1. A Personal Essay by a Personal Essay
This essay was a brief one but very informative essay. The author went into great detail in the essay about all the personal problems, and overcome hardships in her life. The problems in her essay included abusive parenting, going through menopause, learning about how she was unable to have children, and involvement in sex slavery, etc. This essay is taken out of Mcsweeny’s, a very well known publishing house. Therefore, this essay could be considered very credible, seeing how it came from a very respected title. Vannoy’s essay is set during a clinic led by which is led by a woman’s magazine’s authors and editors. A Personal Essay by a Personal Essay’s point of view is in first person limited from the point of view from Vannoy’s personal essay in a woman’s magazine clinic. During this clinic, essays are read aloud in front of the entire clinic and evaluated by professional editors and authors. Vannoy’s essay is constantly thinking about and analyzing the other essays in the clinic. Vannoy’s essay is thinking again, and again about why some essays are bad and why some are well written. The topic and the main point of the essay is targeted to future writers who want to create good pieces of literature and not just mediocre ones. Vannoy’s main point of is that personal struggles and hardships create stories, and be turned into a well written essay. The The narrator uses humor to prove her point, and she does so very easily. The use of humor allows the reader to become more involved in the story, and laugh along with it. Although some may call the humor to be harsh and offensive, the purpose is to analyze the essay and prove that they are boring and that some of the essays are just plain dumb.
2. Buddy Ebsen
The essay Buddy Ebsen is a biographical essay which details the homo-sexual lifestyle of Hilton ALS. Every paragraph is initiated with the phrase, “It’s the queers who made me.” This phrase is drilled with repetition to make the point Hilton Als is trying to make, that gay culture helped shape his life. This piece of literature is in memory of Als former lover, who died of AIDS. Each paragraph very briefly covers a portion of his life, the good times and the bad times. He starts with his first detection of his sexuality, to dealing with loss, to finding people who accepts him as he is. Hitlon Als can be considered credible because he is known for his workings with the famous magazine, The New Yorker. He also received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2000 for creative writing and the 2002–03 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. In 2004 he won the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin, which provided him half a year of free working and studying in Berlin. He has taught at Smith College, Wesleyan, and Yale University, and his work has also appeared in The Nation, The Believer, and the New York Review of Books. Hilton Als’s essay is a story of belonging. He says that the queers are the one’s that made him, they helped him shape into the man he is today. At the end of the second to last paragraph Als writes, “ … who gave me, indirectly, my full queer self, the desire to say ‘I’ once again.” This quote says it all. Hilton Als found himself, Als felt that he finally knew who Hilton Als was. He felt proud to finally know who he is and what he wants. The purpose of the essay was to tell a tale of his own life. A story of how someone should be proud of who they are. Als wanted to write an essay for the people who are too afraid to truly live out who they want to be.
source: http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120613031412/disney/images/6/64/Buddy_Ebsen_-_USCG.jpg
3. Topic of Cancer
Topic of Cancer is an autobiographical essay by Christopher Hitchens, who unfortunately died due to the very topic that he wrote about, oesophageal cancer. His essay starts out with a graphic scene of how he discovered he had cancer. Throughout the essay Hitchens goes on about his new life-style, throwing up before big interviews on national television, his writing becoming a best-seller when he gets the worst news of his life, etc. Hitchens describes that his life takes a sudden turn for the worst as he states, “In whatever kind of a "race" life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.” Hitchens is a very credible author. In 1991 he received a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction. In 2007 Hitchens' work for Vanity Fair won him the National Magazine Award in the category "Columns and Commentary”. His well written book, God Is Not Great was nominated for a National Book Award on 10 October 2007. He also won the National Magazine Award for Columns about Cancer in 2011. His writing his his essay, Topic of Cancer is a very dark story. He describes on June morning when his "chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement", he writes of a dark crossing over to "the land of malady." The essay did not contain a redemption or recovery story, just simply a story of a man with cancer with the occasional humorous observation. But after thorough analysis, one could see a deeper meaning. He writes this story not to cheer anyone up, but to show that he had a very full life. He achieved great things. He won many awards for his writing, and was a very prominent figure during his life. He writes this essay to show the world that he does not fear death. If he did fear it, than he could not write a whole essay about it. He writes this essay for the people that fear death. He wants people to know that if you can find humor in things, you will have a very good life.
source: http://www.mayoclinic.com/images/image_popup/c7_esophageal_cancer.jpg
source: http://www.mayoclinic.com/images/image_popup/c7_esophageal_cancer.jpg
4. Rude Am I in My Speech
Caryl Phillip’s Rude Am I in My Speech is an essay about heritage. Phillip’s writes about how his father was an immigrant into England. He writes about how immigrants can feel that they are in another world. They can feel isolated because the society that they now live in could be much different than the society they just came from. The essay shows Phillip’s viewpoints in the lives of people who imigrated into Europe. The author goes into detail about the two types of imigrants in Europe such as the first generations to live in Europe and the second generations living in Europe which includes himself. He says that while the former migrants learns to read new society with relief from home, they will face difficulties like gaining social confidence, unlike the latter which holds doubt in their decisions. Phillip writes, explaining the lives of first generation immigrants, “First-generation migrants to Europe, from wherever they may originate, have to learn quickly how to read the new society in order to successfully navigate their way forward.” He cites the temerity of William Shakespeare's character Othello, which he notes as a need for migrants. The author uses Othello to describe the immigrant's experience of being lonely, isolated, and "marooned" in their chosen new land. He writes to the people who have never experienced living in a new society before, or to immigrants who feel that they are alone. He wants to them to know that they are not alone in a new society and that everyone who immigrates all feel the same.
Phillips has won countless awards such as Martin Luther King Memorial Prize in 1987 for his writing called The European Tribe, in 1993 he won the Guggenheim fellowship award, and he also won many others which could consider him credible.
source: http://www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/immigrants.jpg
5. Generation Why
Generation Why? Is a thorough analysis on the trending social media site Facebook and other social media written by Zadie Smith. The first thing Smith writes about is the life story of Mark Zuckerberg and the commencement of Facebook. The topic transfers to the importance of Facebook. Smith’s credibility to write about facebook comes from her being a part of Mark Zuckerberg’s generation. She was involved in the first movement of facebook making her credible. Smith also has published many books and teaches at NYU (New York University). Generation Why? Seems to be written after the fad that is Facebook came to be. The purpose of Generation Why? is to shed a light on the faults and the falsehoods in having a persona online on Facebook. The essay is also trying to prove that socializing through a social media site is childish. She is able to convey the message through her humorus observations and rhetorical devices such as allusions to the movie “Social Network”. She also uses real facts about Zuckerberg to prove the point that Mark Zuckerberg is childish for wanting to create such a website. Smith states this when she writes, “…still obessed wuth the long-lost Erica, sending a ‘friend request’ to her on Facebook and then refreshing the page, over and over, in expectation of her reply…” (Smith 190) She is writing this essay for the generation of Facebook. She wants them to know that Facebook is a juvienile thing to get involved in. Socialization through the internet is childish is Smith basic point in the essay. The exploring of Zuckerberg’s motives for creating Facebook allows Smith to prove her point about the childishness of the social media website because it infers to the reader to make the reader apprehend that a website such as Facebook does a truly terrible job of creating social interaction.
source: http://blog.socialmaximizer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/social_media.jpg
