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Homework answers / question archive / Crafting the Personal Essay, Chapters 11 and 12 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "Raised Catholic" (Links to an external site
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In Chapter 11, "Writing the Spiritual Essay," Dinty W. Moore explains that writing a spiritual essay is about exploring one's internal conflict regarding faith or belief. Moore states, "Writing the spiritual essay is about discovering parts of your own self" (135).
After reading Chimamanda Adichie's "Raised Catholic," first, please briefly identify a way that you see Adichie "discovering parts of her own self" as she reflects on being raised in a Catholic tradition that she began moving away from as a teenager, but that she also retains an uneasy, yet sometimes proud, connection to.
Then, please briefly identify one of the prompts under "Your Spiritual Essay" on pp. 136-138 of Moore's book that interests you as a source for a spiritual essay of your own. Why does this prompt interest you, and how do you imagine exploring it in an essay?
Citing your source(s): If you refer specifically in your post to Adichie's essay or Moore's book, please cite your source(s). Please refer to the guidelines in Format for Citing Sources in Your Writings.
In Chapter 12, "Who Am I Today?" of Crafting the Personal Essay, Dinty Moore says, "One sure way to become as good a writer as you can become is to allow your self into the writing, to make room for that 'strong personal presence'" (151). Moore endorses honesty as one important source of a strong personal presence on the page.
Please choose one of the statements from the "Writing Exercise: The Myriad Self" on pp. 147-148 of Moore's book. Fill in the blank in your chosen statement, and use that passage to begin an essay where this strong sense of "you" is communicated to your readers. Please write a few sentences to a paragraph of your essay-in-progress that communicates this strong sense of you.
Citing your source(s): If you refer specifically in your post to Moore's book, please cite your source(s). Please refer to the guidelines in Format for Citing Sources in Your Writings.
Best wishes for contributing to this discussion!
In Chimamanda Adichie's essay "Raised Catholic", she discusses her upbringing in a Catholic household and how, as she grew older, she eventually drifted away from the faith she had been raised in. She asserts that she considers herself a person "raised Catholic rather than a person who is Catholic", but still retains "remnants of [her] tribal duty" to the faith itself (Adichie 2015). One of the reasons she eventually became disillusioned with her Catholic faith was seeing a "couple prohibited from receiving Holy Communion" because of their children's decisions, and she recalls feeling "puzzled and angered" for people ostracizing the couple (Adichie 2015). After this moment, she began searching for "more compassion, and less canon law", as she saw it as unjust for "how quick the Church" she grew up with moved "to ostracize and humiliate" others for seemingly stepping out of line (Adichie 2015).
Dinty Moore's selection of prompts concerning the spiritual essay are all great prompts, but the one I think is the most intriguing is the second one selected:
If you knew for sure that there was no Heaven or Hell, would you act differently in your life? (Moore 136)
This would be an interesting topic to explore, as the concepts of Heaven and Hell are so ingrained in many faiths that it would be jarring to realize that neither existed. Would it cause people to be less kind to each other, knowing there was no Hell to be damned to or no shining haven to retire to after life was over? How would doctrines compensate for the loss of Heaven and Hell; specifically, how would they dictate people lives their lives according to their faith? How would an individual grapples with the notion of the possibility of there being nothing after death (or another thing, other than Heaven or Hell)? You could take this prompt in so many different directions, and ask some pretty tough questions that may never have a sure answer to them.
For the writing exercise on pages 147-148, I would choose the following prompt:
I am a____when confronted with direct criticism (Moore 148).
If I were writing an essay answering this prompt, I would begin it like so:
I am an internal recluse when confronted with direct criticism. Now, this doesn't mean that I can't take criticism; most of me welcomes it, eager to get another pair of eyes on something I wrote that has no apparent bias. However, there is a part of me that doesn't like hearing criticism, in any way, shape, or form. It isn't malicious, oh no, it doesn't have a malicious bone in its abstract apparition of a concept. But it does bring with it a sense of guilt, of a shame for not seeing the mistakes already before. It makes much of me shy away internally, drawing back from the criticism as if it had been burned. It tells me to retreat back to the drawing board, to avoid other eyes that might see the same mistakes my own failed to perceive. Phrases become stilted, eye contact remains fixed but stiff, and a slow burn of anger directed solely at myself begins to filter through me.
Is this side of me annoying? Oh yes. Completely. Utterly impossible to shake loose. A thorn in my side, a ghostly migraine that never fails to irritate whenever it arises.
Is this side of me only useful in causing stress? In an unbelievable way, no, it isn't.
This would be the opening of the essay I would do if I were discussing this particular topic.
