Essay 3 — Alan Turing and Breaking the Code

Purpose

This exercise develops your ability to present and defend a thoughtful interpretation of a work. In doing this, the exercise also reinforces skills of stating theses, marshalling evidence, organizing arguments, and building conclusions.

Background

Hugh Whitemore’s play Breaking the Code is a detailed study of Alan Turing and his death. Such a study is a difficult thing to write: much of what Turing did during his life was secret until his work at Bletchley Park became public knowledge (long after his death), and he kept many of his own feelings and beliefs private. Whitemore’s play is based on a well-researched biography of Turing (Hodge’s Alan Turing: The Enigma), but even so, much of it is necessarily Whitemore’s interpretation of Turing.

While you aren’t absolutely required to use external sources for this essay, I think most of you will find it easier to write if you do use some. In that case, you must properly cite them. While I am not dogmatic about citation styles, APA style is a good one to follow if you want concrete guidelines. It is described in the Little Seagull Handbook, and Milne Library also has some very good pragmatic guidance on citing sources.

Many of the sources on Turing’s life are online. To support your use of such sources, we will do a library instruction session on assessing the credibility of online sources during our November 17 class. That session will be held in Milne 104 instead of our regular classroom.

Activity

How well does Breaking the Code convey the importance of Alan Turing’s life and/or death? Write an essay of 1200 to 1800 words (four to six pages) in which you develop and defend a thesis that answers some part of this question.

Note that the question I pose is very broad — “importance” could be intellectual, social, actual or symbolic, as understood in his own time or in the modern day or any time in between, etc. I therefore do not expect you to try to give a complete answer to my question. Rather I expect you to find some way in which you think Turing was “important” to focus your thesis and argument on.

Breaking the Code works on its audience at a number of levels. It presents factual or semi-factual accounts of events during Turing’s life, it carries an implicit social critique, it attempts to produce an emotional reaction in audiences, etc. You should analyze the play at many if not all of these levels as you determine how it “conveys” the importance of Turing’s life or death.

Follow-Up

You will write this essay in two stages, each with its own deliverables and feedback (and grade).

• On November 29 you will share drafts of your essay with other students in this class, and exchange feedback with them. You must bring copies of the draft to class that day, and should email me a copy before class.
• I will email a copy of your draft with brief suggestions back to you; if you want longer feedback from me you may, but do not need to, meet with me to discuss the draft.
• The final version of the essay, revised in response to feedback from your peers and me, should be emailed to me by 11:59 PM on December 8.
• Finally, by the end of the day on December 13 you should meet with me to get my feedback on your final version and the grade for it. This meeting is required, and should be half an hour long.