Choice of thesis statements:

The real thesis statement is numbered and in bold print. The simplified version is below each in parentheses. The simplified version is not suitable, in terms of wording, for use in a final, formal essay.

1. The songs in The Pearl by John Steinbeck are really Kino’s emotional, mental, and physiological responses to events and people with whom he must deal.

(Kino’s emotional, mental, and physical responses to events and people in The Pearl are represented or symbolized or emphasized by the songs throughout the story.)

2. John Steinbeck’s The Pearl illustrates how unexpected fortune can cause changes with which an individual is unprepared to deal. The ramifications of such a sudden materialistic windfall take their toll both externally and internally.

(The Pearl shows how an unexpected amount of money or wealth can cause changes to a person’s life that he is unprepared for. The consequences of such sudden wealth can affect a person’s life in terms of his own personality and emotions (internal) and in terms of his way of life, possessions, and how other people react to him (external).

3. John Steinbeck’s short novel, The Pearl, is a profound example of irony.

(What happens in The Pearl is actually the opposite of what the reader would expect.)

4. Steinbeck’s The Pearl examines the inequalities between the different socio-economic groups in the story. It also speaks of how some groups of people work to keep other