"The personal essay allows me to report the important news of the human condition, the stories rarely covered on page one, on radio news, on television."
I most strongly identify with this statement, because I always want to know the whole story. The black and white that is portrayed on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC is never the end of the situation. I want to know their thinking, their motivation, the mental aftermath. That is the beauty of being human, knowing that nothing is black and white, knowing that the story never ends. If you tell your friends or parents about what you did that day, you most often tell them about the events, rarely touching on your mental state. That is what fascinates me, the motivation behind the IRS scandal or delay in the Keystone Pipeline. It has been said that the human condition never changes, and that is exemplary in literature of the past. In "The Canterbury Tales," the plot is stuff with greed, lust, and humor. Topics that are so often found on television today. This tells me, and is important in the author's quote, that in order to understand current events, you have to understand the past. Humans are all too often self motivated.
Murray has done an excellent job in identifying motivations and reasons for writing personal essays; I cannot think of any other. I found the section on editing to be the most helping, since I am stubborn and always seem to stick up for my own writing decisions. I need to take the time to really focus on how I can make my next draft better. So often I find my drafts differing only in content and grammar. I rarely retool the whole thing. That could be an experiment I try next.
I agree with what you said about wanting to know the full story and what's beyond the black and white facts. There's always more to the story because we're human, so usually emotions or a certain mindset are factors that are present and need to be considered. Media today focuses more on getting the story out and the facts related to it. With personal essays, you're able to see further into motives, personal reactions, and viewpoints that media normally wouldn't express.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same way with editing my drafts. I want to try to focus more on improving my writing and editing my drafts to help my ideas flow more smoothly.
Although I did not write about the editing part of his essay, I definitely agree with what you said. I am very stubborn when it comes to my own piece of writing and I always think that my way is best (even though a lot of the time, it's not.) I also need to take a little bit more time and focus on how I can better my drafts and overall, make my paper better.
ReplyDelete