Author 1:

This author does change what they think the thesis is from the beginning to the end. They initially talk about foil and how they influence each other, but end up talking about how Huang influences just Lindo by making her stronger. There is also a lot of plot summary thrown in. While that is good and illustrates the point, the author could have talked more about the points they were trying to make rather than showing us the points, leaving it to the reader to figure it out. Lastly, I also felt that Huang wasn’t shown as being too much of an opposite with Lindo. Lindo is discussed too much rather than equally. Other than those few things, I think that this author did a really good job of answering the question. They had good answers, and although I disagree a little in the way they approached them, they did it well.

 

Author 2:

The thesis is very strong and talks about how a minor character (the father) causes Celie to feel terrible for the rest of her life. The first body paragraph tackles Maslow’s pyramid of needs, which is a strong literary argument. However, the paragraph starts more and more to explore how females in general are oppressed rather than staying on topic with the relationship between Celie and her father. The paragraphs start to focus more and more on feminism and being a strong female. While I don’t disagree with the sentiment, I feel like the author should have talked more about the relationship and how it makes an impact on the book, rather than talking about the plot and how the main character grows and learns. I don’t really think that the main character and her father are foils, since they are antagonists with some stuff in common. If they bounce ideas off each other, it might make more sense.

 

Author 3:

This essay starts out making a claim that Baba and Hassan were foils because they were very similar. Foils are people who are different, and whose relationship is shown to be important. While this relationship was important, Amir often said that Baba and Hassan were similar, that Baba wanted a son more like Hassan. The first body paragraph supports the illogical thesis and introduction, so the author knows how to draw from evidence. They could have stated their point more clearly, and used more than one example to make a point. The third body paragraph moves onto differences between the two. I feel like this should have been explored more in order to have a much better essay that could have answered the prompt a whole lot better. The conclusion has very little to do with the thesis, and could work to answer a different prompt much better. Overall, a rather weak essay.