ENGL 200 D: Reading Literature: Literature in the Marketplace

Thesis: Julius not only acts as a catalyst to display not only how the economy of the Bitchun Society works, but more importantly highlights what characteristics do not work in this economy. It’s up to you, but maybe you could say exactly which characters do not work in the intro.
Your introductory paragraph explains what your paper is going to do very well.

I really like your explanation of Whuffie, which flows well into the third paragraph of Smith-goggled analysis. The comparison you used (Julius rich vs. Julius poor) matched really well with the parts of Smith you chose.

While the last paragraph alone is really logical and well written, I’m not quite sure where it fits in with your greater argument. How are you trying to use “people are never happy / happiness is fleeting” (if that’s the message you’re trying to say) to support your thesis?

Just as Theresa mentioned above I also like your explaination of Whuffie you make sure the reader understand what it is and how this affects Julius’s everyday life. Your essay is well structured, your connections with the other authors such as Marx and Smith are good as well. Talking about Julius being rich/ poor connected with what Smith talks about. I think that when you use Marx you can elabortate a little more with a couple of sentences about this idea, “Marx’s idea of the continuing cycle of achieving a goal leading to the creation of a new one is entirely prevalent in the Bitchun society and is brought to light by Julius.”

I think your short summary at the beginning does a great job summing up the main points of the novel before adding in Marx and Smith at the end. It gives a good foundation before moving into more complex ideas. I would suggest maybe expanding on the ideas you present in your body paragraphs, I’m not sure if you want to, but you could expand into your own ideas a bit more.