Enigma Chapter 5

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Anything You Want to Talk About?

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Enigma the Novel

By now you should have read through chapter 5.

Any comments, questions, observations, etc?

What is Tom and Hester’s plan to decode the cryptograms? They need to get the Enigma keys for the days the messages were sent (which Bletchley Park will have stored somewhere, but won’t just give out), then they can enter those keys and the corresponding cryptograms into a Type-X machine to produce plaintext (but they have to surreptitiously use the Type-X, they aren’t allowed to just walk up to one and use it).

Waiting to find out who is helping Claire steal intercepts. Maybe Kramer?

Also waiting to see whether the novel follows up on the convoy battle, or just focuses on Tom and Claire.

Tom and Hester seem like the stereotypical hero-and-sidekick, but…

• So far they mostly seem held together by Claire, they don’t necessarily like each other all that much.
• Although maybe there is a personal relationship forming. The stereotype would have them end up in love.
• But that might be complicated by Hester’s relationship with Claire. They are very much opposites, and maybe Hester resents or is jealous of Claire. But on the other hand there’s considerable evidence in the novel that Hester has a crush — or maybe even deeper feelings — for Claire, e.g., Claire says as much to Jericho, Jericho reflects on how much Hester must care for Claire while Hester is changing to enter Beaumanor, Hester’s thinking back on watching nearly-naked Claire, how Hester cleans up Claire’s room after the police search it, Hester leaving Claire carrot dinner.

As the novel shows more of Hester’s background, we see how she’s disappointed by her actual clerical work at Bletchley Park compared to the cryptanalysis that arguably less-qualified men do. Hester is sort of the feminist perspective on Bletchley, or at least the character that Harris uses to comment on sex discrimination and sexual harassment at it.

Library Research

The next essay assignment is ready.

It asks you to identify some question about the relationship between this novel and actual history, conduct library research to answer that question, and then to write an argument in support of the answer you come up with.

See the handout for more information.

Research Process

In other words, roughly what do you need to do, in what order, to carry out a research-based writing project?

1. Identify a research question, i.e., a question that you want to answer and that can guide your research.
2. Find sources specific to your question.
3. Interpret/synthesize evidence from those sources to answer the question. A good research question doesn’t just have a cut-and-dried answer in the sources, it will require interpreting, comparing, etc. what the sources say.
4. The answer you come up with becomes the thesis for the actual essay, and its body explains the evidence and interpretations that lead you to that answer. Write the essay along these lines.
5. (And as with any writing, there are one or more revisions.)

Are Internet sources OK for the essay? I want “authoritative” sources, i.e., ones that have been through some sort of review, ones whose authors have expertise in the subject, etc. This is more important than whether you find the source on the Internet vs in print, and in fact some Internet sources do meet these criteria.

What bibliography and citation style should you use? You do need to cite your sources, both to acknowledge where information comes from and to let readers read those sources themselves if they want to. Thus bibliography entries need to let reader find sources. The precise style you use for them and for citations doesn’t matter.

Research Questions

What makes a good research question?

• It is a question (posing a question, as opposed to just naming a topic, helps you narrow down the topic towards an eventual thesis).
• The scope of the question should fit the expected length of the writing.
• Lots of other criteria too, e.g., not being something with a cut-and-dried answer already in the literature.

Pose some of your thoughts about actual history as reflected in Enigma as possible research questions.

• “Is rationing in the novel an accurate portrayal of actual rationing in WW2?” This is a good direction to think in, although right now the question is probably too sweeping for a 4 to 6 page essay.

Next

Two days of instruction and practice doing library research at Geneseo. Both led by Dr. Jonathan Grunert of Fraser Hall Library.

Friday: introduction to library databases and search strategies.

Monday: “lab day” for doing your own research, with someone available to answer questions and help out.

Bring computers to class both days!

Have research questions for the essay forming by Friday, and nailed down enough to start researching by Monday.

Notice that by Monday evening you need to email me a list of sources you expect to use for your essay. You won’t be limited to just that list, the idea is to be submitting IDS requests for anything on it that you can’t immediately get from our library by Monday evening too.

Read chapter 6 of Enigma by Friday, and finish the book by Monday.

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