Jameson-UFG+Reflection


 * Reflection: UFGP Satiric Essay**

Again, I am pretty satisfied with the essay I wrote for this assignment, probably more so than the first. I finished the initial draft and after proofreading it in class, I used the feedback to re-write it. It needed to have more humor, and the hyperbole needed to be amped up a bit, so it didn’t seem so serious. One of the people I asked to read the original draft didn’t think it was satirical enough because, they saw merit in some of the ideas I was trying to make look silly, so I tried to exaggerate some of the points even more, but I didn’t want to get too ridiculous either. I decided to start fresh because in re-reading it, I realized I had too large a scope, and was trying to include the war on poverty as well as unemployment, and it made more sense to focus on one or the other. The second draft ended up taking several themes from the original, but only a couple of sentences survived the transition intact.

I think the first thing that I overlooked initially was that there was a distinct difference between a satiric essay and satire, and while they work in similar ways there are subtle differences that go along with the differences in form that distinguish monologues from essay and essay from narrative and so forth. The most challenging part was trying to maintain a level of humor, while still being somewhat serious. I find the idea that poor/unemployed are lazy as ridiculous, dismissive and inhumane and it was important that I got that across as well. The genre requires colorful word choice as well, as it’s another thing that keeps the text from becoming boring. After I finished the first draft, and re-read it I discovered that writing a satiric essay was harder than I thought it would be.

As far as feedback goes, I would like to know whether the essay contains enough humor. Humor is subjective, to an extent, so I’d like your opinion of what works, and what doesn’t. Where does the essay get boring, where does it need more humor, etc.? I care most about what a reader thinks about the content. As usual, I am not so worried about grammar.