In this essay, I will delve into the interworking of a good essay. I will answer questions such as what constitutes an essay as ‘good’? In this essay will examine essays from the book The Best American Essays of the Century such as Total Eclipse by Annie Dillard and Alice Walker’s Looking for Zora. What constitutes these essays as some the best American essays throughout the century?
The most important criteria of a good essay is capturing the reader’s attention with a strong introduction paragraph. If your introduction is very attention grabbing the reader will continue to read and that is what you want. For example, the writer of “Total Eclipse”, Annie Dillard has a very interesting introduction paragraph. Even the first few lines arose curiosity …show more content…
Great details make things, places and people very easy to visualize and can even take the reader to another place. In “Total Eclipse” Annie Dillard provides a great description of a painting of clown that hung on the wall of her hotel room. Dillard says, “The clown was bald. Actually, he wore a clown’s tight rubber wig, painted white; this stretched over the top of his skull, which was a cabbage. His hair was bunches of baby carrots. Inset in his white clown makeup, and in his cabbage skull, were his small and laughing human eyes. The clown’s glance was like the glance of Rembrandt in some of the self- portraits: lively, knowing, deep, and loving. The crinkled shadows around his eyes were string beans. His eyebrows were parsley. Each of his ears was a broad bean. His thin, joyful lips were red chili peppers; between his lips were wet rows of human teeth and a suggestion of a real tongue. The clown print was framed in gilt and glassed.” …show more content…
In this essay, she takes a trip to find the grave of another great writer Zora Neale Hurston who died without the funds to have a proper burial. In this essay Walker tells the readers how vivid Hurston’s imagery is as her plane flies over Zora Hurston’s hometown as she says, “I recognize it from Zora’s description in Mules and Men: “the city of five lakes, three croquet courts, three hundred brown skins, three hundred good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools, and no jailhouse.” (395) Alice Walker feels as if she has been there before which good imagery does familiarizes whatever the author is
The most important criteria of a good essay is capturing the reader’s attention with a strong introduction paragraph. If your introduction is very attention grabbing the reader will continue to read and that is what you want. For example, the writer of “Total Eclipse”, Annie Dillard has a very interesting introduction paragraph. Even the first few lines arose curiosity …show more content…
Great details make things, places and people very easy to visualize and can even take the reader to another place. In “Total Eclipse” Annie Dillard provides a great description of a painting of clown that hung on the wall of her hotel room. Dillard says, “The clown was bald. Actually, he wore a clown’s tight rubber wig, painted white; this stretched over the top of his skull, which was a cabbage. His hair was bunches of baby carrots. Inset in his white clown makeup, and in his cabbage skull, were his small and laughing human eyes. The clown’s glance was like the glance of Rembrandt in some of the self- portraits: lively, knowing, deep, and loving. The crinkled shadows around his eyes were string beans. His eyebrows were parsley. Each of his ears was a broad bean. His thin, joyful lips were red chili peppers; between his lips were wet rows of human teeth and a suggestion of a real tongue. The clown print was framed in gilt and glassed.” …show more content…
In this essay, she takes a trip to find the grave of another great writer Zora Neale Hurston who died without the funds to have a proper burial. In this essay Walker tells the readers how vivid Hurston’s imagery is as her plane flies over Zora Hurston’s hometown as she says, “I recognize it from Zora’s description in Mules and Men: “the city of five lakes, three croquet courts, three hundred brown skins, three hundred good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools, and no jailhouse.” (395) Alice Walker feels as if she has been there before which good imagery does familiarizes whatever the author is