The essay is about the short Stories 2020 by Curtis Sittenfeld (the Best American) and The Best American Essays by Andre Aciman 2020
In
“Driving as Metaphor,” Rachel Cusk says:
It is often regretted that children can no
longer play or move freely outside because of the dangers of traffic; inevitably, many of the people who
voice these regrets are also the drivers of cars, as those same restricted children will come to be in their time. What is being mourned, it seems, is not so much the decline of an old world of
freedom as the existence of comforts and conveniences the individual feels powerless to resist, and which in any case he
or she cannot truthfully say they wished
would be abolished. There is a feeling,
nonetheless, of loss, and it may be that the increasing
luxury of the world inside the car is a kind of consolation for the degradation
of the world outside it. (25)
Cusk suggests that people are not really
mourning a loss of freedom but are mourning their existence in an isolated
world of “comforts and conveniences.”
In T.C. Boyle’s “The Apartment” the narrator
makes a deal for an apartment so as to insulate himself from his daughters’
musical preferences. In Ming Jen’s “In
the Event” Jen’s goal is a place safe from the external threats of living in
Northern California: fires, possible nuclear attack, and earthquakes. She is contemplating “a new disaster meet-up
spot” at the end of the story. Sarah Thankam
Mathews “Rubberdust”
opens with this sentence: “The little girl with no friends reads contentedly
enough at her small wooden desk during recess.”
In Elizabeth McCracken’s “It’s Not You” the narrator spends New Year’s
Day in the Narcissus Hotel. She tells
us: “My New Year’s resolution was to feel as bad as fast as I could in
highfalutin privacy, then leave the tatters of my sadness behind, along with
the empty bottle and six apple cores.”
Jason Brown’s “A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities
Lately Committed” the young John Holland cannot secure a commitment to marry
from Melissa who tells him instead, “You’ll live…just like the rest of
us.” His future seems to suggest
isolation both from the family’s island and from Melissa as well as his sister
and other relatives.
In a seven-to-ten-page paper, discuss whether
the characters in three of the stories are mourning their existence in isolated
worlds of “comforts and conveniences.”
Develop a thesis about how accurate Cusk’s statement is of the worlds
that the cited authors present. Your
goal is to arrive at a synthesis of the concerns of contemporary writers. What are they telling us about contemporary isolation? Is Cusk correct to draw her distinction in
the subjects of mourning? Are comfort
and conveniences isolating? Are the
stories showing personal freedom actually in decline?
Be sure to discuss the three stories you
choose in some depth. Quote key passages
from them that focus on
the subject of isolation. You may use other stories or essays that we
have read this semester as
long as you
use three other works.
guidelines:
1. Papers must be typewritten, double-spaced,
and formatted in MSWord. (No PDFs, please.)
Use Times New Roman, Size 12.
Margins should be one to one-and-a-half inches on both sides and at the
top and the bottom. Observe the page
limits that accompany each assignment.
2. Essays and stories must have titles. Your title should suggest the subject of your
paper as well as your slant on the subject; it should hint at your opinion and
give some indication of the subject matter of the paper. Your title should not
be the title of the articles, stories, or other materials you are discussing
although your title might contain those titles.
3. A good essay will argue for a central
thesis. A thesis is an arguable
statement. You must be making an
argument that pulls the whole essay together. Be aware that bad opinions are
not worth having.
4. Write for a general, college-level audience
that does not know what reading prompts your paper or what the writing
assignment is. You will find it
necessary to name titles and authors in order to orient your reader. In short,
you are writing an essay or story that should be able to “stand
alone.” Do not assume that the audience knows the story that you’re basing
your story on.
5. Use of the first person in an essay is not
improper. But avoid statements like “I
think,” “I believe,” “I feel,” “in my opinion,” “to me,” or other similar
hedges on bold statements of opinion. Such phrases usually indicate weak points
in your argument. Use such phrases in your draft; correct them in final copy by
eliminating them and strengthening your opinion by providing evidence or better
reasons for your opinion.
6. If you’re writing an essay, you must cite
sources. When necessary, your papers must cite sources and use the MLA
parenthetical format for citation or any standard format like Chicago or APA. Creative papers do not require citations.
7. Proofread your work. Use “Spell and Grammar” check in MSWord,
but be
aware that the program will not necessarily turn up all issues with the wording
of your papers.
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