Anker Susan. Real Essays with Readings with 2009 MLA Update
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817
49
Comparison and Contrast
Each essay in this chapter uses comparison and contrast to get its main
point across. As you read these essays, consider how they achieve the
four basics of good comparison and contrast that are listed below and
discussed in Chapter 16 of this book.
FOUR BASICS OF GOOD COMPARISON
AND CONTRAST
1.
It uses subjects that have enough in common to be usefully
compared and contrasted.
2. It serves a purpose — either to help readers make a decision or
to understand the subjects.
3. It presents several important, parallel points of comparison
and contrast.
4. It is organized either point by point or whole to whole (see
pp. 255–56).
■ IDEA JOURNAL
Compare your at ti-
tudes to those of an
older person in your
family.
Dave Barry
The Ugly Truth about Beauty
According to the New York Times, humorist Dave Barry is “the funni-
est man in America.” Born in 1947 in Armonk, New York, Barry earned
a B.A. from Haverford College. He then worked for several years as a
newspaper reporter and a lecturer on business writing before discover-
ing his talent as a humor columnist. The columns he now writes for the
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READINGS
818 Part Eight • Readings for Writers
Miami Herald appear in newspapers nationwide, and his work has been
collected in numerous books. Barry’s hilarious observations on American
life won him the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1988.
In “The Ugly Truth about Beauty,” fi rst published in the Philadel-
phia Inquirer Magazine in 1998, Barry compares and contrasts men’s
and women’s beauty routines. The essay humorously highlights differ-
ences in the ways that men and women view themselves.
GUIDING QUESTION
Why do men and women think of their looks differently?
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This selection has been omitted intentionally from your
eBook due to electronic permissions issues. Regrettably,
we cannot make this piece available to you in a digital
format. You may be able to find a copy at your local or
school library; the author and title are included in your
eBook’s table of contents.
READINGS
Chapter 49 • Comparison and Contrast 819
PAUSE: What two
subjects does
Barry contrast in
paragraph 7?
PAUSE: What is
Barry’s main point
in paragraph 8?
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This selection has been omitted intentionally from your
eBook due to electronic permissions issues. Regrettably,
we cannot make this piece available to you in a digital
format. You may be able to find a copy at your local or
school library; the author and title are included in your
eBook’s table of contents.
READINGS
820 Part Eight • Readings for Writers
SUMMARIZE AND RESPOND
In your reading journal or elsewhere, summarize the main point of “The
Ugly Truth about Beauty.” Then, go back and check off support for this
main idea. Next, write a brief summary (three to fi ve sentences) of the essay.
Finally, jot down your initial response to the essay. Do you agree with Barry’s
assessment of why there are differences in the ways men and women view
themselves? What examples from your experience do or do not support his
points?
CHECK YOUR COMPREHENSION
1. Which of the following would be the best alternative title for this essay?
a. “Barbie versus He-Man”
b. “Men and Women: What They See in the Mirror”
c. “It’s Kinder to Lie”
d. “The Beauty Industry’s Dark Secret”
2. The main idea of this essay is that
a. men don’t know how to respond when women ask about their
appearance.
b. men don’t care how much effort women put into their looks.
c. because of society and the media, men and women view their physical
appearances differently.
d. childhood toys infl uence the way men and women think about their
looks.
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This selection has been omitted intentionally from your
eBook due to electronic permissions issues. Regrettably,
we cannot make this piece available to you in a digital
format. You may be able to find a copy at your local or
school library; the author and title are included in your
eBook’s table of contents.
READINGS
Chapter 49 • Comparison and Contrast 821
3. According to Barry,
a. most men are concerned with how women view their appearance.
b. women want men to be honest about their looks.
c. most women are dissatisfi ed with their appearance.
d. a woman’s perception of her appearance is infl uenced by her moods
and her female friends.
4. If you are unfamiliar with the following words, use a dictionary to
check their meanings: societal, proportioned (para. 7); mutation (8);
bolster (9).
READ CRITICALLY
1. Who is Barry’s intended audience, and what do you think is his purpose
in writing this essay?
2. In paragraphs 7 and 8, Barry discusses children’s toys. Why did he choose
these particular toys, and how do they help him explain his points of
contrast?
3. What is Barry’s attitude toward Cindy Crawford and Brad Pitt? Explain
how he uses these examples to support his main point.
4. Explain the signifi cance of the title. What do you think Barry would say
is the ugly truth about beauty?
5. Why do you think the beauty industry is so successful? Support your
answer with examples from this essay.
WRITE AN ESSAY
Look through your family photographs, or use the Internet or magazines to
view men’s and women’s fashions over the last fi fty years. Think about how
fashions have changed, and write an essay that compares and contrasts fash-
ion trends from two different decades. Use concrete examples to show differ-
ences and similarities in the two time periods’ styles.
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READINGS
822 Part Eight • Readings for Writers
Bharati Mukherjee
Two Ways to Belong in America
Novelist Bharati Mukherjee (b. 1940) grew up in Calcutta, India, and in
London. She learned to read by the time she was three years old and
had written several short stories by the age of ten. A graduate of the
University of Calcutta and the University of Borada in India, Mukherjee
came to the United States in 1961 to attend the University of Iowa,
where she earned an M.F.A. and later a Ph.D. in English and compara-
tive literature. Married to the Canadian writer Clark Blaise, Mukherjee
has taught at McGill University in Montreal and is now on the faculty
of the University of California at Berkeley. Her novels include Tiger’s
Daughter (1971), Jasmine (1989), and The Tree Bride (2004), and she
has also published the short-story collections Darkness (1975) and the
award-winning The Middleman and Other Stories (1988). Much of
her fi ction focuses on the tensions that are inherent in the immigrant
experience.
In the following essay, originally published in the New York Times
in 1996, Mukherjee contrasts herself, a self-described “American of
Bengali-Indian origin,” with her sister, whose ties to India remain much
stronger.
GUIDING QUESTION
How does the author’s identity differ from her sister’s?
1 This is a tale of two sisters from Calcutta,
1
Mira and Bharati, who
have lived in the United States for some thirty-fi ve years, but who fi nd
themselves on different sides in the current debate over the status of
immigrants.
2
I am an American citizen, and she is not. I am moved that
thousands of long-term residents are fi nally taking the oath of citizen-
ship. She is not.
2 Mira arrived in Detroit in 1960 to study child psychology and pre-
school education. I followed her a year later to study creative writing at
the University of Iowa. When we left India, we were almost identical
in appearance and attitude. We dressed alike, in saris;
3
we expressed
PAUSE: Based
on this opening
paragraph, what
do you predict
will be the subject
of Mukherjee’s
comparison and
contrast?
1
Calcutta: a city in India
2
the current debate over the status of immigrants: the 1996 debate in
Congress about legislation (ultimately defeated) to deny a number of benefi ts (such
as Social Security payments) to legal immigrants who were not citizens, even though
they had worked and paid taxes like any citizen
3
saris: traditional dress for Indian women
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READINGS
Chapter 49 • Comparison and Contrast 823
identical views on politics, social issues, love, and marriage in the same
Calcutta convent-school accent. We would endure our two years in
America, secure our degrees, then return to India to marry the grooms
of our father’s choosing.
3 Instead, Mira married an Indian student in 1962 who was getting
his business administration degree at Wayne State University. They
soon acquired the labor certifi cations necessary for the green card
4
of
hassle-free residence and employment.
4 Mira still lives in Detroit, works in the Southfi eld, Michigan, school
system, and has become nationally recognized for her contributions
in the fi elds of pre-school education and parent-teacher relationships.
After thirty-six years as a legal immigrant in this country, she clings pas-
sionately to her Indian citizenship and hopes to go home to India when
she retires.
5 In Iowa City in 1963, I married a fellow student, an American of
Canadian parentage. Because of the accident of his North Dakota birth,
I bypassed labor-certifi cation requirements and the race-related “quota”
system
5
that favored the applicant’s country of origin over his or her
merit. I was prepared for (and even welcomed) the emotional strain
that came with marrying outside my ethnic community. In thirty-three
years of marriage, we have lived in every part of North America. By
choosing a husband who was not my father’s selection, I was opting for
fl uidity, self-invention, blue jeans and T-shirts, and renouncing three
thousand years (at least) of caste-observant,
6
“pure culture” marriage in
the Mukherjee family. My books have often been read as unapologetic
(and in some quarters as overenthusiastic) texts for cultural and psycho-
logical “mongrelization.”
7
It’s a word I celebrate.
6 Mira and I have stayed sisterly close by phone. In our regular Sun-
day morning conversations, we are unguardedly affectionate. I am
her only blood relative on this continent. We expect to see each other
through the looming crises of aging and ill health without being asked.
PAUSE: Summarize
the primary dif-
ferences between
Mukherjee and her
sister.
4
green card: the informal term for a U.S. government-issued document granting
lawful permanent residence (which is not the same as citizenship)
5
race-related “quota” system: a system that grants legal status and citizenship
to immigrants in part based on preset numbers. Only a certain number of legal im-
migrants from any given country are allowed entry per year. Immigrants who marry
U.S. citizens are given preference over other immigrants, regardless of their countries
of origin.
6
caste-observant: dividing into social classes. For thousands of years, traditional
Indian society has divided itself into castes, or social classes, with strict rules regard-
ing relationships across these castes. Mukherjee and her sister were born into one of
the upper castes.
7
“mongrelization”: the mixing of breeds. The term is derived from a mongrel dog,
which is a mix of many breeds. The term often is used negatively.
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READINGS
824 Part Eight • Readings for Writers
Long before Vice President Gore’s “Citizenship U.S.A.”
8
drive, we’d
had our polite arguments over the ethics of retaining an overseas citizen-
ship while expecting the permanent protection and economic benefi ts
that come with living and working in America.
7 Like well-raised sisters, we never said what was really on our minds,
but we probably pitied one another. She, for the lack of structure in
my life, the erasure of Indianness, the absence of an unvarying daily
core. I, for the narrowness of her perspective, her uninvolvement with
the mythic depths or the superfi cial pop culture of this society. But,
now, with the scapegoatings
9
of “aliens” (documented or illegal) on
the increase, and the targeting of long-term legal immigrants like Mira
for new scrutiny and new self-consciousness, she and I fi nd ourselves
unable to maintain the same polite discretion. We were always unac-
knowledged adversaries, and we are now, more than ever, sisters.
8 “I feel used,” Mira raged on the phone the other night. “I feel
manipulated and discarded. This is such an unfair way to treat a per-
son who was invited to stay and work here because of her talent. My
employer went to the I.N.S.
10
and petitioned for the labor certifi cation.
For over thirty years, I’ve invested my creativity and professional skills
into the improvement of this country’s pre-school system. I’ve obeyed
all the rules, I’ve paid my taxes, I love my work, I love my students, I
love the friends I’ve made. How dare America now change its rules in
midstream? If America wants to make new rules curtailing benefi ts of
legal immigrants, they should apply only to immigrants who arrive after
those rules are already in place.”
9 To my ears, it sounded like the description of a long-enduring,
comfortable yet loveless marriage, without risk or recklessness. Have
we the right to demand, and to expect, that we be loved? (That, to me,
is the subtext of the arguments by immigration advocates.) My sister is
an expatriate,
11
professionally generous and creative, socially courteous
and gracious, and that’s as far as her Americanization can go. She is
here to maintain an identity, not to transform it.
10 I asked her if she would follow the example of others who have
decided to become citizens because of the anti-immigration bills in
Congress. And here, she surprised me. “If America wants to play the
manipulative game, I’ll play it, too,” she snapped. “I’ll become a U.S.
PAUSE: How would
you respond to
Mukherjee’s sister?
Do you think her
attitude is justifi ed?
8
“Citizenship U.S.A.” drive: a campaign encouraging eligible immigrants to
apply for citizenship, in part because it confers the right to vote
9
scapegoating: making an object of blame
10
I.N.S.: Immigration and Naturalization Service
11
expatriate: a person residing in but not a citizen of a country that is different
from the country of his or her birth and heritage
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READINGS
Chapter 49 • Comparison and Contrast 825
citizen for now, then change back to India when I’m ready to go home.
I feel some kind of irrational attachment to India that I don’t to Amer-
ica. Until all this hysteria against legal immigrants, I was totally happy.
Having my green card meant I could visit any place in the world I
wanted to and then come back to a job that’s satisfying and that I do
very well.”
11 In one family, from two sisters alike as peas in a pod, there could
not be a wider divergence of immigrant experience. America spoke to
me — I married it — I embraced the demotion from expatriate aristocrat
to immigrant nobody, surrendering those thousands of years of “pure
culture,” the saris, the delightfully accented English. She retained them
all. Which of us is the freak?
12 Mira’s voice, I realize, is the voice not just of the immigrant South
Asian community but of an immigrant community of the millions who
have stayed rooted in one job, one city, one house, one ancestral cul-
ture, one cuisine, for the entirety of their productive years. She speaks
for greater numbers than I possibly can. Only the fl uency of her English
and the anger, rather than the fear, born of confi dence from her educa-
tion, differentiate her from the seamstresses, the domestics, the tech-
nicians, the shop owners, the millions of hard-working but effectively
silenced documented immigrants as well as their less fortunate “illegal”
brothers and sisters.
13 Nearly twenty years ago, when I was living in my husband’s ancestral
homeland of Canada, I was always well-employed but never allowed to
feel part of the local Quebec or larger Canadian society. Then, through
a Green Paper
12
that invited a national referendum on the unwanted
side effects of “nontraditional” immigration, the government offi cially
turned against its immigrant communities, particularly those from South
Asia.
14 I felt then the same sense of betrayal that Mira feels now. I will
never forget the pain of that sudden turning, and the casual racist out-
bursts the Green Paper elicited. That sense of betrayal had its desired
effect and drove me, and thousands like me, from the country.
15 Mira and I differ, however, in the ways in which we hope to interact
with the country that we have chosen to live in. She is happier to live
in America as an expatriate Indian than as an immigrant American. I
need to feel like a part of the community I have adopted (as I tried to
feel in Canada as well). I need to put roots down, to vote and make the
difference that I can. The price that the immigrant willingly pays, and
that the exile avoids, is the trauma of self-transformation.
12
Green Paper: a document that is issued by the Canadian government to invite
public discussion on an issue prior to establishing policy
PAUSE: Summa-
rize the point that
Mukherjee makes
in this paragraph.
PAUSE: Why might
Mukherjee feel
as she does about
being “an immi-
grant American”?
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READINGS
826 Part Eight • Readings for Writers
SUMMARIZE AND RESPOND
In your reading journal or elsewhere, summarize the main point of “Two
Ways to Belong in America.” Then, go back and check off support for this
main idea. Next, write a brief summary (three to fi ve sentences) of the read-
ing. Finally, jot down your initial response to the selection. Can you sympa-
thize with Mira’s continuing connection to her country of birth? What is your
view of the place of immigrants in U.S. society?
CHECK YOUR COMPREHENSION
1. Which of the following would be the best alternative title for this essay?
a. “The Dilemma of Legal Residents in the United States”
b. “Expatriate Indian or Immigrant American: A Choice”
c. “Coming to America from India”
d. “The Trauma of Self-Transformation”
2. The main idea of this essay is that
a. Mukherjee and her sister view their position as immigrants in the
United States very differently.
b. Mukherjee and her sister are outraged by the fact that the U.S. gov-
ernment would take promised benefi ts away from legal immigrants.
c. Mukherjee became an American citizen almost by accident because
she married a man who happened to be born in the United States.
d. Mukherjee faced a situation while living in Canada that was similar
to the situation her sister later faced in the United States.
3. According to the essay, Mukherjee’s sister hopes to
a. become an American citizen.
b. lobby for other immigrants whose situation is similar to hers.
c. change people’s minds about her immigrant status.
d. return to India when she retires.
4. If you are unfamiliar with the following words, use a dictionary to check
their meanings: certifi cations (para. 3); fl uidity, unapologetic (5); un-
guardedly, looming (6); mythic, unacknowledged, adversaries (7); curtail-
ing (8); subtext (9); hysteria (10); divergence, demotion (11); ancestral,
referendum (13); betrayal (14).
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