BBS First Year 2020

BBS First Year

New Course 2019

English

Patterns for College Writing

A Rhetorical Reader and Guide

Laurie G. Kirszner

Stephen R. Mandell

Online Class: Day 7

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I Want a Wife-Judy Brady

In "I Want a Wife" by Judy Brady, the author talks about all of the duties she does as a wife and a mother and then goes on to talk about how she wants someone to do the duties for her. The author wants a wife because she wants to be able to be as independent as her husband.

In this piece of writing, the author is somewhat bitter over everything that she is expected to do as a wife. She takes care of the children, takes care of the home and takes care of her husband. The speaker wants more time for herself and wants to be able to be an independent woman. Her desire for a wife comes after a recently divorced male friend lists everything that he needs a wife to do for him. She laments that she is expected to cook, clean, take care of the children and please her husband in a romantic way. She no longer wants to do these things and wants to live a life where she has her own wife. When she is tired of that wife, she will begin to look for a new one who will take over all of the duties of the previous wife.

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BBS First Year

New Course 2019

English

Patterns for College Writing

A Rhetorical Reader and Guide

Laurie G. Kirszner

Stephen R. Mandell

Online Class: Day 6

“I Want A Wife”

(Summary)

-Judy Brady

The essay “I Want A Wife” by Judy Brady, is a very intense essay written by a great feminist writer of her time. The essay was written in 1971, and is about how a wife should conduct herself in the eyes of a male figure. When the essay was written, it had a great impact on the feminist movement of the early 1970’s. Many male figures of the time heckled and despised her essay, but for the women of the 1970’s it was a huge step towards their own freedom from what, at the time, was considered the norm.

The tone of this essay is serious, but at the same time can be conceived as humorous, sarcastic, and even dramatic. It may have not have seemed very serious to men at the time, but woman could relate to this essay in more than one way. Brady uses ethos throughout the essay, but the first sentence is a good example of how she uses her own credibility by saying, “I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am a wife. And, not altogether incidentally, i am a mother.” This sets the tone for who she is, and is the best example of ethos in the essay. Brady also uses logos in her essay, and has very logical arguments throughout the essay. One of her logical arguments, I found in the essay, is how men expect to much from their wives. Brady shows this by listing all of the responsibilities expected from a mother and wife. The list she provides is rather mind-boggling, and proves that some of the things men require are just to demanding. Another form of the rhetoric triangle Brady uses is the pathos reasoning. She uses this emotional reason throughout the entire essay. Every sentence she writes is an emotionally charged description of what men expect from their women, and how she believes this isn’t the way woman should live their lives.

Brady also uses many different forms of writing throughout her essay. One form she uses in her essay is figurative language. She uses this in the second paragraph of her essay when she says, “As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would like to have a wife” (Brady). After that she begins to explain, with great irony, why she wants a wife, and how wives should act in a seemingly man’s world. Brady also uses a form of writing called anaphora throughout her essay. “I want a wife who”, is used at the beginning of many sentences throughout her essay. This is meant to keep emphasizing that a wife is meant to do all these things. Although, most of the things she lists in the essay are made to be humorous, and she really believes that women aren’t meant to have such a heavy load. Brady also uses hyperbole’s in her essay to exaggerate her points. One example of this is when Brady says, “I want a wife who will take care of the details of my social life.” This is an obvious and intentional exaggeration of what is expected of a wife, since most men are usually in control of their own social lives, but it is meant to show how some woman feel that they are being used to much by their husbands.

My favorite part of this essay comes near the end, where Brady has gone over all the things men expect, and ends with a clever yet humorous ending. Brady said: “I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and     eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied. And, of course, I   want a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it. I want a wife who assumes complete responsibility for birth control, because I do not want more children. I want a wife who will remain sexually faithful to me so that i do not have to clutter up my intellectual life with jealousies. And I want a wife who understands that my sexual needs may entail more than strict adherence to monogamy. I must, after all, be able to relate to people as fully as possible. If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh new life; My wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free. When I am through with school and have a job, I want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties. My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?”

I think Brady put this at the end because it was such a powerful ending. After all the things that men require out of their women, in the end they can just replace them with someone more suitable? I believe this was the most serious part of her essay, and believe she achieved in reaching women of that era.

Now, instead of men trying to make their wives do things for them, they hire maids to do their tasks instead. If i, personally, could hire someone to do certain jobs for me the list could seem almost limitless! Although, in all honesty, I would probably hire someone to walk the dog, make dinner two or three nights a week, and fix things when they broke in the house. These are all things that I do on my own know, but it would be nice to have someone around, that I hired, to help with the tiny things in life. In the end, Judy Brady was a very influential feminist of her time, and will be remembered through the years by her amazing essay, “I Want A Wife.”

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BBS First Year

New Course 2019

English

Patterns for College Writing

A Rhetorical Reader and Guide

Laurie G. Kirszner

Stephen R. Mandell

Online Class: Day 1 & 2

“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”

-Amy Chua

About the author

Amy Chua was born in 1962, in Champaign, Illinois.  She graduated from Harvard College in 1984 and Harvard Law School in 1987.  While at Harvard Law School, Professor Chua was executive editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, she clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C.

Amy’s first book, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, a New York Times bestseller, was selected by both The Economist and the U.K.’s Guardian as one of the Best Books of 2003.  She’s also the author of the 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a runaway international bestseller translated into 30 languages, and The Triple Package, a 2013 New York Times bestseller coauthored with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld.

In 2011 Amy was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, an Atlantic Monthly Brave Thinker, and one of Foreign Policy‘s Global Thinkers of 2011. She also received the Yale Law School’s “Best Teaching” award.

Summary

“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is a comparison and contrast essay. In this essay, the author, Amy Chua, explains that Chinese children are more successful in their life than Western children. Chinese Children are more intelligent and smart. She also compares the different ways of raising children through short stories and gives examples from her life.

Chua claims that Western mothers have an attitude that “stressing academic is not good for children”. They think that kids need to develop the concept of learning different things because it is helpful to them. By contrast, Chinese parents think totally differently and they think that “academic success reflects successful parenting” (Chua).  If a child has any problem in his/her grades a Chinese mother spends plenty of time of her daily life to make his/her child “superior” in the class. In Chinese mothers dictionary there is no word for giving up, whereas Western parents do-not want to put pressure and force on their children to achieve or pursue things.

Chua says that when she was young her father called her “garbage” in their language when she misbehaves to her mother. She feels guilt from the bottom of her heart and agrees that she does something bad to her mother. She also thinks that her parents care about her and the word “garbage” is not going to hurt her self-respect. By contrast, she does the same thing to her daughter Sophia at dinner party in front of her other Western friends. Her friends think that Chua behavior is really bad towards her daughter and they leave the party. In fact, the only difference between the Chinese parents and Western is that Chinese parents can tell everything to their children and they never take it negatively. If the same thing happens to any Western children the reaction is going to be the opposite and they end up with getting “negative self-image”.

According to Chua, “Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything”. Chinese mother gives her full time and devotion to raise children. Chinese parents think that they sacrifice their life and time for their children therefore children need to repay and obey their parents in their whole life. By contrast, Westerners do-not have the same point of view. Chua gives an example of her husband, Jed, who says, “Children don’t choose their parents” (Chua). He is trying to tell her that parent wants children for their life and they raise them because they want them to get successful in their life. They teach everything to them for themselves; “Kids don’t owe their parents anything” (Chua). She was shocked and totally bold from his husband’s reaction.

Chua says Chinese parents want to train their children differently. Therefore, they restrict them in certain areas, so they can be more focused in their academic life. Chinese think that if children are not able to achieve their goals, then there is a lack of practice and effort behind it. She tells a short story in her article about her youngest daughter, Lulu, in favoring Chinese manner of raising children. When Lulu was 7 years old, she plays two instruments and she has to prepare a music piece “The Little White Donkey” on piano for her recital (Chua). The piece is very difficult to play on piano for a 7 year old child.  Lulu is not able to do it because “the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms” (Chua). She is really working hard over and over on it, but she is not able to do it. She gets frustrated and tears the book and says again and again to her mother (Chua) that she does not want to do it. Chua threatens her and tells her she has to do it anyhow and she is not going to give her any food, water and no permission to go to bathroom until she finishes the piece.

At the same time, Jed, Chua husband, is watching the whole scene and he takes her aside and tells to Chua, please stop threatening her. It is not good for her, but Chua thinks that by giving Lulu punishment she is motivating her to learn the piece perfectly. After a short discussion with Jed, she goes back to Lulu and uses every technique to convince her to practice more and more to learn the piece in a correct mode. Then, suddenly, Lulu does it and she plays it over and over to become stronger and play it faster, in a right tempo.  On the day of recital, she plays it really well and each person gives her compliments. Even, Jed agrees that by not giving up she makes Lulu much more self-assured and faultless in her work.

In conclusion, Amy Chua says Western parents also want their children to become more successful. They care about their self-respect, independence, and try to motivate them to make their own dreams fulfill; also they admire and respect their children decision. By contrast, the Chinese parents believe that they have a good sense of choosing right directions for their children. They prepare and help them to build up their self-confidence for the future, so they become more successful and no one can take away the confidence and success from their children life.