The Ideal English Major Analysis

The very idea of choosing a college major is impressed upon students from the very beginning, starting when they walk into high school and continuing until they graduate with a diploma in hand. Such foresight since freshman year has left many students with the difficult choice of passion versus practicality, leaving them to choose between the lucrative and the not-ludicrous-yet-not-always-profitable. Such is the internal dilemma facing the protagonist, Francie, of How to Become a Writer by Lorrie Moore. Viewed through the scope of the article, The Ideal English Major by Mark Edmundson, published in The Chronicle Review, Moore’s story is an eloquent example of the article’s argument to follow one’s passions while also articulating the pragmatic
While Edmundson extols learning English as “pursuing the most important subject of all—being a human being” and as “being born again… [with] a hunger for life”, Francie’s experiences in the “real world” show that she feels anything but. Her adult life is a far cry from the praises Edmundson sings of learning how to “become a person” through majoring in English. Moore introduces several practical concerns that reveal themselves in Francie’s life throughout the story; they rear their ugly heads even during Francie’s college years, when she self-harmed and did not feel alive unless she was writing her next story. After graduation, Francie spends her time explaining how she decided not to go to law school, how she loses her interpersonal relationships, how she quits daily commitments to focus on her writing. She explains how others patronize her, how they refuse to believe in her finished manuscript, how she feels lonely after deciding to become a writer. Despite chasing after her dreams and feeling alive when writing, Francie has not experienced the righteous, eloquent metamorphosis Edmundson claims all English majors will experience. He spins the English major as a tea-sipping, coffee-shop-frequenting, notebook-toting
Pursuing solely one’s passions may seem idealistic at best, but both Edmundson and Moore explore the idea through the former’s article, The Ideal English Major, and the latter’s short story, How to Become a Writer. While Edmundson advocates for the righteous pursuit of passion, Moore supports the article’s wholehearted championing of chasing one’s dreams while also providing a more grounded, thorough exploration of the inherent nuances of that