Prepare an abstract and an outline for an essay you intend to write on
The Wonder. Your topics are:
1. How does Donoghue present the role of nurses and nursing in the novel? Why is it significant the Lib has been trained by Florence Nightingale herself? (You may want to make reference to
Notes on Nursing
here, since you’ve read large portions of it.)
2. How does Donoghue present Ireland and the Irish in the novel, especially from Lib’s perspective? Cite evidence from the novel to show either (a) how her perspective changes as she spends time with the O’Donnells, or (b) how her initial impressions really don’t change much throughout her brief stay.
3. What does the novel have to say about
science
and
faith—does Nightingale’s own principle of focusing on the whole person also include their own beliefs? How much does a state of mind contribute to the health or sickness of the body as a whole—and do you think Nightingale was aware of this?
Your
abstract
should be between 500-800 words, and should give a sense of (a) the argument of the essay, and (b) perhaps your “thesis,” at least as far as you’ve developed it at this point.
Your
outline
should include:
· The various sections of the paper
· A clear thesis statement
· Which secondary sources you will want to include and where to include them
· Which scenes from the novel you will focus on
· Some preliminary ideas sketched out.
What I want to see is at least a plan for a viable paper that you might write—obviously, you don’t have enough to create a full-on, well-argued paper, but getting started is sometimes the hardest part. You will decide here what your general argument is going to be—this, of course, will change in the course of your writing, but often, even a preliminary abstract is enough to get you started.