Reading Assignment #2
Yost
9/2/13
A Personal Essay by a Personal Essay by Christy Vannoy
Summary: A personal essay is in a room full of other personal essays competing for a place in the Marie Claire magazine. The essay from who's perspective is told seems to have an arsenal of misfortunes which she is comfortable exploiting in order to have her story appear in print. Each essay in the room has one goal: exploit their personal tragedies for their gain. There are two divorce essays, two gay male essays, both of which the narrating essay dismiss as boring. One essay has a series of miscarriages and narcoleptic seizures that she suffered while in a work camp in communist China. The magnitude of this essay scares the main essay at first, then she comes to accept that if China essay wins, there's always next month. Finally a new unpublished essay presents itself and while full of potential, he does not fully emit the pain from his story. The narrating essay is not impressed but everyone else in the room seems to be. She thinks about that essay a lot over the next few days and comes to the conclusion that we are not tragedies, but rather personal essays. "You must rise above and you must do it in the last paragraph with basic grammar and easily recognized words." (212)
Credibility: Vannoy is a frequent writer for the online paper McSweeney.
Context: A very short essay written in a very unique format where the entire essay is a metaphor.
Purpose: Do not be content with being a victim, you are more than what has happened to you and it is up to you to make that sentiment true.
Audience: Aimed at all people, applicable to anyone who has ever suffered tragedy
Rhetorical Devices: The bulk of the essay is one large analogy where the essays are people who let their lives be defined by their personal tragedies and the competition to be printed is the attention and sympathy they seek.
Opinion: This essay has achieved its purpose by the use of very clever analogies.
No comments:
Post a Comment