Sample Essay Outlines
The following topics provide an opportunity for you to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate what you have read. Each topic includes an outline that will serve as a guide and a starting point.
Topic #1
Although Jazz has many themes, the novel can be classified as a love story. Discuss the many different types of love explored in the book.
Outline
I. Thesis Statement: The many different types of love portrayed in the novel include: the love between a man and a woman, mother love, love of country life, love of the city, love of music, and baby love.
II. Love Between a Man and a Woman
A. Joe and Violet
1. Youthful years
2. Mature years
B. Joe and Dorcas
C. Vera Louise and the slave
D. Wild and Hunter’s Hunter
III. Mother Love
A. Joe’s love for Wild
B. Violet’s love for Rose Dear
C. Vera’s love for Golden Gray
D. True Belle’s love for Golden Gray
IV. Love of Country Life
A. Joe and Victory
B. Hunter’s Hunter
C. Wild
V. Love of the City
A. Better than country life
B. Perfection
VI. Love of the Music
A. Jazz
B. The Blues
C. Dancing
VII. Baby or Child Love
A. Violet’s desire for a baby and what it does to her
B. True Belle’s love for her grandchildren
Conclusion: Jazz is a realistic love story because it goes beyond the traditional love between a man and a woman to discuss many other types of love.
Topic #2
The work of writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and Ernest Hemingway looked at American lifestyles and attitudes in the Jazz Age. How does Toni Morrison’s Jazz add another dimension to the existing work on American life in this decade?
Outline
I. Thesis Statement: By writing about rural African-Americans, The Great Migration, and the racism African-Americans experienced in the North, Morrison paints a broader picture of life in the1920s.
II. The Traditional Image of the 1920s
A. Prosperity
B. Attitudes
III. The African-American Experience in the 1920s
A. Difficulties of Southern life
1. Segregation
2. Sharecropping
3. Ku Klux Klan
B. The Great Migration
1. Dignity
2. Opportunity
C. The climate of fear
1. Lynchings
2. Race riots
3. Discrimination
Conclusion: Morrison’s portrayal of African-American life in the 1920s completes the picture of American life during this decade.
Topic #3
Music is used as a backdrop for the novel. Instead of being titled Jazz, why could this novel have been named “The Blues”?
Outline
I. Thesis Statement: This novel could have easily been named “The Blues” because many characters have sad, sad stories to tell.
II. The Blues Defined
A. Origins
B. Examples
III. Violet’s Blues
A. Joe’s affair
B. Her mother’s suicide
C. Her father’s disappearance
D. Baby hunger
IV. Joe’s Blues
A. Violet
B. Dorcas
C. His mother
V. Dorcas’ Blues
A. Her parents
B. Aunt Alice
C. Joe
VI. Rose Dear’s Blues
A. Caring for her children
B. Her husband
VII. Golden Gray’s Blues
A. His parentage
B. The changes that would take place in his life
VIII. The Narrator’s Blues
A. No life
B. Never experienced a love like Violet and Joe’s
Conclusion: Almost every character in Jazz could be said to have the blues.
Topic #4
The North as the “promised land” is a reocurring theme in African-American history and literature. Compare and contrast what the promised land meant during slavery and post-slavery.
Outline
I. Thesis Statement: The North was considered the promised land because it was the one place where African-Americans hoped they could find freedom and opportunity.
II....
(This entire section contains 810 words.)
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The Promised Land
A. Origins as a biblical term
B. Heaven on earth
III. The Promised Land During Slavery
A. Escape to freedom
B. The Underground Railroad
C. Harriet Tubman
IV. The Promised Land During Post-slavery
A. The Great Migration
1. Escape from slavery
2. Economic opportunity
3. Dignity
B. Northern realities
1. Racism in other forms
2. Poor housing
3. The impact of city life
Conclusion: For African-Americans, the North was viewed as the promised land because it offered freedom from slavery at one point and freedom from political and economic hardships at another.
Topic #5
Alice Manfred reacts very strongly to the march protesting the killings in East St. Louis, Illinois. Discuss her reaction and the kinds of reactions that could be expected from various segments of the American population.
Outline
I. Thesis Statement: There were many different reactions to the killings and the protest march that followed.
II. Reactions by Residents of East St. Louis
A. African-American
B. White
III. Reactions by New Yorkers
A. Harlemites
B. Whites
IV. Public Opinion Throughout the United States
A. North
B. South
C. African-American
D. White
V. Personal Reactions
A. Alice Manfred
B. Dorcas
C. Joe
Conclusion: The reaction to the riots and killings in East St. Louis, Illinois depended largely on race and political views.