We the animals outline PDF

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mandatory outline assignment for the creation of major essay assignment...

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I) Introduction: Introducing and Summarizing the Text (.5-1 page): 1) Begin by introducing the following: a) We the Animals, by Justin Torres b) Story about the family of an unnamed narrator, his two other brothers, Manny and Joel, his mother (Ma) and father (Paps). The family is quite unconventional and quite wild; as the title suggests, it revolves on the wild and uncontrolled behavior the family acts. The story of We the Animals focuses on the ‘animal’ theme of uncontrolled, unpredictable wild characters and how they deal with their personalities and situations around them. c) Specifically Paps, who represents the wild animal theme the most because of his unchanging traits and actions of the ideal man; he exhibits actions and behaviors of those of a strong, wild animal. Thesis: Paps is the epitome of this story’s ‘animal’ theme, where his manly, uncontrolled, and unpredictable character shows strength and wildness, even in moments or among people of weakness and unfavorable situations, as the young, strong father image to look up to for his three sons. II. Writing The BODY of your essay (1.5-2 pages, or longer): A) Body Paragraph I 1) Firstly, Paps is always pictured as a true representation of the family and repeating concept of animals. He’s always described as muscular and strong, his features uncontrolled and animal-like. He is always shown as brute and rough, which is also the author’s example of a true man to look up to, something the author wants to grow up to be like, a big strong man who is full of power and dominance in anything he does, no matter the situation. 2) In this scene where Paps bathes his sons, the narrator shows Paps’s wild animal and manly characteristics purely through his physicality. The bath scene of being shirtless and exposed represents a metaphor of everyone's true character being completely shown, where in this example, Paps’s true character is a muscled, strong, wild animal man from inside and out: “…Paps was muscled, the muscles and tendons of his forearms, the veins in his hands, the kinky hairs spreading across his chest. He was like an animal, our father, ruddy and physical and instinctive; his shoulders hulked and curved, and Ma’s shoulders were clipped, slipping away from her tiny bird neck. She was just over five feet and light enough for Manny to lift, and when Paps called her fragile, he sometimes meant for us to take extra-special care wither, and he sometimes meant that she was easily broken.” (45) 3) When stripped away of clothing, readers are given a more in-depth look at how the physicality of each character represents their inner traits as seen in the eyes of the narrator. In Paps's case, being stripped of clothing and being fully

physically exposed shows Paps’s realistic character traits of a father who all sons look up to: a strong man with bulging muscles and wild animal hairs, which also wholesomely represents the manliness and wild ‘animal’ theme of the story. On the last of part of the quote, it highlights the father’s strong masculine symbolism even more because it compares the small femininity of their mother; the mother is tiny, small and fair-skinned while the father is tall, dark, strong and full of coarse hair. At this observation, the father also tells his sons to take care of their mother, another trait of manliness he shows to his sons of how a man should use their strength to take care of his wife and prevent her from getting hurt. It's another metaphoric message of telling readers that although animals may seem wild but they will always have something to love and protect with their strength, translating to the message of appearances may be deceiving. Many people may look dangerous and bad, but they have a good heart deep down inside if one looks past all the ruggedness outside and look clear into their naked hearts, comparable to this scene of stripping away the clothing that hides the true power and good heart of this family of ‘animals’. B) Body Paragraph II 1) In another scene after swimming with his family, Paps is physically shown to be very capable of anything. 2) Paps had just finished swimming through the lake with his family, driving back home with his muscles rippling still, face and body scarred, shows him like an unstoppable animal warrior: “He sat behind the wheel, still shirtless, his back and neck and even his face a crosshatch of scratches, some only deep red lines and broken skin, some already scabbing, and some glistening with fresh blood, and I too was all scratched up—for she had panicked, and when he slipped away she had clawed on top of me.” (21) 3) In this description, the narrator is being compared to his father. The narrator has barely survived a swimming lesson, seeming like prey, as opposed to Paps, who just finished swimming to the middle of the lake and back and is now driving his family back, shirtless with his muscles rippling and proudly wearing the battle scars of the lake’s harsh foliage. By comparing how weak the narrator is to Paps, Paps’s strength and masculinity stands out even more; he is a capable ‘animal’ that has the survival skills to thrive in nature and conquer all terrain, be it land or water. This scene is also another occasion where Paps exemplifies positive ‘animal’ traits; the strong pack leader is trying to teach the weak how to survive; in his case, Paps is trying to pass on his strength of swimming onto his son and wife through the same way he learned, which was surviving the water and learning to swim on instinct. Readers can see how the strong ‘animal’ Paps, the pack leader, is trying to pass his own strength onto his young so that his weak son can be strong like him. B) Body Paragraph III

1) Paps is also an unchanging, static and very realistic character whose personality doesn’t change throughout the story. His ideals remain strong as his physical appearance. 2) In this last scene where he readies to bathe his son one last time and his son refuses because his son is embarrassed, Paps retaliates with his own ideals of strength: “ ‘I’m an adult,’ the boy says. ‘I got rights.’\ ‘Everybody’s got rights. A man tied to a bed got rights. A man down in a dungeon got rights. A little screaming baby got rights. Yeah, you got rights. What you don’t got is power.’”(120) 3) Even when his son is refusing the bath when he’s grown past adolescence, Paps still tries to pass on his mentality of ‘survival of the fittest’ to his son. Paps not only embodies the physicality of the strong animal man theme, even his mentality is that of a strong pack leader. Paps stays strong and unmoved; even when he discovers that his son seems weak and backing down, he will still try to teach his son the ways of being a true man. This is another occasion where Paps shows that readers although he seems like a rude brute, but he is a great family man that makes sure he gives his family confidence through his strength, takes care of them, and pass down the strength to his sons.

III. Conclusion (.5-1 page) 1) Restate your thesis: The strong, masculine, and wild ‘animal’ like character of Paps shows the ideal man who embodies the true meaning of a burly family man, ‘pack leader’, ready to take on the world and be the father figure that his sons will look up and grow up to be. 2) Even when one appears to be just a big brute, wild ‘animal’ with muscles, his or her inner heart has good intentions, as Paps displays throughout the story, where he uses his unwavering strength to support his family and give his sons a manly figure to look up to. 3) Paps’s character never changes, his personality is static and is always able to uphold the same character traits he starts out with of being always manly, muscled, and strong. As the ‘animal’ theme of the story suggests, Paps takes up the role of a strong pack leader; in his case, Paps is the family man, where he constantly shows readers how he uses his strong animal characteristics only to help support his family. Readers see his masculinity trying to help his sons grow into a strong man like him, much like how we see the seasoned, battle-scarred pack leaders leading their pack warriors into the open war zone strong while teaching his children to be just as strong through his actions and ideals....