Self-study
P1
Of the more than one thousand people who published memoirs of the French Revolution of 1789, about eighty were women. ███ ██ █████ ██████ █████ ███████████ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ █ ██████████ ████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██████ ██ ██████████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ █████ █████ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ████ ████ ██ █████ ███████ ███ █████ ████ ████ █████████ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ █████████ ███████ █████ ███ ███████████ ██████ ███ ████████ ████████ ████ ████ ██ █████ ██ █████ █████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███ ███████████ ████ █████████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ███████████ ███ █████████ ███ ███████████ ██████ █████████ █████████ ███████ █████ █████
Phenomenon / Explanation ·
Very few memoirs of the French Revolution were written by women and most were written by aristocratic women
Socioeconomic explanation: literacy was high only among aristocrats. Political explanation: memoirs were published during the restored monarchy which, I presume, the aristocrats supported.
P2
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Skeptics ·
Historians question reliability of memoirs
Are they telling the truth?
Concession ·
The skeptics have a point
Memory fades over time and these are mostly partisan (royalist) accounts.
Critique (of Skeptics) ·
But their doubts can be resolved
Argument 1 ·
Veracity of public events
Multiple accounts allow for cross-verification.
Argument 2 ·
Veracity of personal events
We can use subjective guidelines like whether the events are plausible, etc. to evaluate whether these accounts are true. Okay, so we've set out the guidelines but where's the application? Perhaps that's where the next paragraph will take us.
P3
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Premise (for Argument 2) ·
In spite of strong conformity to prescribed female roles, these memoirists were still socially active during the Revolution
Okay... I think this is setting up for the application of the guideline... The author will relate this to how their subject accounts are reliable, right?
Premise (for Argument 2) ·
Women had varied experiences and participation in revolution
I think these examples are meant to show that the subject accounts of events in the memoirs are somehow reliable?
Conclusion of Argument 2 ·
The accounts of personal events are reliable
And this finding is significant because this "feminist mode of discourse" appears surprisingly early in the historical record.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
3.
The passage's reference to Madame ██ ██ ███████████ ██ ████ ██████ ████████ ██
Question Type
Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Structure
The author mentions
a
demonstrate that women's █████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ████ █████████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████ ████████
We might concede that women’s roles as memoirists were partially determined by their social statuses, since only members of the upper class could write well. But the author never says that their roles in the Revolution were partially determined by social status. Instead, she references Madame de La Villirouët as an example of a female memoirist who wrote about women’s participation in the Revolution.
b
explain why so ███ █████ █████████ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████
P1 explains why so few memoirs were written by lower-class women. But the author never explains why so few women published accounts of the Revolution. She just references Madame de La Villirouët as an example of a female memoirist who wrote about women’s participation in the Revolution.
c
support the claim ████ █████████ ████████████ ██████████ ██████ █████████████
In P2, the author concedes that partisanship can bias recollections, but she never claims that this is inevitable. In fact, she thinks that the women’s memoirs are subjectively and factually reliable. She just references Madame de La Villirouët as an example of a female memoirist who wrote about women’s participation in the Revolution.
d
provide an example ██ ███ ████████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ██████████
In P3, the author says that women’s memoirs of the Revolution “describe how women participated, individually and collectively, in the events of the Revolution.” She cites
e
illustrate that royalist ███ ██████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ █████████ ██████
Madame de La Villirouët was a royalist, but the author never suggests that royalist and republican memoirs focused on different themes, so she can’t be citing Madame de La Villirouët to illustrate this point. Instead, Madame de La Villirouët is given as an example of women’s participation in the Revolution.