Where God Is Glad

Associating strip clubs with God and enlightenment seems to be an unusual connection, yet it can be done. Joe Wenderoth’s personal essay, Where God Is Glad, reminisced on his visits to Tony’s, a strip club he claims to be like no other. Each time Wenderoth went to the club, he faced new personalities and situations that he found uniquely indescribable. After each encounter, Wenderoth felt the need to write about Tony’s, but he could not find the words. Then after having a sort of epiphany about the club, he began to write about the stories he gained and the lessons he learned. Wenderoth suddenly realized that Tony’s is more like a hospice than an actual strip club (257); it is a place for self-loathing and reflection. Instead of being pitiful, Wenderoth said people should be enjoying their life and accomplishments. People are the same in the way that everyone has to get through life and manage to get up in the morning; Wenderoth wished to remind the reader that that is what should be celebrated. Wenderoth uses an allusion and metaphor to enhance this point by comparing the club dancer to “Narcissus in the calm blind pulse of inparticularity’s most decisive triumph: facelessness” (258).  Wenderoth uses vivid description and powerful wording to explain that statement’s meaning: the original beauty of that dancer, which caused breathlessness, became faded and unoriginal, which made her faceless. This facelessness enforces the idea that people all have the same basic struggle. Though hard to follow and understand for the majority of the essay, once Wenderoth compared the club to a hospice, the reader could begin to infer his message and purpose. The beginning of the essay gave tedious background information, and the conclusion reinforced Wenderoth’s message: the Aztec poem, “I Might Die in This Battle,” which enforced that idea that everyone must struggle, but God is proud of each and every persevering person.

God Watching Over Everyone
http://www.bubblews.com/news/61763-arguments-for-the-existence-of-god-shifting-the-burden-of-proof

The Lesbian Bride's Handbook

Stress is often an inevitable outcome of life's activities, whether it is related to a situation, a person, or an event. Ariel Levy wrote her memoir, The Lesbian Bride’s Handbook, to a universal audience since everyone can relate to feeling stressed. Levy recollected on the pressure of recently planning her wedding; she was constantly worrying about what friends, family and society would think of, what she called, her “party about love.” Levy used this title as a denotation of wedding and a general term of endearment, but also as a way to avoid the perception that she and fiancé, Amy, were posing as a normal couple with a normal wedding. This problem was one of the multiple complications Levy perceived, but the one she focused on was the importance of her wedding dress. Levy introduced this importance with descriptive imagery and creative metaphors to describe the different dress choices and their faults. She concentrated on the dress because she again wanted to avoid the perception of a normal wedding, but she also wanted the dress to stun Amy’s mother and the rest of the guests. Levy then wrote the story in hindsight after the wedding occurred. She explains that it went splendidly: the band, the flowers and the dress were all beautiful, and Amy’s mother was in awe. At the end of it all, Levy perfectly summed up the theme of the story with a rhetorical question: “who could feel okay about keeping something so expensive hanging in a garment bag? Amy I’m keeping” (140). The object that created the most stress for Levy turned out to be so unimportant that she would eventually sell it. After having a sort of epiphany, Levy realizes what she should have focused on: the person that matters the most, Amy. The Lesbian Bride’s Handbook impeccably enlightens the reader to focus his or her time and efforts on what is truly important rather than material ideas. And in that way, the stress will be worthwhile.

Levy's Blue Wedding Dress

http://www.alinesatinweddingdress.com/new-hot-sky-blue-a-line-strapless-sweetheart-floor-length-trumpet-evening-dress-p-9225.html

The Renegade

Nature versus nurture is always a controversial topic. In his personal essay The Renegade, Charles Simic focuses on how his upbringing impacted the person he became. The environment he grew up in, such as family, time period, and current events, ultimately shaped his beliefs and his life. Simic used many anecdotes from his past experiences to bring his story together. For example he included a story of his grandmother and what she taught him. As Simic grew up in Serbia, Hitler and his Nazis began to seize power throughout Europe and occupy Serbia. Simic was then subjected to a variety of opinions, including his grandmother’s, which foreshadowed the terror Hitler’s reign would bring. She warned her grandson to “beware of the so-called great leaders and the collective euphorias they excite” (228). The beliefs of Simic’s grandmother’s became his own and therefore made him hesitant to accept new leadership or authority. When Slobodan Milosevic became the Serbian president in 1989 Serbians loved him, except for Simic. Despite living in the United States at the time, Simic was worried by the new leader and thus became more involved in Serbian politics. Simic openly stated his distaste for Milosevic in an interview causing Simic’s friends and family to question his commitment as a Serb. This new identity as a renegade, or traitor, as some believed, resulted in Simic’s being more vocal and writing this essay.  At first Simic’s writing style made it hard to predict where the plot and general story were going, however looking back his purpose is easily identifiable . Simic wrote The Renegade to inform the reader, or anyone with a basic knowledge of Hitler, Milosevic, and conflict in Serbia, that one should not be just a blind follower. Simic wished to stress the importance of expressing personal opinion rather than simply agreeing with the majority.

Leaving like a renegade
http://blogs.yis.ac.jp/15bryana/2010/12/06/to-a-daughter-leaving-home-by-linda-pastan/

Becoming Adolf

Some say the mustache makes the man. For a time, that was the theory of the Jewish, New York Times bestselling author, Rich Cohen. He wrote to enlighten the reader, anyone familiar with Hitler and his legacy, with the knowledge that some symbols are too notorious to be forgotten. Cohen was prompted to conduct an experiment when author Richard Dawkins used an analogy that questioned whether the evil of Hitler and Stalin was caused by their mustaches. Cohen conducted his own experiment by growing a toothbrush mustache in an attempt to defuse the mustache’s connection with Adolf Hitler. Cohen delves into the history of various facial hairstyles and the political figures with which those styles are associated.  The variety of facts and historical information appealed to Aristotle’s Triangle of Rhetoric, specifically to the aspect of logos or logic. Cohen continued this appeal to logic by citing credible and informative sources such as Alexander Moritz Frey, The New York Times, and The Secret Parts of Fortune. Cohen acknowledged the pathos corner of the triangle through pop culture references, such as the use of pop culture references like an analogy using Michael Jordan (16), and through well-known connotations, such as “Hitler being Hitler” (17). The logos and pathos elements of rhetoric helped Cohen guide the reader to find the essay’s purpose. The beginning and middle of the essay gave background information to the audience that did not make a significant impact on realizing the purpose. Cohen eventually revealed the purpose when he described the results of his own experiment toward the end of his piece. People, even close friends, could not look at him without referencing Hitler in some way, whether it was through dirty looks or actual comments. Cohen concluded that he could not cleanse the mustache’s reputation. So it is not the mustache that makes the man, it is the man that makes the mustache.

Cohen and his Hitler mustache

Photograph by Gasper Tringale.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/11/cohen200711