Evaluation Essays Examples

In the essay, The Madness of the American Family by Midge Decter, many interesting points were brought up concerning how Americans, who are so fortunate, have gotten themselves into such a predicament as to debate what family means.Decter's main claim is that by marrying and raising a family in the traditional way, we will fulfill the destinies intended for us, which will give our lives full meaning (449).Her tone is rather light but serious at first, but as the essay comes to an end, her tone changes to be cutting as she describes men and women waking up to becoming "real" husbands and wives (449).

In the essay, The Madness of the American Family by Midge Decter, many interesting points were brought up concerning how Americans, who are so fortunate, have gotten themselves into such a predicament as to debate what family means.Decter's main claim is that by marrying and raising a family in the traditional way, we will fulfill the destinies intended for us, which will give our lives full meaning (449).Her tone is rather light but serious at first, but as the essay comes to an end, her tone changes to be cutting as she describes men and women waking up to becoming "real" husbands and wives (449).

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What she implies about single people is that they are selfish for not being part of a family because she makes no exceptions to her idea that all people should marry and have a family, and if they don't, they are not fulfilling their lives (449).

She does not seem to consider that single people can be unselfish, fulfilled, and happy.

When looking at the common cold and what that small problem does to us, we can then reason that if our lifestyle is not in line with the natural order, havoc will also follow.

This brings up the questions of whether people living singly are living out of the natural order.

Her character is seen as honorable because she is interested in the family unit, free enterprise, limited government, traditional American values, and a strong national defense, which are the same things most Americans are interested in too.

Decter's main claim about how life should be lived--that only by marrying and being "part of the onrushing tide of generations" can our lives have full meaning--is very limiting.Finally she notes that we need to relearn the old lessons our forebears knew about time-honored limits (449).Decter's claim is narrow, as well as some of her reasons she puts forth in establishing her claim.Plus, she does not talk to a diverse audience and therefore I cannot recommend her essay.One strength Decter brought to her essay was the background information on herself.If we try to change the natural order, problems will develop (445-446).Many people would agree with this reasoning because there is a vast amount of scientific evidence to support the fact that when one small component of creation is missing or out of sync, this causes a chain reaction of other problems.Lastly, Decter passionately appeals to our sense of emotion as she talks about our forbears' sufferings and the age-old lessons that they learned about the limits of life (449).We do live in a day and age where the limits of living have been greatly enlarged compared to those of our forbears.She explains that we can't fool Mother Nature and if we try to, we will end up with all sorts of problems (445).If we live solely for ourselves and not be part of a traditional family unit, then again problems are created (449).