The Decline and Fall of the English Major by Verlyn Klinkenborg
This piece reinforces the importance of writing and humanities classes in an eloquent and expressive style. The author is a professor, clearly well equipped in vernacular and experience, who has seen a decline of students wanting to take up humanities courses that focus on creative writing. She expresses that the usefulness of an english degree is overshadowed by what have been deemed “useful majors”; majors which focus on a skill that will assure a good job in the future. Klinkenborg expresses that an English major is about as useful as a major can get, as it focuses on the human experience and how we learn from one another. I completely agree with her. I do think that taking wiring classes in order to gain deeper knowledge of oneself and the society in which we exist is helpful, as well as learning about the different voices and trials of generations past. However, I do not think that declaring an English major purely in the pursuit of this loose philosophy she implies is necessary for all. Some people hold no stock in human experience and seek out material possession and to that I can only say; “To each their own”. It is important to seek deeper meaning from your own existence and to know the minds of great thinkers and writers because it can draw you to conclusions about your own mental state and ideals. However if people chose to be ignorant of this practice I’d say let them be. I love learning about writing and reading the works of talented writers but I would not force it on those who don’t share the passion, the same way I would hope to not have mathematics forced upon me (though it has been). I think the main point of the author is to consider you literacy as a tool to better understand people and to pursue the art of literature if that is the path you wish to follow. She makes a compelling and colorful case in the necessity of English classes and certainly convinced me to pick up more books.
A Letter to My Mother That She Will Never Read by Ocean Vuong
This letter has the qualities of a a beautiful painting. As beautiful as the words are, the images they conjure are far more powerful. This is the story of a mother forging her son, be it though physical punishment or bits of wisdom and experience. The words are fluid and the thoughts are filled with thick descriptions that put the reader right where is being described, but the thoughts are jumbled. The essay reads like there are tears in the eyes of the author, that this stream on consciousness is a recollection of all his mother had given and shown him. I could help but read this in a poetic cadence, every stanza was so ripe with imagery and context for the mother and son relationship that my mind kept speeding up to find the inevitable conclusion. The cultural overlap is what is on display here; the difference of ideal and morals in two very different cultures, and the objective eye of one born to both. There are so many twists and turns to keep discovering in this piece and every realization solidifies the tumultuous and bipolar relationship.
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