Abhijit Mehta
w1.d3
Reflection on How I Transformed My Text:
When I sat down to write the first draft of my essay, I was thinking of the assignment in terms of a very objective analysis of the differences between Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” and The Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror. Through the suggestions that I received in class and from friends, I was able to transform this essay into an analysis of The Simpsons that conveys why I think the differences between the two works exist. My agenda changed, and to make this clear, I had to completely rework my first paragraph and change my title. I needed to slightly alter many of the passages in my text to reflect these changes. Finally, I added sections that put forth my opinion of why Simon made certain changes to “The Raven.”
One of the most noticeable changes in my essay is the first paragraph, and especially the thesis. In my first and second drafts, my thesis was: “Most of the episode is Poe’s original poem; however, by omitting some sections and emphasizing others, Simon transforms Poe’s poem into a humorous, irreverent cartoon.” In my final draft, that sentence has been cut, and my thesis is: “Simon twists the work of the master of intellectually twisted tales to make us laugh at our twisted culture.” My first draft merely showed how Simon transformed Poe’s poem. It does not attempt to tell why Simon made any changes, and it only states that humor was created, without attempting to analyze the motive behind the humor. In my second draft, I added a paragraph to the end of the essay that briefly touches on why I think Simon “created humor.” For my final draft, this paragraph was moved to the beginning of my essay, and combined with my first paragraph to form a new introduction. Thus, I wrote a totally new thesis to reflect the new agenda of my essay.
Since my agenda changed from showing what the differences were to showing why Simon was satirizing Poe, I needed to alter the focus of various passages in my first and second drafts, and add sections that explained why Simon transformed “The Raven.” For example, my fourth paragraph initially just talked about how alternating Homer’s voice with James Earl Jones’ was funny. In my final draft, I expand this paragraph to explain why I think that the voices are alternated, and I comment about how I think Simon is mocking the meter of “The Raven.”
In my first draft,
I was trying to show factual differences between an episode of The Simpsons
and “The Raven.” When I wrote my second
draft, most of the changes I made were minor, but in response to the suggestions
I received from my classmates, I added a paragraph at the end that briefly
states why I think Simon satirized Poe’s poem.
This paragraph ended up becoming the focus of my final draft. In my final draft, I used the factual
information that I had analyzed in my first draft to support my arguments about
why Simon transformed Poe’s poem. Thus, although I used much of the text from
my first draft in my final draft, the focus of final draft is very different
from the focus of the first draft of my essay.