Analysis of A Personal Essay by A Personal Essay by Christy Vannoy

This essay was about the author, who wrote about herself, briefly describing a hard past, which included abuse and sodomy by her mother. As an adult writer, she remembers being in a room with others who had written essays, and judging each essay based on how hard the person's life had been. If their life had been hard, she seemed to give a positive response. If their life hadn't been so hard, or they didn't seem to show as many signs of a struggle throughout, she would scoff at them mentally, knowing that their essay wouldn't be considered by the editor to be published. It seemed that the purpose of this essay was to demonstrate exactly how much scrutiny an essay goes through before being published, and what kind of material an editor would be looking for.

The story would be written for an audience of writers or readers. The writers would want to know what would pass the bar, or get published, and the readers would already make the connection that hardship makes for a more interesting story. One device that the author used was to refer to the people as essays, not people, almost as if to say that they were no more important or interesting than what their essay said about them. I believe that the author did achieve her purpose, as she showed her responses to other people's essays and how an editor would critique them.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/2978965707_93538e7cb6.jpg

This picture helps to emphasize the time and care that goes into a person's personal essay, as they might be up until very late at night working on it.