To All Those Who Say What You Know Kate Peterson Analysis

Improved Essays
Kate Peterson’s lyrical essay To All Those Who Say Write What You Know, is a two page nonfiction memoir of her life in London. The title of Kate’s lyrical essay is significant because she is addressing an audience who demands that one should write of things they have knowledge or firsthand experiences. This is may sound simple and inspiring at first for writers, but attempting to write on what you know can be a challenging request because memories can be distorted. This was evident in Kate’s lyrical essay examining each paragraph. The arrangement of her paragraphs suggests that Petersen is authentic in her narrative voice because she is not restricted in her essay.
The structure of her lyrical essay violates the traditional five paragraph

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Lewes exposes her perspective that the development of a writer isn’t always a straightforward path through the use of Aristotle’s rhetorical strategies (Pathos, Ethos) and paradoxy to project her message towards Ms. Pierce. In the letter that accomplished author, Mrs. Lewes sends to amateur writer, Ms. Pierce she offers Pathos as a means to capture Ms. Pierce’s attention. Lewes writes about her discoveries through the path of writing through the use of clear, concise imagery; she explains to Pierce that after achievement the “vehicle” of a person is transformed into a “poor husk” (lines 12-13). Through this use of clear imagery Pierce is able to comprehend that writing takes people on journeys that they don’t involve a direct path to success.…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the passage “What Has Happened Here” Elsa Barkley Brown believes that women’s history should be inclusive of gender, race, and culture as these have important significance in shaping outcomes and society perspective. She talks about how historians like to “isolate one conversation” (297) to explore them to tailor its dialogue to fit different narratives. This however in turn loses significant facts that should not be left out when shaping the details. Barkley is adamant about the importance of Anita Hill’s race in the testimony of the sexual harassment case. Thinking that in order to make the public more sympathetic and keep the case simplified they should focus strictly on the sexual harassment of a women by a man.…

    • 356 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This is an article which is trying to figure out the differences between the lifestyle of neat people and sloppy people. This is to explain and find out if neat or sloppy people are more successful in life. I would like you to read this article and determine for yourself who is the more successful. Suzanne Britt’s essay talks about the differences between sloppy and neat people. She goes into a lot of time in showing how misunderstood and loving sloppy people are, while as for neat people she goes into a lot of detail in showing how insensitive and wasteful that these people are.…

    • 1986 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Everybody goes through at least one traumatic experience in their lifetime. Katherine Philips, the writer of “On the Death of My First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips”, and Frances Burney, the writer of “Mastectomy” are no exceptions. One way to deal with the grief that comes along with such traumatic experiences is to write about it. Philips deals with the grief of losing her son through writing a poem. Burney also deals with her grief, but by writing about her mastectomy in the form of a short story.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The following is from Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Winnemucca wrote her book Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims in 1882. Winnemucca wrote this book to help highlight stories of her people and the interactions they had with white European and American settlers. Winnemucca hoped her writings would have the desired outcome of forcing change and getting public opinion and government officials on the sides of Native American tribes. Winnemucca portrayed cross-cultural interaction as inevitable. Nevertheless early interactions with white settlers and pioneers set the tone for all the following years of Winnemucca’s life.…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Patricia Hampl’s “Memory and Imagination” provides a coherent insight about what a memoir consist of. Hampl begins to explain that a memoir is “a matter of transcription,” meaning that one has the power to present what details they choose to share. As a memoirist, you soon begin to question whether your memory is a reliable source or if your mind filled those empty gaps with desirous details. However, those memories that we simply remember must have been part of a life-changing moment that was not apparent to us at that moment. Although one intended goal could be accuracy, writing a memoir could help one discover what they know compare to the assumption of what happened.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Authors often write about their past experiences, whether traumatic and nightmarish or exciting and mostly normal. Writing can become therapeutic and be clarifying to authors because they get to show a side of themselves and pour out their emotions to an audience. In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel tells his story about the experiences, exposure, and cruelty he endured during the Holocaust to divulge the theme of man’s inhumanity to man. At a time when most people should be enjoying becoming young adults, Wiesel’s journey took a horrific turn.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Remorseful Interpretations The poems that will be compared to one another throughout this paper include, “What I Did Wrong” by Marie Howe, and “Poem of Regret for an Old Friend”, by Meghan O’Rourke. Each have very similar topics that are being discussed by the authors : including feelings of regret, anger, and an overall longing to have done more throughout life but they have very different tones associated with it. In addition to this, Howe’s poem has a much more violent tone than O’Rourke’s and it hints at abusive gestures and a very difficult life that also deals with looking back at the person’s life through memories.…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Furthermore, ethnicity is a fundamental factor that governs an individual some way or another influencing one to ‘pick up the pen’ and write on the experiences associated. Reading is the backbone of knowledge, perspectives and values while writing is the ability to explore values and experiences that characterise an individual. Through reading, an individual is able to live vicariously through the composer, which develops sympathy, widens an individual’s perspective, to reduce the amount of injustices conquered around the globe. In the short story by Nam Le, “Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” reinforces that culture can significantly impact the formation of identity which forms the context of the composer, influencing…

    • 1393 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Susan McClary believed, that as film and media continue the discourse on gender identities today, early-modern opera was a pioneer in the construction of gender identities to the public sphere. The construction of gender became necessary when presented portrayals of the world had to differentiate between male or female characters, as one sex could play the other. These constructions were shaped by the time and place in which the work was presented. The issue on how to represent women was controversial during Monteverdi’s time as perspectives on the female rhetoric were divided. McClary analyses Monteverdi’s L'Orfeo and believes that men had a more provocative stage presence while women had to have an innocent portrayal to remain attractive…

    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A memoir is considered a unique autobiography, which includes a public synopsis of the author’s life, including true experiences of the author. The events chosen to relate are used to connect with the purpose of the book. As the author questions what happened on their journey in life. The author comes to a clear understanding, or clearly understands the lesson learned by it. The author depicts how he/…

    • 1274 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Ellen Foster Analysis

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Ellen Foster was written by Kaye Gibbons, and the book is narrated by a young girl named Ellen Foster, telling the reader about the unique childhood she experienced, filled with an abusive father and many different homes and experiences that a ten year old child typically wouldn’t have. When interpreting the book Ellen Foster through a social power lense, you can see that the power of the society and the way Ellen grew up, and the experiences she had under the power of her elders, really pushed her to overcome her moral challenges and become a better person. If Ellen was raised in a normal home, she probably wouldn’t have stayed friends with Starletta, or overcome the internal racism that everyone possessed in the period that the book was written.…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Conclusions play a vital role in the effectiveness of an essay. The conclusion allows authors to wrap up their thoughts and leave the reader feeling satisfied. On the other hand, some conclusions leave the reader with the opportunity to think about the message the essay had to offer. I think some essays we read this year had more powerful conclusions than others.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Mary Reilly Analysis

    • 2006 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Appropriations of successful texts often make critical changes to the original novel for a variation of intentions. These changes often reflect the cultural values of the time period and upon analysis the similarities and differences between the cultures are revealed. The film Mary Reilly (1996) is a recent appropriation of the 1886 classic novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Stephen Frears, director of Mary Reilly, has cinematically and creatively chosen to omit or carry on certain techniques, characters, plot points and themes from the original text in order to create a film that continues the legacy of Stevenson’s work yet remains engaging to its audience.…

    • 2006 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While Sanchez’s experiences were paramount in shaping both her personal and writing identity, there were additional factors contributing to her narrative distinctiveness. Specifically, Sanchez held an insatiable thirst for knowledge, which consequently led to her remarkable consumption of all things literary. As Sanchez herself would put it, “I read everything” (Melhem 222). As a result, between what she lived and what she learned, Sanchez had a lot to say and sought a “fresh rearrangement of knowledge” (Gabbin 50). She found this arrangement and her voice, now devoid of stuttering, in the poetical form, and it was quite a roaring voice indeed.…

    • 155 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays