What Would John Dowell Do?

The issue I presented in the What Would Jane Do blog post was an issue I have been having with my honors senior thesis. I am overwhelmed with the amount of work and can barely find a place to start working on it.

Based on the novel, I don't think John Dowell would have a problem with this amount of work as far as story telling goes. Since my thesis is a creative work (an excerpt of a novel), he would excel in this matter. The whole novel is an ongoing story telling in which it feels like he is having a conversation with the reader. For example, in the beginning of the novel he says "This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with English people of whom, till to-day, when I sit down to puzzle out what I know of this sad affair, I knew nothing whatever" (7). In this way, the point of view (1st person) and the reflective manner of the text sounds very conversational and easy, like he is telling a story. In addition, the length of the story proves that he would have no problem getting something on paper the way I am. I think his problem would be more in organizing the story. In the novel, he jumps from one scene to the other with little explanation, or sometimes little connection apparent to me, and the story seems jumbled but that is how he is making sense of things. For example, in the first chapter, we learn about how his wife had died and he just found out that she was having an affair with Captain Ashburnham. However, we don't hear of instances when it could have been possible for the infidelity to have occurred until later in the text in the midst of him telling other stories, like the one about Mrs. Maidan.