I started drafting on my literary background section first. This section includes information about confinement in the home before and during Second Wave Feminism, the patriarchy’s response of gender backlash to women’s gains of independence because of Second Wave, and how this gender backlash transpired into trapping women in their own bodies. I started in this section because I felt that I needed to get down all of the necessary background information first before I went into analysis using my literary source. I also knew that this section would take me the most amount of time to really think through because I believe without the background section being planned and properly, the rest of the literary analysis from Elena Vanishing will not make complete sense to the reader so I really wanted to focus on this section first.
What I’ve learned about my topic and ideas through drafting is that it is even more important for me to add the part in my argument about how failing to achieve the ‘womanly destiny’ in the way the patriarchy demands leads to death. I definitely know now that I need to add that section to come to the ‘so what?’ part of my paper. After writing about the background of my argument and the gender backlash women have received, I also know that I need to reinstate information about how this gender backlash and the threat of what it means to not fulfill the ‘womanly destiny’ plays a role in Elena Vanishing.
What was initially hard about drafting was figuring out how to start. I skipped writing the intro and I plan to write it at the end of drafting the body paragraphs because it was getting too overwhelming trying to start there. I also had a difficult time trying to start, in general. I had so many ideas about my background section on Second Wave that it was hard to put them into words. What was easy, though, was knowing how to organize my thoughts. Once I got on a roll with writing I knew immediately how to organize everything and I think that happened, in part, because of the outline I created. I already knew going into writing how I wanted the sections of my paper to look like and all I needed to do was write the words to make them flow together.
I’m planning to draft my primary source literary analysis on Elena Vanishing. This part of my paper will be the longest. It is going to include how Elena uses her eating disorder to feel control, how it controls her, how it has its own voice, and how the patriarchy threatens death at women who do not strive to fulfill the ‘womanly destiny’. After drafting this section I will also go back and write the intro and conclusion. I’m also planning to add in the section about using the eating disorder for control that Elena is using her eating disorder to also feel masculine heroism. This is something talked about in another source I found that I have on my outline and I think after writing the background information that it is definitely necessary to put in that section. I also have this quote from Elena Vanishing to support the idea of masculine heroism where she has a military list of how to act so I’m excited to start that section.
Leave a Reply