Critique of The Man Delusion

Critique of The Man Delusion

First of all, I would like to commend you on your writing style. This essay is sufficiently clear, and well organized; your thesis is well-supported. However, there are a few questions and recommendations I have regarding your argument. You begin with the premise that “A firm understanding of a book is realized once the analyzer is cognizant that multiple literary components are acting in tandem to produce a more significant meaning,” and then continue on to say that “a well-chosen title will encapsulate the work’s themes” and that Tolstoy’s original title War and Peace fulfills that parameter successfully. But if you make this claim, the argument ends.

It seems to be a retraction to say that the original title addresses some themes but not others. Subsequently, it is not clear to me that you choose the title The Man Delusion because it encapsulates all of the work’s themes and the book as a whole, but rather, this title seems to address the missing themes from the original title you identified previously. Forgive me if I am wrong, but is that not just replacing one insufficient title for another? Or are you saying that there are many elements to this novel, but Tolstoy’s fatalistic concept of history and rejection of the great man trumps them all? The problem I see with this argument is that it fails to defend the preeminence of this theme among the rest.

As for the title itself, wouldn’t it be more advantageous to have entitled the book The Hero Delusion, since the type of man Tolstoy condemns is not the common one, but the great man. I believe it might be a more effective way of getting your point across to readers.