darwin: “Charles Darwin: Presenting Science thru Rhetoric”

            The monumental work by Charles Darwin marked a turning point in religious and scientific thought for all time. He wrote The Origin of Species in a manner that attempted to counter any attack on his discovery. Chiefly, he eased the audience into his theory in much the same way as a mother would while teaching her child to swim; a small amount at a time and never anything too radical. Just as important, Darwin tied his work closely to Genesis to appeal to the faith base of most readers. Through these strategies, Darwin created a hybrid that could conform to religious thought and be grounded in scientific fact.

            Most of Darwin's attempts to sway a fairly volatile British nation can be related to teaching a child to swim. The first step is to get the baby used to the water; which, in this case, was accomplished by the scientific community before Darwin. During the Medieval and Renaissance eras, a human centered idea called the Great Chain of Being was prevalent. This held that all matter had a niche in a hierarchal system organized by their utility to man. As Europe progressed into the Enlightenment, this was largely cast aside in favor of a categorical view based on similarities as the rise of natural sciences like zoology penetrated society. This shift toward a more level playing field for all life was essential to the receptiveness of Darwin's theory, which maintained that humans evolved from the same organic being that a slug did. Darwin would have faced much more ferocious attacks if he had come centuries earlier.

            To compliment the new arena of thought, scientists and mathematicians, like James Hutton and Pierre-Simon Laplace, were busy dissolving other commonly held beliefs, as archeological, geographic, and astronomic discoveries became rampant. These mighty findings were beginning to raise serious questions about the bible and creationism. It was in this atmosphere, one where society blasted by change and upheaval, that Charles Darwin formulated one of the most important theories of all time. In any time previous, his ideas would have been squashed, but like a baby used to shallow bathwater, Europe was more accepting to philosophical revolution.
            A parent will boost the child's confidence and self-esteem with flattering comments. These remarks will embolden the child and make him more receptive to change. Similarly, Darwin lavishes a cascade of compliments on the British in his first chapter. While speaking of the domestication and the modification of breeds for their owners benefit, Darwin favorably cites a number of prominent British cattle raisers (Darwin 38-39). Also, he props the British esteem by slyly including, "the whole body of English racehorses have come to surpass in fleetness and size the parent Arab stock" (Darwin 39). Although the aforementioned facts help support Darwin's thesis, it is unlikely that he included British superiority by mistake. When discussing another passage of Origin, John Campbell comes to the same conclusion. He remarks that Darwin describes the major families of plants and animals as "manufacturies of species," because of the vast number of genus that have branched from their core. Campbell then continues "[Darwin invites] his reader to think of the bigger natural groups as possessing the aura and energy of British industry... and proceeding according to the implicitly progressive principles of... [a] capitalist economy" (Campbell 220-221). Thus, the country that pioneered the industrial revolution and the spread of Capitalist principles is flattered again by Charles Darwin. The audience, now with their heads held high, is ready to proceed, and take the next baby steps into Darwin's pool of natural selection.
            When teaching her child to swim, a mother will restrict his early experiences to the shallows, because it is what he familiar with. Charles Darwin keeps his audience out of the deep for quite some time by exposing them only to events that most encounter on a daily basis. The first chapter, titled "Variation under Domestication" is a relatively lengthy section that builds a solid base for his argument. Not being shy about his intentions, he writes in his introduction about the first chapter, "We shall thus see that a large amount of hereditary modification is at least possible; and... we shall see how great is the power of man in accumulating by his Selection successive slight variations" (Darwin 29). Darwin constructs a frame for his argument by discussing the slight species variations that have come about in recent memory. By presenting extensive tangible and publicly available proof that is remarkably easy to understand, Darwin sets the stage for his ground breaking ideas. . . .

Sample 3 Darwin: “Darwin's Controversial Theory”

            In the evolution of the history of ideas there have been several paradigm shifts that have changed the perspective people have of life and the world we live in. One for instance is the fall of the hierarchical ways of the Great Chain of Being, which ruled from the fourteen to the sixteenth century. The Great Chain of Being made everyone superior to someone else placing God at the top of the pyramid followed by the Angels, the Kings, and so on until ending with the rocks of Earth. Another shift was of the Enlightenment in which people held a perspective that makes us view nature instrumentally. In this case nature can be controlled whenever someone desires to without any consent.

            During the nineteenth century religion was very important in the lives of many people. They searched through the Bible for answers about their existence and for solutions to many of their problems. In the section of Genesis in the Bible it states how God created the world and all of the different animals in it including us. "And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," stated Genesis (Cosans, 362). Charles Darwin was a naturalist who challenged the teachings of the bible. Darwin's controversial theory of natural selection and his strategic, rhetorical ways in which he conveys his arguments made him the main target of harassment when he wrote The Origin of Species.
            Inspired by Professor Henslow, Charles Darwin set sail December 27, 1832, on the Beagle, which became a five year voyage around the world. This voyage not only changed Darwin's life forever, but also challenged the beliefs of many Christians. Charles Darwin was able to explore different species and see how the animals within their species were different from place to place. As a child he had always been fascinated by creatures and would collect beetles as a hobby. Now in this voyage he was able to find all type of animals and see their different habitats and explore more how life was created. He was never satisfied with the biblical beliefs that God created the world and everything in it in seven days. This was a very controversial topic for his time period because many people believed in religion and did not dare to contradict its teaching never the less the thought of God not being responsible for Earth and all life in it.
            When Charles Darwin made his discoveries and came to the conclusion that animals evolved depending on their environment in order to survive he knew his theory of natural selection would cause a lot of debates among people. In his era people had a way of thinking, a way of doing things, and any alteration would cause chaos in their lives since it was not part of their norms. Besides it was embedded in everyone's beliefs that God was the sole creator of the world and that everything that happens was because of him. "Darwin contrasts his theory with the naive creationist view that God created each species separately" according to the article, “Was Darwin a Creationist?” (Cosans, 362). Religion was respected even when naturalists like Darwin tried to change people's opinion by introducing the idea of evolution and of God only creating prototypes of each species to later evolve into all the different kinds of animals we have now. Trying to change these people perspective's was a hard task, but Darwin was able to influence many people fifteen years after he published his book The Origin of Species.
Within Charles Darwin's worries was how to put his entire finding together in a way that might persuade others to believe him and welcome his findings as an insight into the world's creation. As he wrote his novel, Darwin planned the rhetorical techniques to use along with the time period he was in to better persuade his readers. "In his context and setting, Darwin had to find a way to communicate natural selection as the chief engine driving change in biological systems-a new, and radical, idea to an audience whose very understanding of the meaning and aim of science militated against it", writes John Campbell in “Why Was Darwin Believed? Darwin's Origin and the Problem of Intellectual Revolution” (Campbell, 205). . . .

Sample 4 Locke/Marx: “The Diminishing Value of Labor”

            Central to the writings of both John Locke and Karl Marx is the notion that a "value" can be placed on individual labor. Indeed, Locke and Marx are two of the greatest philosophical writers who ever examined and explained the value of labor, albeit in two very different ways. John Locke's 1681 political essay, The Second Treatise of Government, contains the cornerstone of philosophic economic thought concerning the valuation of labor. In particular, the labor theory of value that Locke develops in Chapter 5 of his Second Treatise has become the starting point for all labor value theories that followed in the subsequent centuries. Ultimately, using Locke's labor theory of value, Karl Marx, nearly two centuries later, co-authored The Communist Manifesto, and later, several volumes of Capital wherein he discusses his own interpretations of these value and labor theories. Ironically, Marx relied on Locke's labor theory of value to criticize the very capitalist structures that owed their own creation and growth to Locke's labor theory justifications for private property ownership, colonialism, and capitalism in the first place.

            It would certainly be enlightening to present recent wealth and income distributions in the United States to both Locke and Marx for their personal analyses. Unfortunately, given the passage of time, consulting their theories to help explain and analyze recent wealth and income distributions is as close as one can get. Given the historical backdrop, a consultation of their theories in light of these statistics is quite interesting. Statistically speaking, there has never been any other point in the modern history of the United States where there has been such a disproportionate disparity between the wealthiest 1% of the population and those who remain outside this elite group - largely the labor class. According to the research performed by economist Edward N. Wolff of New York University, "as of 2001, the top 1% of households [the upper class] owned 33.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% [the managerial, professional, and small business stratum], had 51%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%, leaving only 16% of the wealth for the bottom 80% [wage and salary workers]" (qtd. in Domhoff 1). Similarly, "the top 1% of households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58% of all financial securities, and 57.3% of business equity [while] the top 10% [of Americans] have 85% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity and over 75% of none-home real estate" (Domhoff 2). Thus, and to the extent that "financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, . . . just 10% of the people own the United States of America" (Domhoff 2). On the contrary, the bottom 90% of the population possesses 74.1% of all debt while the top 1% of the population possesses only 5.8% of all debt.

            This phenomenon is not new. Throughout American history, the distribution of wealth has always been overwhelmingly concentrated in the top 1% of the population. In the 19th century, the top 1% of the population owned 40-50% of all wealth with its concentration in the large port cities like Boston, New York, and Charleston, South Carolina. Over the next century, this wealth distribution was relatively stable. Recently, however, it has seen a steady increase (at least since the 1980's) with the top 1% of the population now hovering around a 40% share of wealth.
            John Locke's labor theory of value was not, in and of itself, directly explained or analyzed by him. Rather, Locke can only be said to have given birth to the notion that a relationship exists between an item's particular intrinsic value and the labor associated with it. To get to this point, Locke started with the assumption that every thing on the earth itself, at least in its natural state before the influence of man and government, was free for all of mankind to access. Locke determined that this was, in essence, God's gift to mankind and that all men were therefore free to use God's gift to their benefit.

            In Chapter 5 of Locke's Second Treatise, he first presents what will become the core principal of later theories that developed to show the exploitation of labor. This is despite the fact that Locke's motivation behind his labor theory of value was to justify the expansion of Western European powers into the new world. In a broader sense, Locke used the theory to support the core principals of capitalism itself (i.e. the private ownership of everything that a man's labor produces). . . .