Assignment 8

Assignment 8

I wasn’t actually all that surprised by my fellow students reactions to Lifelike. We all seemed to formulate the same ideas and opinions about the article. For example, many of us were very confused about her decision to integrate many disturbing quotes into her essay and at the same time, compliment many of the taxidermists for their skillfulness, hard work, and dedication. This made her whole article very difficult to understand. Nobody knew what to think after reading through it. We did not know whether she gained an appreciation for taxidermy or whether she added those disturbing quotes so that her readers’ beliefs would be reconfirmed.  Additionally, she made many other writerly choices that raised a lot of questions. For instance, why did she write about the history of taxidermy, why did she write about the taxidermy site, why did she write about all the different people who take up taxidermy, or why did she make a biblical reference at the end of her essay? All these different writerly choices raised a lot of questions. Her reasons for doing any of this did not seem clear. But once I read Lifelike many times over and over, it finally started to make since. She wrote this article to support and promote taxidermy.

She did include in her essay many quotes that seemed very disturbing, but she only did this because she wanted to give an accurate description of the environment she was in. She also did not want to lose her credibility as an author. The New Yorker audience would probably be a lot less inclined to read her article if they knew she was biased. If her audience wanted a more biased article they would have chosen to read something written by the PETA organization or the NRA organization. But because she seems so impartial, she does not lose her credibility as an author. Despite the fact that she included these quotes, which may at first make her seem impartial, I think she was not being impartial and that she was promoting taxidermy through her writing.

There is one more thing I would like to comment on and that is that she wrote this paper because she simply loves to write. I listened to a speech she once gave to a group of people that is viewable on You Tube and in that speech she said that she loves to write because she loves telling stories and providing her readers with a more in depth look at whatever it is that she is writing about. Although, the internet can provide us with all the information we need to learn about anything, she can offer so much more. She can give us a beautifully written story filled with emotion and feeling, and not just a list of facts.