Looking Back

The two essays I chose for my final portfolio were Maira Kalman’s “Back to the Land” interpretive essay and Josh Neufled “A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge” interpretive essay. I found it quite easy when it came to deciding which two interpretive essays I would have to choose for evaluation because I was able to analyze both the purpose and audience clearly in the two essays. Also, with both Kalman and Neufeld’s essays I received positive responses, and felt that I could confidently write about both and maintain a controlling purpose. I found similar themes in the two essays that included: hopelessness, people who were affected by something that they couldn’t control, and the use of imagery as an effective medium. In the process of writing my interpretive essays, I learned about the complications of representing “truth” and I tried to spread this knowledge to my readers by maintaining a controlled purpose, interpreting the two essays, and using examples from both essays and explaining them further. My first interpretive essay I chose to write about was, “Growing Revolution” an interpretation of Kalman’s “Back to the Land” interpretive essay. While writing that essay I found it very easy to maintain a controlling purpose because I believe that Kalman’s purpose is, “not just to preach the obvious benefits of an organic local lifestyle, as that is well known but hard to put into place. The purpose is not just sustenance revolution, but societal revolution. We need to change the way we eat AND live our lives” (991146686 3). I explain how Kalman stresses those points all throughout her essay, she does this by using an “array of pictures and her own handwriting” (991146686 2). I also believe that she wanted her audience to focus on the importance of the photographs and what they represented, and that is why I used examples of pictures from Kalman’s essay to further explain why we need to change our lifestyles by eating locally. A great example of this is: she