1. Find a topic you're passionate about!
2. After selecting a topic, be knowledgeable about it- use a dictionary to define unknown terms, use encyclopedias, library resources such as WebCat or WorldCat, et cetera.
3. Read the books circulating around your library to familiarize yourself with your topic in-depth.
4. Journal articles are good for specific research on topics (and can be found online with one of SU's 120 periodical databases).
5. DO NOT TAKE EVERY SOURCE AS A VALID ONE. Everyone can post on the internet, make sure your sources are trustworthy. Also, literary sources are different from a source on psychology, make sure your research encompasses multiple disciplines.
Below is my short essay written for Dr. Brown's class. I will be the first to admit that I did not grasp literary research at first, and have learned much in the process. Meeting basic requirements such as page length, submitting work as a collection, having a defined and specific thesis, looking out for MLA formatting issues, and finding substantial literary research are incredibly important when drafting a paper. My paper contained too much summary, and not enough of the right research. Psychological research is different than literary research, and even though the line may be blurry, I think I've figured it out. Hopefully my next paper will reap the benefits of my first paper's tough experience.
Madison
Armstrong
marmstro112
Short Essay
Punching Out Paragraphs
Townie, a memoir by Andre Dubus III,
details the life of Andre and his siblings (Jeb, Nicole, and Suzanne) in a
small Massachusetts mill town. Andre
Dubus III’s father is also a writer.
He leaves the family multiple times as the children are growing up. One of the most vivid pieces of imagery
in the book is of Andre’s brother, Jeb, running after his father’s car
screaming, “You bum! You bum!” (Dubus III 24). Andre Dubus wrote a short story called “the Winter Father” which
bears a striking resemblance to his own parenting, with a scene replicating the
one described by Dubus III’s memoir (Dubus). The abandonment felt by Andre and his siblings took a
different toll on each child. Jeb
resorted to being a reclusive musician, Suzanne did drugs, and Nicole stayed
locked in her room, afraid of the neighborhood in which they lived. Andre felt a void caused by resenting
his father. When a young boy feels
vulnerable, the logical thing to do is to protect oneself. Andre began to bulk up, get in fights,
and eventually becomes so dangerous that he lands others in the hospital. That way, he can protect himself, his
family, and begin to fill the role his father left. The relationship between Andre and his father is the reason
Andre felt the need to provide for his family; it fueled the anger, resentment,
and vulnerability that caused Andre to fight.
Divorce
has a strong affect on the way children view relationships (Leon 263). Andre’s relationship with his dad
seemed to have a strong affect on the way he viewed males in general. Dubus said, “When I thought of the word
man, I could only think of those who could defend themselves and those they
loved,” and with that as a primary belief, Andre’s fighting seems inevitable
(44). The first time Andre sees a
fight, someone smashed to a pulp, it causes a physical reaction in Andre’s
body. His heart was racing and he
lay in bed that night fantasizing about hurting all the people that ever
wronged him (38). The first time
Andre ever hit a punching bag, he had a similar reaction. Dubus claimed “the worn Everlast label
on the canvas not letters, but eyes and a nose and a mouthful of teeth,”
envisioning ways to end the vulnerability he has grown up feeling (102). Steve Lynch, a townie, punched
Jeb. This unleashed a flood of
pent up emotions in Andre. Andre
claims that, “since that one punch, it was as if I’d knocked a sandbag loose
inside me and now a torrent of bad feeling had pushed aside all the other
sandbags and I needed another place for it all to go. Another face.”
The passion was ignited. One
of the most important aspects of Andre’s fighting is what he calls “the
membrane,” which is literally, the membrane surrounding someone’s body or face
that you have to break when you hit someone. Andre also uses the term to describe a moral membrane. Throwing that first punch is harder
than the second, or third. When
Andre demolishes the membrane, he gets desensitized to the pain he’s
inflicting. Andre best describes
this phenomenon on page 171, “I wanted to tell him <<his father>>
about that membrane around someone’s eyes and nose and mouth, how you have to
smash through it which means you have to smash through your own first, your own
compassion for another, your own humanity.”
As Andre becomes aware of what his body
can do, he begins to have moral qualms.
His fighting became less about protecting himself and his family, and
more about filling his resentful void.
He comes to this realization after beating up a man who was hitting his
wife, justified, but he knew there are other ways to remedy situations. The mantra “You did that for you”
played through his head (190). There’s
an incredible amount of irony surrounding Dubus and fighting. Andre’s dad is proud of what Andre can
do with his body. Fighting is one
of the only things the father and son found to bond over. Once Dubus took Dubus III outside on a
Sunday he had the kids. Dubus was
shocked to find out that his teenage son had never thrown or caught a
baseball. Another Sunday, Dubus
took Andre on one of his treacherous, ten mile, weekly runs. Andre was too embarrassed to tell his
dad that his mom could not afford running shoes so he ran those miles in shoes
that made his feet bleed. The
elder Dubus was completely oblivious to the needs of his children. When fighting became a common ground
between the two men, their relationship changed. Since Andre attended the college where his father taught, he
saw his dad more as a young man then he ever had. Their relationship functioned like best friends, and Andre
was growing up, understanding his moral qualms with fighting, as well as coming
to grips with the effects his relationship with his father has had on the
person Andre was becoming.
Andre’s
mental moral blockage took away his fighting edge. The “marrow-electric jolt” was missing and Andre was losing
his ability to protect his family that way (240). If Andre cannot, or should not, protect his family with his
fists, then what’s left? His
words. Andre, even at a young age,
noticed the way people viewed his dad.
Other people treated Andre Dubus with a reverence, because of the
“stories he wrote” and because he had a knack for asking “questions nobody else
seemed to ask” (113). People
seemed to gravitate towards his, his charm, and the way he carried
himself. After reading Andre Dubus
III’s memoir, the charm and great writing are things both father and son
share. When Andre observed this
about his dad, however, I doubt he saw the likeness. It wasn’t until college that Andre read his father’s work in
depth. Andre emphasizes his dad’s
characterization, how you could feel their pain. Dubus speaks in clean, lyrical sentences that evoke emotion and
create relatable characters (152).
It wasn’t until Andre had graduated school that someone, his mother,
told him to write. Andre had an
interesting response; that he wanted to “do something important for people”
(214). I take that response as a
pointed statement towards his dad.
Even though Andre read and loved the short stories his father created,
he left his home life unfinished. Andre
got mad because the stories his father wrote, the ones resembling their family,
did nothing to help his children. A
writer has much understanding when it comes to character development. They understand and observe human
emotion differently than the average person. Andre, being a writer himself, understood that about his
father. With that understanding,
it would hurt to know that your father is incredibly interested in the lives of
others but oblivious to the needs of his children. On page 334, Dubus tells of a time his father discovered a
news article. It was a simple
story of a woman who had nothing, but still raked her dirt yard every day. When Andre told his father that he
raked the dirt yard of his house on Lime Street in the slums, his father claims
he’s making a hyperbole of the situation (335). It’s impossible to not have pain with a father so
oblivious. Andre had not yet
discovered the power of words.
Words are a lot more powerful than physical damage, and this memoir is
about that journey. The first time
Andre writes, he doesn’t write anything at all. It’s a symbol for something that he should be doing, but
does not know exactly how to do it yet.
He places the pencil atop the journal like “some kind of marker…
something important I shouldn’t lose” (255). As he grew older, the “jabs had become single words, a
combination of punches had become sentences, and rounds had become paragraphs.”
Along
with this progression of learning how to deal with childhood resentment, Andre
begins to fix the broken relationship between himself and his father. Paul Amato describes the
Divorce-Stress-Adjustment Perspective in “The Consequences of Divorce for
Adults and Children.” This theory
suggests that divorce is an ongoing process affecting both adults and children
for many years to come (1271).
Amato also describes the financial strain put on single mothers who
raise a family (1277). Andre’s dad
did not acknowledge the necessities his children needed and could not receive
because of their mother’s financial situation. The memoir opens with grueling imagery of Andre, running
hopelessly behind his father, heels blistering. Andre, Jeb, and Nicole needed simple things: running shoes,
enough food to go to sleep full, a baseball. Kim Leon claims that less “internalizing symptoms” occur
when the father stays in close contact with the family (265). I can imagine that in Andre’s family’s
case there would be an entire spectrum of internalized emotion, which caused
Andre and his siblings to react the way they did. Suzanne was perpetually stoned in the house and Andre’s mom
was not home to punish her. Jeb
was having sex with his art teacher in his room, a recluse, failing school but
excelling in classical piano.
Nicole, intelligent, stayed in her room afraid of what was going on
outside of her door. These
children internalized their parents’ divorce, and misguided behavior followed
suit. Another key element
explained by Ronald Simmons in “Explaining the Higher Incidence of Adjustment
Problems among Children of Divorce Compared with Those in Two-Parent Families”
is the inability for single mother to enforce rules. Not that they can’t, it simply proves to be a harder thing
for them to do. In single-income
households, the single parent will work more so that his or her children can
have dinner that night. Women
suffer post-divorce depression, oftentimes, which can lead to alcoholism or the
inability for a woman to take care of her children (1021). What Simons, Amato, and Leon are all
saying is that the children of divorced families are at risk. With lower income comes worse
education, unfortunately (Simons 123).
Perhaps the most important effect is the role of the father in the lives
of his children. Women are
generally given custody, as in Andre’s case. His mother was financially unstable, had trouble with
depression and alcohol, and could not protect her kids from the surrounding
area of bullies and rundown slums.
Simons said that when fathers show their children attention, delinquent
behavior is reduced (1030). Andre
felt abandoned by his dad, leaving him vulnerable. With no real father figure to look up to, he took that role
upon himself when he began fighting.
As he grew up, he realized that fighting was not the answer either, made
more complicated by his father’s advocacy of fighting as a way to solve
problems. Suzanne gets raped, and
Andre’s father’s immediate reaction is to buy a gun. Andre saw the effects of violence first hand, and his
father’s new interest in firearms was interesting. Andre’s dad did not have muscles, so he felt the need to
protect himself, and, apparently his children. Suzanne’s rape instilled some life back into Andre’s
father. Life as in it’s short, and
his children were not in his.
The
most important event in the relationship between Andre Dubus, his children, and
ex-wife happened towards the end of the memoir. Andre Dubus’s father was in a car accident and lost his
legs. Dubus’s entire house needed
to be renovated in order to be handicap accessible. Andre and Jeb built a ramp before he came home from the hospital. This moment is key; this transition,
almost role reversal, of father and son.
Andre helps his dad through physical therapy, gets him a weight bench,
and makes sure to have conversation with him on a daily basis. Andre teaches his father how to box
from his wheelchair, strengthening their relationship with mutual
interests. Dubus describes the
transformation on page 324 when he says “helping Pop get his strength back gave
the kind of sustained creative satisfaction a gardener must feel, or a coach,
or a father.” Along with Andre’s
maturity overcoming fighting, he becomes the provider he always wanted to
be. Andre takes his mother and
sister Nicole on a vacation and says “I was finally taking care of my family
the way I’d felt called to from the beginning, since I was a boy and Pop had
left the five of us in that cottage in the woods” (327). The holes Andre had to feel, the
vulnerability, anxiety, and need to protect, were being filled without
fighting. Andre learned to provide
for his family without physical damage.
Andre Dubus’s third wife left him after he was handicapped, and the
entire family would gather at the father’s house. Music would be playing, Andre’s mom and dad would flirt, and
it seemed like Andre’s dad was making up for lost time. Being handicapped helped settle him
down and be grateful for his family.
For the first time in the Dubus’ children’s lives, I think they felt
like they had a father who cared about them.
As
Andre was discovering the roles he occupied as a son and brother, he was
writing and growing. He
understands that violence creates more violence. He claimed to have “discovered another membrane now. The one
between what we think and what we see, and what is” (291). I take that as forgiveness, almost, for
his father’s wrongs. As Andre grew
up, he became startlingly more and more like his father. The have the same occupation, morning
writing and running routine. At
the cusp of the father-son reversal, Andre had his second to final fight. A man in an airport kicked a woman, and
Andre hooked him in the face. The
blood speckled across his arms made him sick, instead of the rush, instead of
feeling elated, Dubus “stood there feeling depleted and ugly and wrong.” He thought further, and the phrase
“Where were you when I needed you?” screamed from the mind of Andre Dubus the
boy, whose father left as his brother ran after the car yelling “You bum!
(333).
Andre’s
maturity in overcoming his love affair with fighting ended right before his
father passed away. Andre and his
wife, Fontaine, were on a train car in Ireland. Children were sleeping on the floor, and drug pushers kept
waking them up and scaring them because of their appearance. Andre, after getting pulled out of the
train car and threatened, proceeded to reason with the dealer. Andre calmly said he was trying to
protect the kids and not interfere with his business. It was a seemingly hopeless situation, and Andre thought he
would be knifed. Andre described
the man, “his eyes were two slits of shadow. He held the cigarette to his lips. He nodded. It
was if he were seeing all the unfolding years that had brought me here with him
between these two train cars and it was a story he knew well, one he’d already
written and discarded and wasn’t up to being reminded about” (358). Miraculously, the drug dealer left
Andre untouched. Walked away. This is the moment in my mind where
Andre becomes a writer. He was
able to use eloquent words, honesty, and, character development to save his
life and keep children from being afraid.
He made peace with his father and most importantly, himself.
Andre
Dubus III’s use of imagery is key in the events that shape the story. He puts the reader in his shoes. I felt like I could literally feel the
blisters forming on my feet as Andre ran, paces behind his father, embarrassed
and broken. I could feel Andre’s
fist punching through membrane, a cheek, and then through another membrane, not
caring about others. It would be
impossible to feel the hopelessness Andre and his siblings did without the way
Andre used setting. His
description of the Massachusetts mill town shows exactly why Andre defines a
man as a protector. In Columbia
Park, Andre describes the filth, “a green dumpster I’d never seen empty; it was
full of babies’ diapers and old mattresses, dozens of beer bottles, pizza
boxes, damp condoms and instant coffee jars and plastic shampoo bottles, a
broken char or torn lamp shade, a kitchen knife with no handle” (45).
Perhaps
Dubus’s most striking imagery comes in the way he describes his wife. When she danced, “it was the way she
moved through the air like an angry spirit, then a joyful one, then one who
will never need anything from anyone, some long hunter disappearing over a
rise, her bow and quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder, her feet leaving no
prints” (341). Fontaine provided a
peace and solace that helped Andre end his vicious cycle of fighting. One of the things he admired most about
his wife is her serenity.
She found security in the Bible, even though religion was not something
Dubus was not particularly fond of.
He admired the fact that she could believe in something so faithfully
and I think grace was what appealed to Dubus when he picked up his wife’s
Bible. On page 344, Dubus says
that “he walked around with the feeling I’d gotten away with something for a
long time” insinuating that one day, he’d have to pay. The Bible verse he flipped to is, “Love
one another” (346). The religious
theme, introduced at the end of the book, packs a punch when the novel
closes. The idea of grace is
introduced, a way for Andre to be forgiven for the wrongs he has
committed. Dubus admits that
there’s irony in the fact that he flipped to “Love one another” and I feel like
at this point in the novel Dubus is offered an opportunity. Dubus has a new path he can take, one
of peace and eternal love.
At Dubus’s father’s funeral, a driver
yells obscenities out of his window.
This, of course, infuriates Dubus.
While this is happening, the pastor is reading the Lord’s Prayer. In between lines of the Lord’s Prayer,
Dubus writes lengthy sentences talking himself out of going after the
driver. The result is a
combination of Dubus coming to terms with his fighting, his father, himself,
and the possible opportunity of grace through religion. His thoughts, bloody and brooding, in
contrast to the Lord’s Prayer summarize Townie
perfectly. Andre Dubus III is a
man with a good heart that felt neglected by his father and therefore acted out
in ways he is not proud of.
Through forgiveness, grace, and peace (The Lord’s Prayer), Andre is
comforted. The juxtaposition of
the prayer and Andre’s thoughts demonstrate the conundrum Andre lives with his
entire life, but Andre discovers that violence is not the answer.
Works Cited
Amato, Paul. "The Consequences of
Divorce for Adults and Children." Journal
of Marriage and Family. (2000). Web. 26 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.jstor.org.suproxy.su.edu/stable/1566735?&Search=yes&searchText=divorce&list=hide&searchUri=/action/doBasicSearch?Query=divorce&gw=jtx&acc=on&prq=divorse+family&Search=Search&hp=25&wc=on&prevSearch=&item=1&ttl=81332&returnArticleService=showFullText>.
Angel, Ronald. Painful Inheritance. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press,
1993. Print.
Bodwell, Joshua. "The Art of Reading
Andre Dubus." Poets and Writers
Magazine. Nov 2006. Web. 26
Feb. 2012.
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CGAQFjAH&url=http://www.joshuabodwell.com/pdfs/dubus.pdf&ei=pqBKT4WSM4ro0QH5xZCODg&usg=AFQjCNFjAdRulNW6Z4dcugfwyuJphpNu8w>.
Dubus,
Andre. In the Bedroom. New York:
Random House, Inc., 2002. 24-46. Print. Dubus III, Andre. Townie:
a memoir. New York, London:
W.W. Norton & Company,
2011.
Print.
Leon, Kim. "Risk and Protective
Factors in Young Children's Adjustment to Parental Divorce: A Review of the
Research." Family Relations.
52.3 (2003): 258-70. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.jstor.org.suproxy.su.edu/stable/3700277?&Search=yes&searchText=divorce&list=hide&searchUri=/action/doBasicSearch?Query=divorce&gw=jtx&acc=on&prq=divorse+family&Search=Search&hp=25&wc=on&prevSearch=&item=4&ttl=81332&returnArticleService=showFullText>.
Simons, Ronald. "Explaining the
Higher Incidence of Adjustment Problems among Children of Divorce Compared with
Those in Two-Parent Families." Journal
of Marriage and Family. 61.4 (1999): 1020-33. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.jstor.org.suproxy.su.edu/stable/354021?&Search=yes&searchText=divorce&searchText=fighting&list=hide&searchUri=/action/doBasicSearch?Query=divorce+fighting&gw=jtx&acc=on&prq=divorce&Search=Search&hp=25&wc=on&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=7346&returnArticleService=showFullText>.
