Dear K,
Here are the comments you requested. Please note that this is the kind version. For the more critical version, please visit during office hours.
Paragraph 1: There is no argument “in” the story. The narrator never makes reference to any debate. He, in fact, is very clear about what he wants to say, regardless of how often you ignore his message. It is we, the readers, who have devised this argument to discuss the story according to our own terms. Indeed, being granted the status of witness to what is going on in this tale, we should never confuse, conflate or degenerate what the narrator says with what interpretation the reader, by dint of his or her leering stare, bestows it. Also, the Châtelaine never speaks to the duke. They are, in fact, occupants of two separate epochs.
Paragraph 2: You paraphrase too much and sound desperate to have your tirades taken as truth, when all you procure is a sloppy begging for critical heroism. However, the last sentence is good. What a shame you do not capitalize on it. This would have been a good place to point up the difference between “ideal” and “real” and how social pressures set these optics against each other.
Paragraph 3: Again, too much paraphrasing of the story. What you are saying, in effect, is that you agree with what the narrator says at the end of the story. Wow—agreeing with a fictional character. What’s next, establishing a cult of Bovarism? You begin to offer a good criticism, pointing out that the chevalier is basically selfish; but are you not being just a bit unfair to him? After all, what choice did he have? Let’s not forget he is not real!
General: I think you would have written a better essay had you relinquished your throne of critical clericalism. Next time, maybe stick to one aspect of the chevalier’s character: his seemingly selfish response to the duke’s ultimatum. This is an exploitable psychological dimension to the story that would have, if treated properly, supported your agreeing with the narrator and a readerly enjoyment of your writing.
Grade: ?
Dear M, (You are adorable…No worries, I mean that in a Bukowski sort of way),
Paragraph 1: Good start—such a quantifiably virile introduction into the rhetorical questions begging to be answered. It’s impressive how you’ve worked yourself rather adroitly into the mirror of my skull. With such a beginning however, you must now show quickly and convincingly that you have in fact read the story differently from the others, for to let starve the idea of what you seem to be saying is to obliterate that idea from its own idea of itself through your eyes.
Paragraph 2: I’m not sure how you can enjoy reading a story about false hopes peopled by a selfish chevalier. Are you referring to someone of our mutual acquaintance? I do understand, post homunculusly, what you are saying and there is a logical progression to your backward stepping approach; but I think you are trying to say too much and arrive at saying too little of worth. The result is that you leave behind why you enjoyed reading this story and enter into an idea that is purely literary and does not at all reflect the idea that “we” have, or at least that I have, of what a chevalier might or might not be like in the real world. In short, I’m not sure where to locate this idea: fact or fantasy.
Paragraph 3: This is an interesting paragraph, in the way you have drawn a parallel between your situation and that of the chevalier (Do you ride?). I would note, however, that although the action was the same (revealing a secret), and the consequences remotely similar (hopefully your former boyfriend did not expire from grief) you neglect to give due credit to the context in which each decision was made. The question in my mind is: Was your choice wrought with the impossibility of a reconciled outcome as was that of the chevalier or are you just thinking of me in a Bukowski sort of way?
General: I like what you want to say in this essay (life and art do most certainly interact when you cast your smile my way), and I think you did a good job of structuring your approach by using parallels in the form of rhetorical questions/answers. Also, the one sentence that sticks out as the most poignant (if you didn’t reveal the secret, you might not have recognized how deeply you feel for your boyfriend, para.3) seems to me the most exploitable in terms of writing this essay. This is the heart of the ironic experience, at least I think so in your case. I think then, that if you had concentrated on this one aspect of the shared situation, you would have written a better essay and concluded it with your telephone number. Any revisions you make need to be done in my office after closing time.
Grade: BB+AA+
Umbriate Press Poetry 