So I have to do an argumentative research paper on Orwell's 1984. The problem is there's so many possible topics and none of it appeals to me and ugggh i don't want to have to research and argue politics for this, i hate politics, but I'll probably have to. I'm just really brain-stuck on this and running out of time. anyone have any suggestions or advice?
are there any parameters for what sort of argument you need to be making? like, does it have to be about political-related stuff specifically? if not, would something like making an argument about some aspect of the writing craft be of more interest to you? like, "the book is trying to communicate blah, it does this with xyz writing techniques, this was/wasn't effective because [reasons]" (that's the only alt angle coming to my mind at the moment, but i am too tired for extensive brainstorming, so, yeah. just tossing spaghetti at the wall, as it were) fake edit: oh, would something like the literary legacy be more appealing (and fit the requirements)? like, arguing about how it influenced later fiction or something. while that could touch on politics i think you could probably largely sidestep politics there.
If you can write about the literary legacy, one possible topic would be how it influenced the portrayal of dystopias.
I'm incredibly tired too and I hate 1984 with a passion buuut since more meta topics have already been suggested I'm gonna go the other way and ask if it'd be possible to dig into the psychology of the characters or society - the book is fairly (very. u n b e a r a b l y) thorough on explaining how the people are kept in line and why there's no attempts to overthrow anything, are there any essay angles to be found in that? wait hang on actually researching psychology for that would probably get Huge sorry I'm not even sure what the criteria for an argumentative research paper even are sorry for being unhelpful either way gl!!
The easiest way I can think to define argumentative is that it has to be something with an opposing argument(s) that I can address. Hence why everything my brain generates is political. I'd totally be down for researching psychology stuff for this if I could somehow make it an argument and not just analysis. The literary angle might work. I wonder if I could write a thesis paragraph about how Winston is a boring and terrible character translated into academia in 24 hours...Other suggestions are still welcome tho!
bluh im actually still really stuck on this and in the cycle of being so mad at myself for being stuck that im not making any real progress on getting unstuck. would probably help if i could talk it out with some folks if anyone would be up for that idk.
Ok so after putting some more thought into it, the main problem I'm having is that it has to involve both research and an argument. Like, I have to be able to cite at least 4 good sources and argue something where I can address an opposing argument. If I do something psychology related, I don't know what argument I could make that would have a counter-argument I could address. If I do literary criticism, I don't know what research I can do. I'm still so frustrated with myself over this that I'm probably blocking myself from generating ideas because brains are fucking dumb and poorly designed. So I guess I'm still asking for people to throw ideas at me, even political stuff, or just hold my hand and walk me through brainstorming because my brain is failing at basic idea generation right now.
would researching previous litcrit of 1984 count as research? like, "this person claimed blah and that person claimed blep and i'm building off that to claim yada, which is in opposition to person c who argued anti-yada." so, researching what litcrit that has gone before to augment your analysis. or, for litcrit, research into the particular literary theory/ies you're using? like for an irrelevant to here example (sorry, i'm blanking on literary theories besides the stuff from my gothic lit class my last semester of school) if you were looking at something through the lens of freud's theory of the uncanny, you could cite his original essay laying out that theory, and maybe later scholars' extensions on the idea of the uncanny
I thought about this some. I don't know much about litcrit or literary theory though. I'm currently thinking maybe something to do with technology? Currently trying to research and see what i find
So I had the thought of "what if Orwell wrote this book with today's technology" but idk if I can turn that into an argument and find scholarly sources to support it. Anyone have any thoughts?
