Research Paper RD Proposal

For my research paper I plan on doing an informative piece on OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  I am interested in this topic solely because I have a family member who suffers from it.  My cousin who is now 19 years old lives in Manchester England and has had OCD since before I can remember.  He has had many types of treatment including medications and therapy.  In my paper I want to talk about the different treatment options and how they may differ in Europe.  When I interview him I plan on asking things about his symptoms and how they arose, as well as his feelings on them and if he tried to resist at all.  His disorder definitely affected the family dynamics during his younger years.  Me and him would always hang out when we were little and I remember getting into countless fights and he would always push me around.  I would like to talk about how this affects many families and what they do to cope.  I picked this topic because I want to dig deeper into the disorder and understand more of what my cousin goes through.       

Heart Of Darkness/Research Paper

For the Heart of Darkness I am planning on doing a compare and contrast piece.  I want to take evidence of the book being racist and evidence of it not being racist and answer the question "Is Heart of Darkness racist?" A very simple question but, yet, we do not know the answer to it.  There are many instances where Marlow speaks of the blacks as being animals and gives them animal like traits.  Along with Marlow being showed as being a racist the narrator at the begging of the book also talks about the blacks as being of a "different complexion".  Is this a reflection of Conrad's beliefs or he he merely painting a picture for us?  There are also many instances where Marlow goes into detail describing the blacks as if they were on the same level as him.  So this simple question begs to be answered yet, I don't think any of us will ever know the answer.

For my research paper I have two topics that I am thinking about doing.  I either want to interview my grandpa and have him talk about his experience with cancer or talk to my mom about her experience with kidney stones and hives.  Both these aspects have to with how illness affects the family and that is the main question I am looking to answer.  I want to talk about how illness disrupts the family dynamic and pushes challenges on not only the ill person but, the entire family.  Family dynamics are altered in order to care for the ill and this may burden the rest of the family along with the normal structure that once was in place.  Transitioning is another aspect of the family dynamic that is hard on each family member, especially the younger ones and both my grandpa and mother got sick when I was younger.  I know from personal experience I didn't really know what was happening because of my innocence and lack of knowledge on the subject.  So those are just two ideas I have for my research paper but, they both tie in with family dynamics.

Heart of Darkness: Marxist Lens

In Heart of Darkness Marxism seems to be a recurring theme.  When Marlow describes the mad he comes across in the town office we are presented with the idea that there are different types of classes.  Conrad uses different colors on the map to represent the different levels of society.  "I was going into the yellow.  Dead in the centre. And the river was there-fascinating-deadly-like a snake." (Conrad, Pg. 74)  The map is covered with different colors representing the different imperial powers that make up Africa.  The yellow one that he points out is described as being in the center and covers some of the most mysterious attributes that Africa has.  The river is described as a snake which is closely related to being evil and even describes it as "deadly".  The yellow portion covers a vast amount of land, however, and more land tends to mean more power.  As well as having land it also has the river which flows through it which is a very important resource.  The color yellow is also close to the color gold, meaning wealth or riches.  Yellow is a color of power and because of this being the portion of the map covering the most land and having resources it is considered to be powerful.  While this is a very subtle way of dividing out the power, the author is claiming that not everyone has the same amount of power in the story.  Some part of Africa have more power than others and he uses colors to symbolize the different power that each portion has.

In Rufus at the Door and Agatha McGee the two main authority characters are portrayed as women who show many masculine traits throughout the story.  They use these masculine traits to hold power over the other characters in the stories. This, however, is contradicting because they are women and women are not supposed to be holding the power over the men.  On the other hand, in Dodger's Return Ross struggles with showing his masculine traits and power even though he is a husband and these traits are expected of him.  Hassler uses symbolism throughout these three stories to show how these characters portray and struggle with power. 

In Rufus at the Door there are many instances where Marxism is present. A higher social class between the students touring the asylum and the people in it is one example. When the bus approaches the Asylum the teachers and students automatically think they are apart of a higher class than the patients that are locked up.  Asylums are looked at to be a place where crazy people who have no social or street skills go to lay rest.  The young kids in this story were even taught to believe this “...Miss Sylvestri stood at his shoulder and delivered an unnecessary lecture about how lucky we were to have been spared from craziness and retardation.” (Hassler, Pg. 22) Miss Sylvestri delivers this lecture in order to instill her belief on the students that the people in the mental hospital are part of a class of people that they should be happy to not be a part of.  This class of people is to be seen as having no skills to fend for themselves and don’t contribute to society in anyway.  They are people that have no value and are almost a waste of space.  Miss Sylvestri believes her highly educated class of people are ranked much farther above these mentally disabled people found in the asylum.  Her sense of freedom, education, and power give her the mentality to talk down upon them and share her beliefs with the students.  Miss Sylvestri is portrayed as an authority figure in this story, she promotes her social class and lets the children know they should be grateful to be apart of such a high social class.  Their education is the main foundation for this belief and even though many of the kids don’t appreciate it Miss Sylvestri certainly tried to make that clear after the visit to the asylum.

This was my best 300 word paper I believe because people didn't have that many comments about changing things.  The only things I tweaked were the intro and conclusion.  In the intro I polished my thesis being more clear about the social class difference that immediately happened when the bus approached the asylum.  In my conclusion all I changed was the last sentence summing up a little better the idea of Miss Sylvestri making sure the children knew they were apart of a higher social class.  Those were the only things I changed and I believe this paper was one of my better ones.