One Hundred Great Essays

Transcription

1 wm. One Hundred Great Essays Edited bx Robert DiYanni The College Board PENGUIN ACADEMICS New York San Francisco Boston London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Mexico City Munich Paris Cape Town Hong Kong

2 Content** Preface xvii INTRODUCTION: READING AND WRITING ESSAYS 1 History and Context 1 Pleasures of the Essay 5 Types of Essays 7 Reading Essays 9 Reading Annie Dillard's "Living Like Weasels" 10 Writing Essays 15 The Qualities of Good Writing 15 An Overview of the Writing Process 16 Planning 16 Drafting 17 Revising 18 Writing from Reading An Example 19 Arriving at an Interpretation 30 SUSAN SONTAG'S "A Woman's Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?" 31 MAYA ANCELOU Graduation 35 GLORIA ANZALDUA How to Tame a Wild Tongue 48 W.H. AUDEN Work, Labor, and Play 60 FRANCIS BACON Of Studies 63 RUSSELL BAKER Growing Up 66

3 .1" * C() III ClllS Contents * JAMES BALDWIN Notes of a Native Son 73 JAMES BALDWIN Stranger in the Village 94 DAVE BARRY Road Warrior 107 MARY CATHERINE BATESON Attending a World 111 SUSAN BROWNMILLER Femininity 126 JANE BROX Influenza ANGELA CARTER The Wound in the Face 141 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria 147 JUDITH ORTIZ GOFER Casa: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood 155 BERNARD COOPER Burl's 161 AARON COPLAND How We Listen 172 CHARLES DARWIN Natural Selection 179 GUY DAVENPORT The Geography of the Imagination 192 JOAN DIDION Marrying Absurd 207 JOAN DIDION On Self-Respect 212 ANNIE DILLARD Living Like Weasels 217 ANNIE DILLARD Jest and Earnest 223 JOHN DONNE No Man is an Island 22S FREDERICK DOUGLASS Learning to Read and Write 231 W.E.B. DuBois Of Our Spiritual Striving 238 ANDRE DUBUS Light of the Long Night 24 7 GRETEL EHRLICH About Men 251 LOREN EISELEY The Flow of the River 256 QUEEN ELIZABETH 1 Speech to the Troops at Tilbury 264 RALPH ELLISON Living with Music 266 RALPH WALDO EMERSON Nature 276 ANNE FADIMAN Never Do That to a Book 280 E.M. FORSTER What I Believe 286 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Arriving at Perfection 296 SIGMUND FREUD The Interpretation of Dreams 301 HENRY Louis GATES, JR. In the Kitchen 310 ELLEN GOODMAN The Company Man 318

4 xii * Contents Contents * xiii NADINE GORDIMER Where Do Whites Fit In? 321 MARY GORDON More than Just a Shrine Ellis Island 326 STEPHEN JAY GOULD Women's Brains 332 WILLIAM HAZLITT On the Pleasure of Hating 340 EDWARD HOAGLAND The Courage of Turtles 351 BARBARA HOLLAND Naps 359 LANGSTON HUGHES Salvation 364 THOMAS JEFFERSON The Declaration of Independence 36S FRANZ KAFKA Letter to His Father 377 JAMAICA KINCAID On Seeing England for the First Time 386 JAMAICA KINCAID The Ugly Tourist 398 MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Letter from Birmingham Jail 402 MAXINE HONG KINGSTON On Discovery 419 MAXIM-: HONG KINGSTON Silence 422 CHARLES LAMB A Bachelors Complaint 428 ROBIN TOLMACH LAKOFF You are What You Say 436 D.H. LAWRENCE On Ben Franklin's Virtues 444 CHANG-RAE LEE Coming Home Again 448 ABRAHAM LINCOLN The Gettysburg Address 459 BARRY LOPEZ The Stone Horse 461 Niccolo MACHIAVELLI The Morals of the Prince 472 NANCY MAIRS On Being a Cripple 481 KARL MARX AND FRIEDERICH ENGELS The Communist Manifesto 495 JOHN MCPHEE from "The Encircled River" 504 H.L. MENCKEN Portrait of an Ideal World 514 N. SCOTT MOMADAY The Way to Rainy Mountain 519 MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE On Cannibals 526 MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE Of Smells 539 JOYCE CAROL OATES On Boxing 542 GEORGE ORWELL Politics and the English Language 555 GEORGE ORWELL Shooting an Elephant 569 CYNTHIA OZICK The Seam of the Snail 577

5 ( O Contents * xv ALEXANDER PETRUNKEVITCH The Spider and the Wasp 581 PLATO The Allegory of the Care 587 KATHERINE ANNE PORTER The Necessary Enemy 593 ANNA QUINDLEN Between the Sexes, A Great Divide 599 RICHARD RODRIGUEZ Heading into Darkness Once Again 603 SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS Under the Influence 607 CHILE SEATTLE Speech on the Signing of the Treaty of Port Elliott 621 HENRY DAVID THOREAU Why I Went to the Woods 700 JAMES THURBER University Days 707 SOJOURNER TRUTH Aren't I a Woman? 714 MARK TWAIN Reading the River 717 ALICE WALKER Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self 721 EUDORA WELTY from "Listening" 730 E.B. WHITE Once More to the Lake 738 RICHARD SELZER The Masked Marvel's Last Toehold 625 E.B. WHITE The Ring of Time 745 LESLIE MARMON SILKO Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination 631 ELIZABETH CADY STANTON Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions 640 BRENT STAPLES Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space 644 SHELBY STEELE On Being Black and Middle Class 649 JONATHAN SWIFT A Modest Proposal 662 AMY TAN Mother Tongue 671 DEBORAH TANNEN Different Words, Different Worlds 678 LEWIS THOMAS The Corner of the Eye 695 TOM WOLFE Only One Life 754 GEOFFREY WOLFF The Duke of Deception 760 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT A Vindication of the Rights of Women 766 VIRGINIA WOOLF The Death of the Moth 770 VIRGINIA WOOLF Professions for Women 774 RICHARD WRIGHT Writing and Reading 780 Credits 795 Index 803

6 One Hundred Great Essays Edited by Robert DiYanni New York University PENGUIN ACADEMICS PEARSON Longman New York San Francisco Boston London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Madrid Mexico City Munich Paris Cape Town Hong Kong Montreal

7 Senior Vice President/Publisher: Joseph Opiela Senior Sponsoring Editor: Virginia L. Blanford Marketing Manager: Wendy Albert Production Coordinator: Shafiena Ghani Project Coordination, Text Design, and Electronic Page Makeup: Pre-Press Company, Inc. Senior Cover Design Manager/Designer: Nancy Danahy Cover Image: Stone/Getty Images, Inc. Manufacturing Buyer: Roy L. Pickering Printer and Binder: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co. / Harrisonburg Cover Printer: Phoenix Color Corp. Preface xv Contents For permission to use copyrighted material, grateful acknowledgment is made to the copyright holders on pp , which are hereby made part of this copyright page. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data One Hundred great essays / edited by Robert DiYanni. 2nd ed. p. cm. (Penguin academics) Includes index. ISBN (alk. paper) 1. College readers. 2. English language Rhetoric Problems, exercises, etc. 3. Report writing Problems, exercises, etc. 4. Essays. I. Title: 100 great essays. II. DiYanni, Robert III. Series. PE1417.O '.0427 dc22 Copyright 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States. Please visit our website at For more information about the Penguin Academics series, please contact us by mail at Longman Publishers, attn. Marketing Department, 1185 Avenue of the Americas 25th Floor, New York, NY 10036, or by at ISBN DOH INTRODUCTION: READING AND WRITING ESSAYS 1 History and Context 1 Pleasures of the Essay 5 Types of Essays 7 Reading Essays 9 Reading Annie Dillard's "Living Like Weasels" Writing Essays 15 The Qualities of Good Writing 15 An Overview of the Writing Process 16 Planning 10 Drafting 17 Revising 18 Writing from Reading An Example 19 Freewriting 21 Double-Column Notebook 23 Writing a Summary 25 Going Further 27 Observing Details 27 Connecting Details 28 Making Inferences 29 Arriving at an Interpretation 30 MAYA ANGELOU Graduation 33 GLORIA ANZALDUA How to Tame a Wild Tongue 46 FRANCIS BACON Of Studies 60 10

8 viii * Contents Contents * ix RUSSELL BAKER Crowing Up 63 JAMES BALDWIN Notes of a Native Son 70 DAVE BARRY Road Warrior 91 MARY CATHERINE BATESON Attending a World 95 SVEN BIRKERTS Into the Electronic Millennium 110 JUDY BRADY / Want a Wife 122 SUSAN BROWNMILLER Femininity 125 JANE BROX Influenza ANGELA CARTER The Wound in the Face 140 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER Casa: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood 146 K. C. COLE Calculated Risks 153 BERNARD COOPER Bud's 163 AARON COPLAND How We Listen 174 WILLIAM CRONON The Trouble with Wilderness 1S1 CHARLES DARWIN Natural Selection 207 GUY DAVENPORT The Geography of the Imagination 220 JOAN DIDION Marrying Absurd 235 JOAN DIDION On Self-Respect 240 ANNIE DILLARD Living Like Weasels 245 ANNIE DILLARD Jest and Earnest 251 JOHN DONNE No Man Is an Island 256 FREDERICK DOUGLASS Learning to Read and Write 259 W. E. B. Du Bois Of Our Spiritual Striving 266 GRETEL EHRLICH About Men 275 QUEEN ELIZABETH I Speech to the Troops at Tilbury 279 RALPH ELLISON Living with Music 281 RALPH WALDO EMERSON Nature 291 ANNE FADIMAN Never Do That to a Book 295 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Arriving at Perfection 301 SIGMUND FREUD The Interpretation of Dreams 306 HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. In the Kitchen 315 ATUL GAWANDE Crimson Tide 323 MALCOLM GLADWELL The Tipping Point 337

9 .r * Contents Contents * xi ELLEN GOODMAN The Company Man 348 MARY GORDON More than Just a Shrine Ellis Island 351 STEPHEN JAY GOULD Women's Brains 351 WILLIAM HAZLITT On the Pleasure of Hating 365 EDWARD HOACLAND The Courage of Turtles 376 BARBARA HOLLAND Naps 384 LANGSTON HUGHES Salvation 389 ZORA NEALE HURSTON How It Feels to Be Colored Me 393 Pico IYER Nowhere Man 398 THOMAS JEFFERSON The Declaration of Independence 402 JAMAICA KINCAID On Seeing England for the First Time 411 MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Letter from Birmingham Jail 423 MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. / Have a Dream 440 BARBARA KINGSOLVER Stone Soup 445 MAXINE HONG KINGSTON On Discovery 454 ROBIN TOLMACH LAKOFF You Are What You Say 457 CHARLES LAMB A Bachelor s Complaint 465 D. II. LAWRENCE On Ben Franklin's Virtues 473 CHANG-RAE LEE Coming Home Again 477 ABRAHAM LINCOLN The Gettysburg Address 488 BARRY LOPEZ The Stone Horse 490 NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI The Morals of the Prince 501 NANCY MAIRS On Being a Cripple 510 KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS The Communist Manifesto 524 JOHN MCPIIEE from "The Encircled River" 533 H. L. MENCKEN Portrait of an Ideal World 543 HOWARD MINER Body Ritual Among the Nacirema 548 N. SCOTT MOMADAY The Way to Rainy Mountain 555 MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE Of Smells 562 GEORGE ORWELL Politics and the English Language 566 GEORGE ORWELL Shooting an Elephant 580 CYNTHIA OZICK The Seam of the Snail 588 ALEXANDER PETRUNKEVITCH The Spider and the Wasp 592 PLATO The Allegory of the Cave 598

10 .17/ * Contents Contents * xiii KATHERINE AWE PORTER The Necessary Enemy 60S ANNA QUNDLEN Between the Sexes, A Great Divide 609 RICHARD RODRIGUEZ Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood 613 SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS Under the Influence 634 Luc SANTE What Secrets Tell 648 CHIEF SEATTLE Speech on the Signing of the Treaty of Port Elliott 656 RICHARD SELZER The Masked Marvel's East Toehold 660 LEONARD SHLAIN NonverbalVerbal 666 LESLIE MARMON SILKO Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination 673 SUSAN SONTAG A Woman's Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source? 6S2 ELIZABETH CADY STANTON Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions 6S6 BRENT STAPLES Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space 690 SHELBY STEELE On Being Black and Middle Class 695 JONATHAN SWIFT A Modest Proposal 708 MARGARET TALBOT Les Tres Riches Heures de Martha Stewart 717 HENRY DAVID TIIOREAU Why I Went to the Woods 741 JAMES THURBER University Days 748 SojouRNER TRUTH Aren't I a Woman? 755 MARK TWAIN Reading the River 758 ALICE WALKER Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self 7(>2 EUDORA WELTY from "Listening" 771 E. B. WHITE Once More to the Lake 779 E. B. WHITE The Ring of Time 786 TOM WOLEE Only One Life 795 MARY WOLLSTONECRAET A Vindication of the Rights of Women 801 VIRGINIA WOOLE The Death of the Moth 805 VIRGINIA WOOLF Professions for Women 809 RICHARD WRIGHT Writing and Reading 815 Credits 829 Index 837 AMY TAN Mother Tongue 729 LEWIS THOMAS The Corner of the Eye 736