American Author Blog Post #8

Nick Porter
4/17/08
Block C.
Justin Wells
American Literature

Writing Assignment #8- American Author Thesis Proposal

There are three books that I’ve read so far for the American Author Project. These books are all by the author Alice Walker. They are entitled, “The Color Purple”, “By The Light of My Father’s Smile”, and, “Possessing The Secret of Joy.” What might we think can unite all of these books you might ask yourself. I’ve asked myself the same question. So I’ve come up with this as my possible thesis statement for my final paper. How do the relationships between the characters in all three books compare and contrast to those of the relationships of the characters in the other two books or how do they differ?
We may think to ourselves about how might the relationship between Nettie and the man simply known as Mr. either being the same in some ways or different to the characters in the other novels like Tashi from Possessing The Secret of Joy, or the characters from the novel, By the Light of My Father’s Smile. Some examples of difference from Nettie and Mr. to the character Tashi could be the following. For example Tashi is on a journey and is trying to accomplish something by finding her tribal warriors in different parts of the jungle, where as Nettie is given the advice by Kate, Mr.’s sister to rebel against him and stay away. Some ways on how they could compare is that they are both out to accomplish a specific goal or that’s how it seems to be at least. For example Tashi is out in the jungle to find people and in turn gets a right of passage and goes through a transformation, where as Nettie is given the advice by Kate, Mr.’s to stay away from him and not accept his marriage proposal.
As we can see here the relationships between the characters given as examples before from the two novels, “The Color Purple”, and, “Possessing The Secret of Joy”, they have similarities that compare and contrast to each other. Not only do these characters have similarities, but in addition to this they have differences as well.

I need to do a little more thinking to prove my thesis out right so no one contests that it is indeed not a good thesis so there is more work to be done on this of course.