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Homework answers / question archive / Crafting the Personal Essay, Chapter 9, "Of Conflict" General posting guidelines this week: Please post a Primary Post in response to the discussion topic(s) below; as well as a thoughtful Reply to another person's post
General posting guidelines this week: Please post a Primary Post in response to the discussion topic(s) below; as well as a thoughtful Reply to another person's post. You may write your primary post and reply in either order. One post is now due by Friday, and one is due by Sunday. Each post is worth 10 points, for a total of 20 points.
To ensure a cordial style, please remember to greet your classmates and sign your name in your posts.
In Chapter 9, "Of Conflict," Dinty Moore discusses the importance of including some tension, problem, or form of conflict in one's essays. Moore also talks about how a good essayist needs to have "some fire in the belly" (Moore 104) in order to appeal to readers. Moore refers to 19th-century essayist William Hazlitt, whose essay "On the Pleasure of Hating" sparks readers' interest because not only does it suggest conflict as early as its title; it also shows the author's awareness of his own participation in the not-so-pleasant action of strongly disliking something.
After reading/reviewing Chapter 9, please respond to Moore's writing exercise on pp. 106-107: "'What else can you plug into that phrase, "On the Pleasure of __________' [ . . . ]?" In your post, please follow Moore's advice to (a) "back up your provocative title with tangible examples"; and (b) mention how you are complicit in the action that you're discussing (107). Please have fun with this exercise, but please take it seriously, too.
Citing your source(s): Please include in your post at least one specific reference to Chapter 9. Please refer to the guidelines in Format for Citing Sources in Your Writings.
Best wishes for contributing to this discussion!
Sincerely,
Jennifer Love
Work Cited
Moore, Dinty W. Crafting the Personal Essay: A Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 2010.
Essays are very complex things (when done correctly) and have so many nuances to them that it can be difficult just to remember all of them. "The center" of an individual's essay is usually "some question or problem that the writer is trying to solve", "seek[ing] an answer or solution...[or] to attempt to make sense of" that particular question (Moore 100). However, conflict is very important to an essay, as Moore continually points out in his book. An absence of conflict can make an essay "drift into static mode" and, while readers can "tolerate some wishy-washiness in" the final product, there should be a "distinct point-of-view" as the conflict is discussed/analyzed (Moore 100, 104). Of course, "not all conflict is based on philosophical or political disagreement", as Moore showcases an essay written by Joan Didion that features a "natural conflict" (this being the wind) that is present throughout her entire essay (Moore 108, 109). However, there needs to be some sort of conflict to create a well-rounded, complex essay.
One of Moore's exercises concerns the phrase "On the Pleasure of...", and he encourages the audience to see "what else" can be put in that "might encourage the reader to keep turning the pages" of this hypothetical essay (Moore 106). I think a title like "On the Pleasure of Inaction" would be provocative enough to keep the audience interested in continuing to read the essay (Moore 106). Some examples of this could include turning away from an uncomfortable situation rather than speaking out, continuing walking when seeing a crime instead of stepping in to help, or even letting a friend or sibling take the blame for something that you did (like taking the car out when you weren't supposed to). You could also pull out examples from history, particularly when mob mentality prevailed and many people watching did nothing to help their victims. I have been complicit in being inactive as well, as everyone finds themselves being at some point in their lives; sometimes, when I see a stranger drop something at the grocery store, I look away and pretend I didn't notice so I don't help them. It almost is an unconscious thing, when it happens, but it always makes me feel guilty that I didn't help that particular person. However, if I wrote an essay about this, I could talk about this guilt, and how, even when it feels crushing, the need to feel secure outweighs the need to take action.
