My Response to "My Father's Life" and the enjoyability or lack of it

Though, Raymond Carver does present a story that is easily understandable, the theme of the essay throughout is vague. Carver's tone toward all the tragic events that occur contains ignorance and seems to be only a factual retelling. However, Carver may have purposely used such a placid tone to cause an emphasis on his one emotional attack where he suddenly begins crying. Although the tone is stylistically interesting, the tone does not please me. Many events remain vague and do not contain the necessary self-analysis, leading me to believe that Carver tries to be too optimistic about his father's kindness and greatness. The overall generality of these memories also affects the theme of his father’s greatness by causing the theme to be too fatalistically optimistic and undeveloped.  The most non-pleasurable facet of the essay is the contrast between the mood and tone of the essay. I, as a reader, felt appalled at Carver's father behavior and the memories presented. This mood caused me to be very angry and upset at Carver's great potential for mental insight. For an essay to be pleasurable to read, the essay needs to teach you something new, thus allowing for personal growth emotionally and mentally through another's experiences and insights.

My Personal Response to Rodriguez

      Richard Rodriguez’s intriguing style of writing adds to the interesting conflict between his public and private languages by emphasizing the eventual progression of, and opinions about, his struggle in a subtle manner. Rodriguez’s style appears during the nuns’ visit, where his troubled perception of the “intruders” who speak “gently” and “with great tact” is revealed (Rodriguez 283). These examples evidence Rodriguez’s implications of his early biased disdain for the public language and become interesting to me as I struggle to solve the mystery of the argument’s progression to an almost uncaring summarization and cryptic public “silence” (Rodriguez 285). The interest deepens as I connect to Rodriguez’s mental battle with societal languages, because of the similarities with his life and mine. I, too, am bilingual and was born in America, where I first learned Polish. However, unlike Rodriguez, I was assimilated into the English language in the hazy memories of my preschool years. Yet, more similarities appear between Rodriguez and I, as he becomes distanced from his parents. Rodriguez’s opinions and attitudes intrigue me, because of the foreign approach to a similar problem. This foreign, yet not too foreign, approach is necessary to cause interest.

Works Cited

Rodriguez, Richard. “Public and Private Language.” Life Studies. By David Cavitch. Seventh ed. Boston: Bedford/‌ St.Martin’s, 2001. 282-87. Print.