Essay Responses

Chapter 10 is full of many different arguments. There are arguments from abortion to the use of YouTube. The chapter has many different types of arguments to choose from as well. There are casual ones, definitional ones and even humorous arguments. The two that I was thinking about using in my long response are My Amendment by George Saunders and The Lady or the Tiger by Chuck Klosterman. My Amendment is one of the humorous essays in the chapter. It is about one man’s solution to the gay marriage issue. It is a satirical way to look at the gay marriage issue. Saunders talks about “Samish-Sex” marriage. He calls out marriages between feminine men and masculine women as being right down the line from being in a homosexual relationship. Obviously this is a funny way of calling out more conservative religious groups as being homophobic for wanting to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. I personally feel that it is a funny point that he brings up about the presence of Samish-Sex marriage.
The next essay that I chose to talk about is The Lady or the Tiger. This essay is a satirical way to look at what is “cool” and what is not. Klosterman talks about cereal ads and how they in many ways dictate what is cool to our younger generation. The ads show us a fictional character that is being excluded from eating the desired cereal. However the commercials also show kids who are happily enjoying the cereal and in most cases taunting the character for not being able to enjoy the cereal as well. The essay also talks about people as they get older having what they perceive as being cool changing. For instance with teenagers they are all about trying to cool or in most cases trying not to be uncool. So Klosternan finally concludes that it is what separates you from the other members of society that actually makes you cool.