THE REFLECTIVE AND ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

In text-books on written English, a distinction is often drawn between the reflective and the argumentative essay. The first is primarily an exercise in contemplation upon any given subject, the second — an exercise testing your ability to discuss a problem, to argue for or against a proposition. In the first you rely more on your imagination and power of observation, in the second — on general knowledge. Because both these types present similar difficulties in writing, they are combined under one heading. However, the model essays which are included offer sufficient contrast in subject-matter and treatment to show you the difference. The variety to which this or that essay belongs is indicated in brackets, and the subjects which are set after each essay are representative of this particular variety.

Compared with the narrative and the descriptive essays, these are more difficult to write, not only because it is more difficult to arrange one's ideas logically, but also because one has to devote more thought and time to the collection of ideas relevant to the subject. Here a plan is essential.

The best way is probably to jot down ideas as they come into your head. Let us presume that your subject is The Value of Travel. You might have thought of the following:

1. Seeing how other people live.

2. Visiting places known from books.

3. Talking a foreign language.

4. Mountains.

5. Other people's customs.

6. Broadening one's mind.

7. Meeting interesting people.

8. National food.

9. Visiting the British Museum.

10. Seeing big cities like Moscow and New York.

11. Seeing hydroelectric power stations.

12. Getting to know one's country better.

Having put down all these ideas, you can now try to group them together and then arrange them in the order best suited for your purpose. You will find that your ideas naturally fall under five main headings.

1. Scenery.

2. Places of interest.

3. People: their customs, habits.

4. Getting to know one's country better.

5. Broadening one's mind.

The outline of the essay is now complete. All that you need is a paragraph introducing your subject.

There are a number of things against which you must guard, particularly in an essay of this kind. Remember that it is better to deal with only a few things in full rather than skip casually over many. If, for instance, in an essay on travelling you simply write that this gives you a chance to become acquainted with different national- customs and leave it at that, you will have said little of interest. But if you take one example and describe it, this will not only make your writing more vivid but will also convey some real information to the reader. Thus, rather than spreading out, concentrate and take care not to become too abstract.

Here is an example of a reflective essay.

On Beginning

By J. B. Priestley (abridged)

How difficult it is to make a beginning. I speak of essay-writing, an essentially virtuous practice, and not of breaking the Ten Commandments. It is much easier to begin, say, a review or an article than it is to begin an essay, for with the former you attach yourself to something outside yourself, you have an excuse for writing and therefore have more courage. If it is a review that has to be written, well, there, waiting for you, inviting your comment is the book. Similarly with an article, you have your subject, something that everybody is excited about, and thus you know what is expected of you and you can take up your pen with a light heart. But to have nothing to cling hold of, to have no excuse for writing at all, to be com­pelled to spin everything out of oneself, to stand naked and shivering in the very first sentence one puts down, is clearly a very different matter, and this is the melancholy situation in which the essayist always finds himself. It is true that he need not always be melancholy; if he is full of himself, brimming over with bright talk, in a mood to take the whole world into his confidence, the essayist will find his task a very pleasant one indeed, never to be exchanged for such drudge's work as reviews and articles; and he will step briskly on to the stage and posture in the limelight without a tremor. But such mo­ments are rare, and the essayist at ordinary times, though he would eagerly undertake to defend his craft, cannot quite rid himself of the feeling that there is something both absurd and decidedly impudent in this business of talking about oneself for money; this feeling haunts the back of his mind like some gibbering spectre, and it generally produces one of three ef­fects. According to his temperament, it will prevent him from doing anything at all that particular day or perhaps any other day, or it will allow him to write a few brilliant opening sen­tences and then shut up, or it will keep him from making a start until the last possible moment.

For my own part, I am one of those who find it difficult to begin; I stand on the brink for hours, hesitating to make the plunge; I will do anything but the work in hand. This habit is certainly a nuisance, but perhaps it is not quite so intolerable as that of some other persons, men of my acquaintance, who fall into the second category mentioned above and always find themselves making dashing openings and then coming to a stop. They will stare at what they have written, well pleased with it as an opening, and then discover that the flow has ceased, and horrible hours will pass, and perhaps many more dashing open­ings will have been made, before any real progress will have come about and their essay taken some sort of shape. Such writers seem to me even more unfortunate than I am, for I do at least go forward once I have made a beginning; as soon as I have summoned up courage to ring the bell 1 am at least admitted into the house of my choice, and am not, like these others, left kicking my heels in the vestibules of half a dozen houses perhaps without ever seeing the interior of any of them.

N o t e s

The Ten Commandments — the ten Mosaic laws: thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour, etc. (The Bible, Exodus, Ch. 20)

COMMENTS

The passage is an example of a reflective essay. Such es­says are developed through analysis, that is, one starts by breaking down the subject into parts, then groups the various ideas together and finally arranges them in an order best suited for one's purposes. Let us briefly exam­ine how the model essay is built up. Judging by the passage, the following sets of ideas occurred to the writer.

1. It is particularly difficult to make a beginning when one has to write an essay. It is easier to do this when one has to write something else, for instance an article or review.

2. There are specific difficulties connected with essay writ­ing."

3. Essayists have different temperaments, so each approaches the task in his own way.

4. How I feel and behave when I set about writing an essay.
These items are listed in the order in which they are dealt with in the text. From this list we can see that in the arrangement of his ideas the author worked from the general to the particular and from the impersonal to the personal.

He begins by stating the subject of his essay. This is done in the first two sentences: "How difficult it is to make a begin­ning. I speak of essay-writing, an essentially virtuous practice, and not of breaking the Ten Commandments”. These sentences provide the essay's organizing centre. Now clearly the author must explain what difficulties an essayist has to face when he sets himself the task of writing an essay. Here a com­parison with other literary genres is essential to justify the choice of the subject.

In an essay of the type we are discussing, the greatest amount of space is generally allotted to descriptions of the author's own thoughts, feelings, behaviour, etc., but in this case a purely subjective approach would have made the essay less convincing, and also less interesting. So the author first speaks of essayists in general, showing various reactions to the task, reactions which vary from person to person and to some extent depends on the writer's mood. This passage also helps to make a smooth transition to the personal part of the essay.

If you compare this essay with First Snow, you will find that they have much in common, both in the arrange­ment of the material and in the manner of the exposition. Here, too, the author aims at creating pictures in the reader's mind. To a great extent this is achieved through the use of metaphor based on concrete images: "to stand naked shivering and shak­ing in the very first sentence one puts down", "like some gib­bering spectre ..." Abstract nouns are used sparingly, words expressing very general ideas are avoided. The sentence struc­ture is here more complex than in First Snow, as befits the subject. The sentences are varied in length and structure, those which state the most important ideas being short (for example, the opening sentence). Thus the author produces a vivid and imaginative piece of writing, with humorous touches, mainly in the form of metaphors.

Exercise 3/1After you have studied the text and the comments carefully, write an essay of between 700 and 800 words, using one of the paragraphs given below as a beginning.

On Showing-Off.

In childhood, showing-off takes simple direct forms. A child asking you to look at him as he stands on his head expects (and usually gets) immediate praise. As we grow older we seem to get more cunning in our efforts to draw the attention of others to ourselves. Only a professional acrobat has to go to the length of standing on his head to win applause. Adults are capable of the subtlest forms of self-dispraise when they want to boast about their achievements. ...

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 937