Thursday, April 19, 2007
First Paragraph
In The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac there are two main characters that reach for the same goal in different ways. Both Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder are looking for spirituality and enlightenment. Both men have very different personalities that mesh fairly well together. Japhy is very Zen and into calm eastern ideas and he is living as a Buddhist man. Ray believes that you need to be all for purity and all against lustfulness. Ray is just trying to figure the whole thing out and fighting the religion instead of peacefully following it.
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1 comment:
Looks like you are off to a good start. Two things: your main argujment is the last one "Ray is just trying to figure the whole thing out and fighting the religion." The real conflict here seems, not to be between Ray and Japhy, but between Ray and Ray. Between following and figuring out. This is very interesting and will make for a good topic. I think that contrasting Japhy and ray will prove useful as you move along in this essay, however, I think that it is forgrounded too much in the first paragraph. Therefore, your topic and your thesis don't actually match up.
Overall, though, good start.
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