Student Question
What is a good thesis statement for Home by Toni Morrison?
Quick answer:
A good thesis statement for Toni Morrison's Home should focus on the novel's thematic elements, such as "race and trauma," "the search for self and community," or "nature and humanity." For instance, a thesis might explore how Morrison connects human nature's beauty and cruelty, suggesting societal and historical influences shape these traits. This approach provides ample opportunities to illustrate themes through examples from the text, offering a robust foundation for analysis.
To write a good thesis statement, instead of thinking about how you can encapsulate the whole of a novel into one or two arguments, you might consider thematic ideas that are present within the work. Then, see if any one of those ideas intrigues you enough to write a whole paper about it.
Many times people confuse theme for a single word like “love,” “hate,” or “evil”. In reality, a theme is itself a kind of thesis statement. For instance, we can expand “love” into the statement, “When two people are in love, they will sacrifice anything to be together.” Now, with this kind of theme, you can see it illustrated in a number of ways. Maybe two characters will commit murder in order to stay together. Perhaps they will merely both decide that they will work so that they can retire young and spend their days together, despite the...
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strain their work will put on their current relationship.
In Toni Morrison’s Home, a number of themes arise that can easily shape your paper topic. Trigger phrases that might lead you toward these themes include: “race and trauma,” “the search for self and place within a community,” “passing on racial memory,” “nature and humanity,” and “race and gender.” Each of these has the potential to be expanded upon with examples from the novel.
For instance, when Frank Money and his little sister witness the stallions fighting and later see the men bury the body of a black man in the ground, Morrison draws a direct connection between the wild beauty of nature and the beastly nature of humans. To further expand this idea into a theme, we might say: “Within all humanity lies the potential for extraordinary beauty and extraordinary cruelty, and societal forces and history have a great influence on which pathway we choose in any given context.”
Now, your thesis need not be quite that complicated, but you can see above that the statement would give you no shortage of opportunities to find examples within the novel, so your challenge would be to narrow down your thesis (being mindful of the length restrictions of your paper). You could also bring in other ideas from other theorists if that is allowed. However, many instructors will want to see what you can come up with on your own.
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