Title: How is A Game Of Thrones a work that emasculates the masculine?

[Guest]

Hey guys, 

I have been working on my Extended Essay, and I would greatly appreciate it if I could get some thorough advice on how I can make my paper great!

Regards, 
Kenneth 


*Perhaps I should change my title to: "How is A Song of Ice and Fire a series that emasculates the masculine?" 

What do you guys think? 

[Sandwich]

Erm I'm assuming this is an English EE? 

 

Whether you use a series or a single book obviously depends on how much you have to say. If you use a whole series but actually don't address ALL of the possible points, you'll lose marks. If you use a book but don't have enough points to pad out your essay, you won't do as well. It's about balance, essentially, you want to get the maximum into 4000 words without leaving anything out.

 

& if it's an English EE it's important to keep it very literary. "How does Author's Name portray masculinity in Game of Thrones?" would for example make it a lot more literary. It's got to be about the author and literary things  

 

Also "emasculate the masculine" is already putting a direction onto it, whereas you might find it a more interesting essay to approach it from both sides. How does he address masculinity in general rather than just a list of examples where masculinity is devalued. Would make a more interesting argument to have two sides to it, perhaps.

[TykeDragon]

I think you should stick to just the first book - A Game of Thrones, because the whole series would need much, much more than 4000 words to cover, and the difficulty as well is that it isn't all out as well - I know they can only expect you to use what is currently released but it's still irritating and would just... feel incomplete to call it a series and only have half the books available, that would just be me though!

 

I also think that while your question is going in an interesting direction, I don't see how you can work around something as specific as 'emasculating the masculine' - plus, as a fairly avid reader of ASOIAF (!) i don't see what exactly in the first book you would be able to use to talk about masculine (people? behaviour?) being emasculated. I think more interesting (and clearer to discuss) would perhaps be George RR Martin's approach to gender equality. For example, it is a very, erm, masculine/almost misogynistic book in some (albeit traditional) ways - eg the whole male head of family thing, women being passed around as political alliances between the top houses, not being allowed to be knights  (I think Brienne was quite unique as a female knight) and other than that generally being seen as *****s and housewives. Basically, Westeros was a very patriarchal place. 

 

However, you can quite easily discuss some interesting contrasts: Arya is a fairly strong female character despite her youth, and so was Brienne (i don't think you could use these examples / use them much in Arya's case if you're limited to first book though) - and obviously Daenerys and Cersei are fairly strong female characters (in Dany's case of course you have her hardening from being the property passed and used, to being a strong leader with lots of power and influence). All in all, the contrast between men and women, and the main female characters, make for a pretty decent discussion. You would of course need to phrase the question better than I did though, I don't think it's quite 'his approach to gender equality'!

[Guest]

You guys are absolutely right! I salute you both and thank you very much for helping me out. Onto completing my work! 

[Guest]

When I am done, do you guys mind taking a look? 

[ellie]

I am here if you need help with spellcheck or logical structure -- haven't even started on my EE yet, but I have written a similar research paper.