Amy Nordby

ENGL 204

Professor Ballenger

October 1, 2014

Analysis on Hodgman and Doyle

Ann Hodgman does a great job describing her experience with tasting different types of dog food. Out of her insatiable curiosity, she tried everything. Milk Bones, lumpy, bloody, canned food, and meticulously rates each one. Hodgman eats dog food for a week! Are you kidding me?

“I turned on the skillet. While I waited for it to heat up I pulled out a shred of cheese-colored material and palpated it. Again, like Play-Doh, it was quite malleable. I made a little cheese bird out of it; then I counted to three and ate the bird.”

The vivid description on taste, color, and smell, and how she uses hilarious humor to tell her story because I guess dog food is funny. I think my gag reflex would react more and I would have been more repulsed if it wasn’t, though she never explains her reasons for tasting different types of dog foods. We are left unclear; it gave her a piece to write about. I do think if we would have known her reasons it might have taken away the humorous elements of this story. This piece was definitely for entertainment. I have to admit; when I was younger I too looked at Gaines-Burgers with a desired curiosity but never tried one.

Brian Doyle’s piece was beautiful. The last portion of this essay could possibly be a personal essay. What is it to be human? Things we may think about when sharing the planet with other animals. Are we so much alike? Yes! We are the only animals that take things for granted. The food we eat, out beating hearts, our time on earth.

“When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character; yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how many bricks you bring to the wall.”

I love Doyle’s descriptions of the hummingbird, then the whale, and eventually the human heart. This quote everyone can relate to, almost everyone has experienced heartache, disappointments, or sheltering themselves for being hurt again. By Doyle bringing all living things together he connects the heart.