“I Want a Wife”
1. What is the tone of the essay? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.
2. Point out the irony in the essay. Find specific examples to support your answer.
3. Explain the use and effectiveness of anaphora in this essay.
4. How does the author use logos? Provide specific examples.
5. How does the author successfully get the reader emotionally involved in the essay?
6. Why capitalize “A Wife” at the start of the essay?
7. Address the author’s use of fragments and how this affects her argument.
8. Write a parody of “I Want a Wife” using another occupation or situation in life to replace the word “wife.” *20 pts* does not apply to
article response rubric parody should be of equal length to “I Want a Wife”.
“ Marrying Absurd”
1. What is the tone of the essay. Provide examples from the text to support your answer.
2. Explain Didion’s attitude about Las Vegas weddings and the people who participate in them. Give at least two specific examples to
backup her attitude.
3. “Marrying Absurd” conveys more than Joan Didion’s criticism of Las Vegas marriages. It also suggests something of Didion’s attitude
toward a larger world problem of what she describes in paragraph 2 as “venality” and “a devotion to immediate gratification.” Explain what
she means by this.
4. How does the craps metaphor in paragraph 3 add to this essay?
5. Didion appeals to the reader’s sense of character when making her arguments about Vegas weddings. What points apply here?
“I Want a Wife”
1. What is the tone of the essay? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.
2. Point out the irony in the essay. Find specific examples to support your answer.
3. Explain the use and effectiveness of anaphora in this essay.
4. How does the author use logos? Provide specific examples.
5. How does the author successfully get the reader emotionally involved in the essay?
6. Why capitalize “A Wife” at the start of the essay?
7. Address the author’s use of fragments and how this affects her argument.
8. Write a parody of “I Want a Wife” using another occupation or situation in life to replace the word “wife.” *20 pts* does not apply to
article response rubric parody should be of equal length to “I Want a Wife”.
“ Marrying Absurd”
1. What is the tone of the essay. Provide examples from the text to support your answer.
2. Explain Didion’s attitude about Las Vegas weddings and the people who participate in them. Give at least two specific examples to
backup her attitude.
3. “Marrying Absurd” conveys more than Joan Didion’s criticism of Las Vegas marriages. It also suggests something of Didion’s attitude
toward a larger world problem of what she describes in paragraph 2 as “venality” and “a devotion to immediate gratification.” Explain what
she means by this.
4. How does the craps metaphor in paragraph 3 add to this essay?
5. Didion appeals to the reader’s sense of character when making her arguments about Vegas weddings. What points apply here?