The Deer at Providencia

Annie Dillard's informative essay, The Deer at Providencia (1982); explores the idea that there is always suffering in the world. Dillard uses a personal experience to convey this idea, she tells a story. Dillard's purpose is to inform the readers in order to show how the world works and that inevitably involves suffering. She appeals to anyone who can understand how the world works and who can comprehend what suffering is.
I did not necessarily like this reading. Although I understand there is suffering in the world, I don't believe that you have to partake in watching it. This woman is watching this poor little deer suffer for no apparent reason. She is acting unlike most woman who can't stand the thought of an animal suffering. I understand that the deer has to die in order for the humans to eat, but that doesn't mean we have to watch it happen. I think there are better ways this situation could of been handled. Although the deer will taste better this way, it is still cruel and unusual punishment to put any living thing through this torment.
Dillard explains, "Its hip jerked; its spine shook. Its eyes rolled; its tongue, thick with spittle, pushed in and out." Dillard analytically describes what the woman is witnessing. She uses tone words such as "spittle" to create a lasting effect on the reader. These sensory words create and image that the reader can understand. The harshness of this sentence shows no remorse in the description. Dillard giving the woman's account, describes no pathos qualities. This in turn creates a cold heartedness within the main character.

Why I Want a Wife

Judy Brady's, "Why I Want a Wife", (1972) tells us about the author's sarcastic desire for a wife. The author herself is a wife and one of her male friend's divorce left her wondering what it would be like to have a wife of her own who would fulfill all the tasks of the average wife. It would innclude tasks such as taking care of the children and herself, doing household chores, and fulfill the author's sexual desires only when she's in the mood, etc. Brady wrote this passage to describe the roles that wives take on in their daily lives and would love to reverse these role with herself playing the husband role. Having a wife is seen as a wonderful role, as she mentions, "My God, who wouldn't want a wife?" This passage is very realistic towards today's society. Brady make a good point as to what most husband's expect out of there wives nowadays.

The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society

In Jonathan Kozol’s informative essay “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society”(1985), he asserts that illiterate members of society are neglected by the government which causes not only problems for the individual but problems as a country. Kozol uses experiences from those who are illiterate and shows how they are damaging themselves and society. Kozol's purpose is to highlight these problems to society and to the government in order for something to be done to fix it. Kozol appeals to essentially everyone, ones who are illiterate, ones who have met and illiterate person and people who have the power to doing something about it.

Johnathan Kozol brings many examples to question. It is appalling how true these accusations are in real life. I imagine myself as an illiterate person, not being able to do simple tasks by myself such as knowing where I am or what food I am buying. Hearing the personal accounts of some of these illiterate people makes my really question how they even got this way. How can the United States school system allow these people to fall through the cracks? How does the greatest country in the world allow people to be cheated and left hopelessly to figure life out when they don't even know how to survive. Although these people shouldn't of gave up in school, I believe the government has some responsibility to these citizens to make sure they can at least have a basic vocabulary to function in everyday life. I think the biggest thing that Kozol brings up is that " The number of illiterate adults exceeds by 16 million the entire vote cast for the winner of the 1980 presidential contest." This just shows that illiterate people are casting a vote based not off of knowledge but from appearances. This is a very scary thought that the people that run this country were voted for by illiterate people based on how they look and not how qualified they are. Since this is one of the biggest issues I think it is in the governments best interest to do something about this problem.