Jack Haddon -- Understanding Benjamin Button's Displeasure

  In thinking about the Mark Twain quotation that was part of the prompt
  for this assignment, I would say it's necessary to recall that Twain was first
  and foremost a "humorist" and a satirist -- his first goal in almost everything 
  he said and wrote was *to make people laugh* (at others and at themselves) 
  and then to get them to think about how silly a lot of their preconceptions 
  and actions are.   So it seems to me that his idea that aging in reverse 
  would lead to an "infinitely happier life" is not really a serious proposal. 
  It's more like a way to get us to laugh about the indignities of aging.  He 
  wants us to think about whether being young is really any better than being 
  old and whether life really would be any better "in reverse." 

  Apart from the fact that I think you're taking Twain a bit too seriously, the ideas
  in your essay relating to this idea from the film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"  
  are very good.  You have thought deeply about the movie and you have developed a 
  very strong and detailed understanding of how it works and what it tries to say.  
  You do a good job of pointing out ways that Benjamin's story essentially 
  shows that what Twain is saying is not true at all on the literal level.  You 
  also do a very good job of discussing the other key issue.  If *everyone* was 
  aging "in reverse" together, then that would be normal and there wouldn't be 
  any story.  But an individual living "in reverse" in a world of people aging 
  in the normal direction faces extreme obstacles at almost every step of the 
  way.  Even though he or she might have many of the same physical-age-appropriate 
  experiences as other people, his or her physical appearance and condition 
  will always be out of step with his or her mental age *from the point of view 
  of those other people*.  

  The writing itself is good, but not as strong as the ideas you have.  Some suggestions:

  1)  I did not understand your title -- What is the "displeasure" you are pointing
  out?  Do you mean the fact that the way his life was structured made him unhappy?
  That would be a natural reaction to some of the stuff that happens to him, but
  it's interesting that he's really *not* an unhappy person.  He manages to keep a 
  sort of childlike wonder about everything through much of the story. 

  2)  It would be good to work on coordinating tenses, moods, etc. within paragraphs.  
  Let's go through your opening paragraph one sentence at a time:
  In your opening sentence  "It may seem at first that if a man were 
  born old, and gradually got younger, he would enjoy life since he may become more 
  lively and energetic as time goes on" both "may"s should probably be "might"s.
  A couple of sentences later "In this film, Benjamin struggled ... " the past 
  "struggled" should be "struggles" to match "affects" in the following sentence.
  Then the next sentence, "Benjamin was rarely happy due to the fact that no one 
  can really understand what is going on with him, including himself" mixes the 
  past ("was") and present ("can").  This should all be in the present too.  The way
  you say this is a bit awkward too.  Something like "Since no one, not even Benjamin
  himself, can understand his condition, he is rarely happy."  But
  maybe more importantly, as I mentioned above, I don't think it's really correct
  to say that he was drastically unhappy all or most of the time.  He certainly
  feels out of place, and he is not in step with everyone around him.  But he has a 
  sort of passive acceptance of all that, and a sort of naive optimism, rather than 
  any openly-expressed unhappiness most of the time. 

  Finally, the last sentence in that paragraph "I argue this because his aging process 
  made him lonely, which is shown through his struggles with his identity, his romantic 
  relationship, physical challenges, and social awkwardness."  mixes tenses again.  
  Say "makes" instead of "made."  And this sentence doesn't really "work" either 
  because you're not really clear about what is causing what.  It seems like you 
  want to say that the aging process is causing those other problems, and all of that
  is producing loneliness in his life.  I think that's right.  But this would be 
  a better way to say all of that:  "His aging process and its associated physical
  challenges affects his sense of identity, his romantic relationships, and his 
  social interactions. It ultimately makes him lonely."  

  Content -- A-

  Structure/Mechanics -- B