Katherin Anne Porter's "The Future is Now" analysis

Katherine Anne Porter, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, wrote The Future is Now in the midst of a worldwide fear of death by bombs. Porter was no exception to this fear in the beginning of the essay, though she slowly reached the realization that death is inevitable and our fear of it only distracts from life. Thoughts and messages about the possibility of a bomb dropping and eradicating human existence ran feverishly through the veins and the interworking’s of American society. People like Katherine Anne Porter were vulnerable to such overwhelming fears which sadly led them to cower instead of rightfully living their lives to the fullest. Porter discovered this flaw and wrote The Future is Now to explain the shortsighted nature of humans fearing death instead of living life. Her purpose was to show people that they should not always be afraid and they should not let fear stop them from doing the things that they love. Porter wrote this for anyone who allows fear to hold them back from life. One strategy she used to support her point was parallelism. On the second page of her essay, Porter wrote, “all that effort and energy so irreproachably employed were not going to be wasted on a table that was to be merely used for crawling under”. She then stated on the next page that, “he was not preparing a possible shelter […] he was restoring a beautiful surface”. She successfully uses these two statements to show how life can be so much more enjoyable without the constant irrelevant fear which innerlaced society at that time. At first, she described the man’s task as almost futile in that he would be using the table for nothing more than shelter, but later she eliminated the sense of fear and he was thus enjoying himself while crafting a beautiful piece of furniture. This parallel greatly helps support her purpose in writing this story and allows the reader to see the great impact her suggestions may have on their lives.

(image from flickriver.com)

This image depicts someone cowaring under a table as Porter expected the man across the street to be doing woth his table.

Rachel Carson's "The Marginal World" analysis

The Marginal World by Rachel Carson is a descriptive essay about the beautiful wonders of the ocean and its many inhabitants. Carson, a marine biologist and writer, used this essay to describe the breathtaking images she encountered in and around a natural pool in the early hours of the morning. Rachel Carson wrote about the incredible natural wonders she witnessed on her short journey and described all of the little details of the morning that built up to an amazing encounter with nature. Carson’s purpose in writing this essay was to show the reader through incredible and noteworthy imagery the beauty of the natural world which people often overlook. She wanted to show people all of the extraordinary things they can witness by simply walking through a forest or exploring quaint subsets of the great ocean through her extensive detail in writing. Carson wrote this essay for the many people who are so close to nature yet still so detached from all of its magnificence. Through her outstanding description, she is able to virtually transport the reader into another world. One amazing example of her imagery is evident as she states, “When I looked out into the early morning the sky was full of a gray dawn light but the sun had not yet risen. Water and air were pallid.” In a work like this, she makes the reader feel like they are somewhere else. With her use of the senses in this specific quote, sight and feeling, she enables the reader to feel what she is feeling. I found that this extensive amount of imagery allowed me as the reader to understand where she was and how she felt, without even being there. This helped me to further understand her purpose and to a certain extent, agree with what she was saying. 

(image from http://www.charlottecellularrepair.com)

This image shows people distracted by their phones. Although there were no phones at the time this essay was written, it is similar to how people are distracted from nature then and now.

Robert Frost's "The Figure a Poem Makes" analysis

The Figure a Poem Makes by Robert Frost explores the true purpose of a poem and what a poet should strive to accomplish in writing one. Frost was a teacher and a lecturer as well as a very successful and influential poet. He won four Pulitzer Prizes for his outstanding work. In this essay, Frost explained what he believed is the reason for writing and reading poems. He wrote that poetry should be used to share knowledge and insight that can last lifetimes. Frost expressed the idea that poems should be eternal in that their teachings remain relevant and useful for many years after they are written. The purpose of the essay was to share that idea with others and hopefully inspire people to write better poems, not only for entertaining the audience, but also to teach them something important. Frost wrote this essay with other writers and poets as the intended audience. He wanted them to understand that they should write with the same emotion that they wish the audience of their writings to feel as they read them. To prove his point, Frost uses rhetoric devices such as analogies. In the third page of his essay, Frost states, "Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.” He used this specific analogy to help the reader understand how a poet should be written with ease and that worry will not help to get it anywhere. While reading this essay I personally found that Robert Frost was incredible at using rhetoric to support his point. While I would have appreciated a wider variety of devices instead of only comparisons, I was fully convinced of Frost’s point and I believe that this work influenced me in a significant way. As a writier, it taught me the importance of writing with passion and emotion, which is what I think Frost was trying to accomplish.

(image from 95percent.com)

This image is of a heart draw on paper to show how Frost wants writers to write with their heart and their feelings in their work.