How Doctors Die by Ken Murray (2012)

In How Doctors Die Ken Murray, a retired physician and an avid writer for Zocalo Public Square, explains how the average death of a doctor is different than that of most patients.  People never really think of how doctors die because they seem like a golden image of perfect health, but it is not true, they are simply like everyone else.  One difference is that they seem not to cling to life as often as the average patient.  This is the idea that Murray tries to delve into in this essay.  What Murray explains is that doctors understand modern medicine.  This does not mean that they know the best treatments and medicines to use, but instead they know its limitations.  Doctors often see the hell that patients go through clinging for life.  All of this experience leads most of them to decide not to go through the same process when their time comes.  This is what Dr. Murray is trying to offer up to people, mainly the average person, who is mature enough to consider the idea of death.  His whole reasoning is to share the idea that he knows well, that living through a machine is not really living.  In the essay, Murray uses the irony of the whole situation as a way of highlighting his point.  The fact that the most specialized medical personnel often seek less treatment than that of the average person is surprising.  That gets the reader thinking that if this is true then there must be a driving reason, something that they know that the average person doesn’t.  That basic idea is enough to show that he is not the only one that has this idea but that it is much more common, and that the people who should be the biggest experts, are doing the opposite of the common man.

Quality or Quantity?
http://www.famousbloggers.net/choose-quality-quantity-blogging.html

A Personal Essay by a Personal Essay by Christy Vannoy (2011)

Although Christy Vannoy is one of the least accomplished authors to be featured in The Best American Essays, essentially having only a column to her name at the time of publishing these compilations, she still crafts a beautiful essay.  Her essay, A Personal Essay by a Personal Essay, is a satire on the personal essays that appear quite commonly in women’s magazines.  This essay is meant to exemplify how the majority of the personal essays in these magazines are getting over adversity, and how they are essentially all the same.  These stories, although terrible, happen to many people and they are not very rare.  Her point though is not that there are many hardships in the world, but something entirely different.  She is not trying to say that there are a lot of hardships in the modern age, because that is obvious, but she instead is trying to say how all of these authors try and one up each other.  She positions the essay behind a cocky personal essay who has been through the wringer before.  The essay has submitted many other essays and is a veteran who is just sitting back and watching the rookies.  The essay listens to everyone else’s hardships and simply tries to one up them acting as if all of their hardships are a dime a dozen, and saying that their writing skills are subpar.  All together Vannoy writes this essay for a laugh from an older audience that is able to understand the fact that she is joking and that shares the same views about the essays in women’s magazines.  Without her satirical position on this issue, though, she would give off a completely different air.  Instead of one of comedy and of ridicule it would be one of hardship, and that is why her tone is so important.  Without it her point would not get across, but with it the point is easy to understand and the essay comes across beautifully.

Drawing Hands
M. C. Escher

The Good Short Life by Dudley Clendinen (2012)

Death is one of the most taboo topics that there is.  It is looked at as something to be depressed about and the low point of life, as it is the end.  However, Dudley Clendinen offers a somewhat different perspective on the issue.  With Lou Gehrig’s disease showing him that death is close he chooses to embrace that fact and just let his life finish gracefully.  The aging journalist had dealt with , and done much in his short life.  He had worked everywhere from newspapers to universities to even writing books on his own.  He had also dealt with some things most people don’t have to such as alcoholism and his homosexuality, but his inability to be ignorant to his coming death gave him experience like nothing else.  This chance to know what was coming allowed him to accept death and see things in it that not many others can.  The fact that he knew that he would die soon allowed him to think of many things that his readers, who still probably have decades on their lives, never would accept.  He tries to get across that death should not be something taboo but something that is just as interesting as any other subject.  One way that he tries to do this is by his general tone throughout the essay.  Even in something as depressing as his death he is able to be thankful and in general cheery about the whole situation.    This point is that death is not something that should be so depressing.  It should not be the topic that is never discussed because it will appear for everyone and there is no point in dragging it out.  When the time has come it has come, and in the eyes of the grim wisdom that can be see no other ways is gained.

Death at the Door
http://beingsakin.wordpress.com/page/40/

What Really Happened by Madge McKeithen (2011)

What Really Happened is an odd, unique twist on a story.  Instead of the common narrative format Madge McKeithen chooses to direct her speech at the reader, acting as if they are the ones committing all of the acts throughout her essay.  At first this method seems confusing, which shows that it is for an older, educated audience, but as the story continues it starts to make more sense.  This less published author shows that with a creative, well-executed idea, it does not matter the experience.  Her unique form of writing leaves many questions though throughout the essay; some of which are never answered.  Her reason for writing this essay is to show the fact that some things are impossible to get over, and that they can even be impossible to get closure for.  This is shown through the traumatic story of someone whose close friend from childhood was murdered, and the main characters quest for answers from the murderer.  The essay is a list of the things that need to be done to see the murderer, not only the necessities, but also the simple tasks that go along with them.  It is as if the reader has a lens in which to see the thoughts, and the inner workings, of the victim’s friend.  The author’s odd way of writing the story allows the reader to see something different than if it was just a narrative.  The fact that McKeithen directs all of the information as if it is the reader’s thoughts allows them to feel closer and to feel more of an emotional tie.  This helps tremendously in getting her point across because instead of the feeling that the reader is on the outside simply looking in, they instead feel as if they are directly connected to the main character and that makes the emotional feel twice as strong.

Jail Visitors' Cell Phones
http://prisoncellphones.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jail-visitors-cell-phones.jpg

Unprepared by Jerald Walker (2011)

Although many stories have creative hooks Unprepared’s is very unique.  It starts off with the author, Dr. Jerald Walker head of Emerson’s Writing, Literature and Publishing Department, recounting a memory from his childhood in Chicago’s South Side in the early ‘80s.  This memory is of a ride he took from a man when he was young, where the man offered him money in exchange for a sexual favor.  From the beginning Walker shows that this story is not for a young audience.  With its explicit language and use of a mature topic it’s plain to see that it’s directed towards an audience that is mature enough to see it as simply a method to convey a larger message.  From there he jumps to a topic that seems almost entirely different, the topic of murders.  He uses the fact that he thought that he was safe just as another boy in Atlanta may have thought the same thing, but was mistaken.  He then explained how it was among other serial murders and that the biggest surprise about them were that a man of African American decent had committed them.  He explains how there was backlash because there was no way that the man killing many young African American boys could be black, and that the murderer must have been some crazy, white Klu Klux Klan member.  He also says that not only is there no way a black man is doing this to other blacks but that this is simply not a thing that black people do.  He then comes back full circle to the fact that he was in the car with the man but he refused the money and he refused to give the sexual favor, and this was confusing because it seemed as if it strayed from his driving point.  Before, it seemed as if he was trying to state that unexpected and quite possibly negative events might occur.  His full circle ending on the other hand contradicted his point but he still left the idea that you may be unprepared for things that are unexpected.

Unexpected Preparation
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_jun2012/UnexpectedPreparation.jpg