Unanswered [1] | Urgent [0]
  

Home / Undergraduate   % width Posts: 6


Common App Main Essay - "The Bidding" - Topic is a bit out there


dpi2010 2 / 3  
Dec 31, 2009   #1
I think the essay is different, it might be too different, I don't know. Is the writing style too vague/different?
Intellectual Experience:

The swarm of butterflies. Lovely, beautiful, vibrant, canary-winged butterflies - flapping awkwardly, gracefully. But even beauty is mortal, and I abridge destiny, disturb Prufrock's universe - me, so harmless, deadly. My foot pulls off the accelerator until I halve the speed limit, but still they bump soundlessly, skate across the dusty, littered, tragic window, suspend in the jet stream behind my car. In the mirror I watch them flutter tenderly, confetti falling to the ground.

The carnage is done; beauty lies awfully across the dirt road, trapped between sad, dusty, aching stalks of alfalfa and cotton, tended callously by withered, hard farmers. And just like that I call chance an omen, an omen to the dreaded, unfortunate day.

Stop, listen, do you hear that? Can you taste the smell? Step out of the car. Feel the whip of merciless, dry dust and think of Steinbeck's Joads. I have arrived.

Parched earth cracks under the soles of my shoes as I approach the county fair; I leave remnants, regrettable prints tell I was here. And the smell - it burns. Tobacco and whiskey and manure and diesel.

Sitting, blue-eyed, hard-faced, Coors in hand, Faulkner's Bundrens - and then there is me. The greetings, exchange of hands, uncomfortable silence. Talk about sports, yes, sports; ask about cows, they'll talk about cows. I hear beef prices run low this year. Oh, tell me about it, they say; lucky to get a dollar a pound. How's Mom? they ask. Good, couldn't come, busy as always, - it's the disguise. She's sick really, but I keep quiet, sick with multiple sclerosis. Sick from the weekly interferon shots, shivering and sunken, but she will not tell. Not her, not proud, motherly Mom, will not tell anyone. Sit down, they say. I do.

The sun, remorseless and uncompromising, warms my neck and legs. It glitters off the slick black steer being washed and readied for bidding, makes the beast shine and sparkle like polished coal. I sip water, washing away gritty dust. [Name] got blue ribbun gran chumpun carcass for that steer, my uncle says to me privately. How 'bout that? goin' a get two bucks a pound, sure is somepin'. Sure is, I say. Proud of that boy, he says, he goin' do better than me, sure is. Truck driver ain't no kind of life, he goin' do better than me. For an instant the hard face relaxed, the furrowed brow softened, from somewhere deep within, the poison known as Regret escaped, sullied and unwashed.

You know somepin'? I tell that boy, look at your aunt and cousin up in that Big City, look what she done, look what he doin'. You ain't goin' be like me, no you ain't, you goin' do somepin', you goin' be like them. And just as soon as Regret escaped, the hole it seeped from closed up, the face tightened, the brow wrinkled, and he was gone, turned back to the family, picked up the perspiring can of beer.

Holden Caulfield can attempt to escape life, but eventually T.S. Eliot must disturb the universe, Ralph Ellison must emerge from his hiding, Maya Angelou must sing. Eventually we must all disrupt destiny, whether we realize it or not.
rapoch 9 / 28  
Jan 1, 2010   #2
Tobacco and whiskey and manure and diesel. i think "tobacco, whiskey, manure, diesel" sounds better, just commas

How 'bout that? goin' a get two bucks a pound, sure is somepin'. capitalize goin'

i don't like the way you put the dialogue in the third to last paragraph... too confusing

the second sentence comes like a shock... the reader is kind of confused where you're heading and then bam! maybe hint this final idea of oyurs throughout the essay

now, could you please take a look at my short essay :)thanks
rapoch 9 / 28  
Jan 1, 2010   #3
thx for the help!

by the way, loved your essay, its spirit and the allusions fit perfectly! :)
Ivy_Equestrian 13 / 55  
Jan 1, 2010   #4
Oh, you have no idea how happy this essay makes me. Not least because The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is my FAVORITE poem ever. Your writing style is unique and you exhibit a great control over language and imagery.

I've made a few minor revisions:

<3 Seriously. Your writing style is just fantastic. You've namechecked several of my favorite authors and literary works (LOVE Faulkner & Salinger!). This essay is powerful, it's different, it's thought-provoking. I'm a little bit in love with it, I must say.

Where are you applying? Going to be an English major, I hope? ;)
OP dpi2010 2 / 3  
Jan 1, 2010   #5
Thanks for all the comments. Really helped. Ya, I'm thinking a humanities major, and languages (Spanish and French), I hope. I don't know, we'll see. My top choices now are Penn, Brown, UChicago, and NYU (maybe). I really like your essay too, by the way. What colleges are you looking at?
Ivy_Equestrian 13 / 55  
Jan 1, 2010   #6
I have a ridiculously huge list... :) UPenn, Yale, Pton, Williams, Vassar, Tufts, Colgate, Tulane, UMich, Skidmore, Northwestern, Cornell, and UVA, for a double major in Theatre (musical, where available) and English.


Home / Undergraduate / Common App Main Essay - "The Bidding" - Topic is a bit out there
Writing
Editing Help?
Fill in one of the forms below to get professional help with your assignments:

Graduate Writing / Editing:
GraduateWriter form ◳

Best Essay Service:
CustomPapers form ◳

Excellence in Editing:
Rose Editing ◳

AI-Paper Rewriting:
Robot Rewrite ◳