Possible Plagiarism

[Emily Saunders]

Hello,

I tried the method that has worked for me in the past -- entering in  
parts of sentences that I didn't think the student could have written  
into Google -- but it didn't turn up anything.  I agree that the  
excerpt sounds plagiarized.  I don't think I ever used the word  
"unflinching" in any piece of undergraduate writing I ever turned in.   
Perhaps one possible solution is to double check the quotes included.   
If there have been more than one translator of this work, and the  
quotes do not match the edition that you gave your students to work  
from (or the copy that the student in question has back in his/her  
dorm room), then you may be able to prove plagiarism without first  
determining the source it was taken from.

A somewhat long-shot suggestion,

Emily Saunders

On Apr 4, 2008, at 5:29 AM, Kevin M. F. Platt wrote:

> Dear SEELANGers:
>
> One of my students turned this piece of writing in for a weekly  
> reading response question about Gorky's "26 men and a girl" (I asked  
> them what they thought the significance of Tanya is in the story). I  
> am 95% certain that it is plagiarized, but I can't figure out from  
> where. Does anyone recognize it as their own or as something on  
> their shelves? Let me know off line, please.
>
> This short story, published in 1899 in a collection entitled,  
> “Creatures that Once Were Men,” is an unflinching look at the manner  
> in which men react to a crushing, stifling regime and how their  
> humanity is essentially dissolved over time. Tanya plays the role of  
> innocence, of hope, and of the possibility of redemption for the  
> twenty-six men in this narrative. Though “dull beasts,” the twenty- 
> six are “still men, and, like all men, could not live without  
> worshipping something or other.” Living in a situation that offered  
> no returns for their labor, Tanya was something they could possess:  
> “…we all regarded her as something of our own, something existing as  
> it were only by virtue of our kringels.” She carries the burden of  
> unrequited love without the knowledge or responsibility, a love so  
> deep it could just as easily crush its receiver as its giver.
> The capitalistic exploitation in this story appears to extend  
> forever – the prisoners appear to be eternally trapped in a static  
> state, where nothing changes around them. Their humanity is kept  
> intact by Tanya’s fleeting presence, the hope she represents  
> flitting in and out of their lives, only taking, never giving. At  
> the end of Gorky’s tale, Tanya is revealed to be nothing more than a  
> servant to the gold-embroiderers’ next door, the innocence she  
> represents extinguished in a moment of sexual passion. The men  
> return to their state of perpetual labor as Tanya is thrown aside,  
> crushed by their desire for an ideal.
>
>
>
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