The little differences

Ellen Goodman is a retired journalist who has written two amazing articles. Those articles are A Celebration of the Emotions and Nine-Year Olds, Meet Monet. Each of these articles have different topics, the only similarity at first glance would be the author. That similarity can be quite important and when going through the pieces the writing style and tone sounds familiar. That is the imprint writers leave on their work, their own personal touch or style that can be seen throughout all of their work. The similarities between the two columns are noticeable due to the Goodman imprint. Those similarities are in the tone of writing, which is irony. Both of these columns display ironic situations. In Nine-Year Old Meets Monet, the irony is that children who are taught to conform and adhere to the unspoken rules of society are going to see a non-conformists work. Monet was a free spirit and that is exactly what these kids arent. The piece describes the socialization of children at a young age and how it is ironic that while they are taught not to be selfish its the selfish people that usually produce the greats works of art the world admires. We train selfishness out of them. Yet, ironically, some of who resist, like the artists, may end up giving the most to others. The product of the most egotistical self-expression may become a generous gift available on the museum wall or the library shelf(last paragraph page two) A Celebration of the Emotions also has a very ironic tone despite being a persuasive essay. This irony stems from the fact that while people who choose have children later in life do so with a rational mind, they make rational decisions and the irony is that there is nothing rational about having a child. While A

Celebration of the Emotions is a persuasive essay it is not only persuading the reader to wait to have children, but to also remember that some of out most primitive, deepest instinctual human emotions also give life(last paragraph line 3,4). The similarities between the two pieces are the level of irony used and while the pieces arent the same the tone is recognizable. The differences between these two essays are the types of essays that they are. Nine-Year Olds Meet Monet is a narrative essay while A Celebration of the Emotions is a persuasive essay. While the difference in the type of essay it is, is the most obvious difference there are many other differences. The obviousness of the tone of the essays is more difficult to detect in A Celebration of the Emotions. In Nine-Year Olds Meet Monet the irony is very thickly laid. Goodman drags your attention to it very intentionally with her diction. In A Celebration of the Emotions that tone is very difficult to notice because it is a persuasive essay. Throughout the essay Goodman speaks of the pros of waiting longer to have a child. She talks about how people are more rational when they are older and use reason as their number one decision-making tool. The rational mind reigns supreme as you get older and that is why most couples wait longer to choose to have a child. Goodman leads the audience on in that way and then proceeds to subtly display the irony of that thinking. Paragraph ten in A Celebration of the Emotions is the perfect example of how she does that but the fact is that after all the parent tests are taken, after all the pros and cons are calibrated, after all the timers are set, the desire for children is fundamentally and humanly that. A desire. This displays the stark difference is the obviousness of the tone in the two essays.

These two columns are speaking of two different things but they have similarity simply because of who wrote them. The Writers imprint was seen in the irony of the essays and the differences was in the level of irony that the reader could identify if the reader could identify it at all. Little differences like those can be tremendous in the effect they have on the audience, people react differently when they understand the differences or if they dont. Peoples reactions would be very different if they understood the irony in those two columns or not, more people might like them or not like them. These little differences are also a part of the writers imprint. Ellen Goodman did a beautiful job expressing her views through her columns with the subtly placed ironic undertone or the blaringly loud use of irony.