Help with Thesis on Jane Eyre and The Box Garden

I am writing an essay on Charlotte Bronté's Jane Eyre and Carol Shield's The Box Garden. My general concept is essential identity vs superficial identity. I have two pretty strong arguments (if you've read the books: comparing Jane and Charleen, Aunt Reed and Char's mother). The third I was considering is talking about setting and how appearances can be decieving in that respect.

Can someone help me phrase this concept as I have very little experince writing thesis' and I'm having trouble collecting my ideas.

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Hi, me again, with some help from an english teacher, I've been able to come up with a VERY rough draft. Its not very good but it's a start:

In Charlotte Bronté's Jayne Eyre and Carol Shields' The Box Garden characters and setting reveal an inherent rift between essential identity and superficial identity as demonstrated by the setting, Jane Eyre's and Charleen Forrest's mistaken perception of identity and the archetypal struggle of Aunt Reed and Charleen's mother.

Now I was given this "formula" to work with, I don't peticularly like it but is it the accepted way to construct a thesis? Is it literary and how can it be better?

Greetings!

Although there are some good ideas in there, I think your thesis is packed a little too full. In fact, it is a run-on sentence. Let's see if we can whittle it down to something more manageable! :-)

In Charlotte Bronté's Jayne Eyre and Carol Shields' The Box Garden, characters and setting reveal an inherent rift between essential identity and superficial identity. - I think if you put a period there, the sentence is much easier to understand, and it provides a good launching pad for what is to come.
as demonstrated by the setting, Jane Eyre's and Charleen Forrest's mistaken perception of identity and the archetypal struggle of Aunt Reed and Charleen's mother. - This phrase is rather confusing. It would probably be best to leave the discussion of setting for the next sentence, rather than trying to cram it into the opening line.

You might want to follow your first sentence with something like "The authors use setting to enhance the characters' perceptions of mistaken identity and create the archetypal struggles that Aunt Reed and Charleen's mother endure. (Perhaps "endure" is not the right word; you are more familiar with the texts, so you can pick an appropriate descriptor.)

I think there is often a temptation to believe that the thesis must contain every bit of relevant information about what is going to happen in the essay; that is not only unnecessary, but can really muddy the waters, creating an opening that leaves the reader confused, rather than enlightened.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

Sarah, EssayForum.com