Research Paper Proposal

Topic- I want to do my paper on the importance of physical education to the mentally and physically handicapped. (I picked this topic because it is what I plan to go into after high school.)
Potential Interview Subjects- Tyler Kondos @ Horse May, Kate Whittington @ BMS, and Donna Waliczek @BHS
My approach- I plan to interview physical education teachers at the elementary, middle school, and high school level on their views on the importance of physical education to mentally and physically handicapped students. I know Tyler Kondos has his license in regular and adaptive P.E., I'm almost positive Ms. Waliczek does, and I'm not sure about Mrs. Whittington. I have never spoke with Mr. Kondos before, but his name was referred to me as a good resource for this project. I have looked over Mrs. Whittington's website and she seems to be a very well educated teacher with a true purpose in the improvement of her students health and education involving their health. And Ms. Waliczek, as we all know, takes her job very seriously. I plan to do a compare and contrast between the different teachers and the levels of P.E. they teach along with a psychological study on mentally handicapped and how P.E. improves their lifestyles.
*I'm not 100% sure I did this proposal right so any extra input would be great*

The Heart of Darkness thesis

I want to answer the questions, Looking through a gender lens, how does the author portray the main characters of Marlow and Kurtz to look upon women in a sexist way? How does direct characterization play part in their description of women?

quote: "Girl! What? Did I mention a girl? Oh, she is out of it -- completely. They-- they women I mean-- are out of it-- should be out of it. We must help them stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse." pg 125
quote: " 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my---' everything belonged to him." pg 126
quote: "The last words he pronounced was -- your name." pg 164

Heart of Darkness

 

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness the rulers that work to colonize Africa are described as "Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire." (Conrad, Heart of Darkness) Looking through a postcolonial lens, one can see the irony in how the colonists perceive themselves as greatness coming upon Africa and how they actually mistreat and dehumanize the Africans. The colonists are described as great pioneers pushing forth into the dark uncivilized world to bring civilization to the different African colonies. The irony present throughout this quote and majority of the book is that the colonist also bring fear, terror, enslavement, and death upon the Africans. As Marlow travels through the Congo he notices the mistreatment of the Africans through them being over worked and starving; he even sees piles of dead bodies lying along the walkway. He is caught off guard by all that is occurring in his surroundings, but doesn’t find it necessarily troubling. Marlow brushes off the horrifying scene and keeps along his merry way. The men of the upper class who are the ones mistreating the Africans find nothing wrong with what they are doing or how they are treating the Africans and their homeland. They believe they are there to help civilize the Africans, but the irony holds true in that they are the ones destroying their land, raping their women, taking their food, and killing them. The dehumanization that is at hand is described throughout Marlow’s arrival, showing Marlow what he has signed up for in his task to find Kurtz. He is exposed to this mistreatment but does nothing about it because it is seen as the way things are supposed to be done.

Thesis Statement

Using the Marxist Lens one can answer the question as to how Jon Hassler portrays the roles of power throughout his short stories Rufus at the Door, Dodger's Return, and Agatha McGee. Each story is told from a narrative standpoint and always contains a character that resembles the lower class in comparison to the main character. Hassler uses this difference of classes to portray power through himself as the author and through his writing.

"Rufus at the Door"

Rufus at the Door

The short story “Rufus at the Door” can be interpreted as mildly disturbing and unethical in comparison to society today. Looking through the reader response lens one can compare the treatment of the mentally handicapped in the setting of the short story and to society in today’s world to see how the comparison shows what is considered ethical and unethical.  “ … Ms. Sylvesteri led us single file through the series of gloomy wards and hallways where we were smiled at, lunged at, and jeered by all manner of the mentally deficient.” (pg. 21, Rufus at the Door, Jon Hassler). In this quote we are presented with the words “gloomy”, “lunged at”, and “mentally deficient” to set the tone and setting of the insane asylum that the kids are brought to visit. Reading this leads the reader to believe that the mentally handicapped are locked up like animals, separated from the rest of society, and treated as more of cite to see rather than a human being. To a reader in today’s society where mentally handicapped are treated much differently than in the short story, this appears to be an unethical tragedy. The words “lunged at” and “jeered at” give the reader the sense that they are dealing with some sort of animal rather than a human being. This troubles a reader living in today’s society where mentally handicapped kids do many of the same things that the nondisabled kids do. These activities include play sports, join clubs, and even attend the same school. Never would someone in today’s society find it acceptable to keep the mentally handicapped locked up and away from the rest of society, never to be attend to or taken care of. Comparing the treatment of the mentally handicapped in the short story “Rufus at the Door” and today’s society is much different in the sense that today’s treatment is seen as much more ethically acceptable.

In my compositions I chose to blog about the short story of "Rufus at the Door" because that was the one that I had the least amount of changes to make. Overall everyone who read it and proofed it didn't have much to change. I did take Mr. Westrum's suggestion of adding the words "gloomy", "lunged at", and "mentally deficient" to my analysis to make it more clear and tie into my thesis better. I mainly believe this was my strongest composition because the people who proofed it were satisfied with it just the way it was.