Michael Melch -- Second Class Citizens

  Your essay about the depiction of women in Abbott's Flatland is generally
  very good.  I think you have understood well how this book qualifies as a
  satire and what Abbott's intentions were in writing it.  

  It might be hard to appreciate for students today, but the kinds 
  of things A. Square says are also not all that far from things one
  used to hear all the time.  Look at the first seasons of the TV show 
  "Mad Men" (set in the early 1960's) for an pretty realistic example of this. 
  Similarly, when I was growing up I remember hearing serious discussions 
  from "talking heads" about how women were too emotional and unstable to 
  be trusted with the sorts of decisions a President would have to make.  

  Specific comments:

  Some of your paragraphs are very long and "overstuffed."  Try to work
  on making the structure of your essays clearer by use of focused paragraphs
  on just one or two topics.  

  In your first sentence, you use the title of the book when you really mean
  the name of the "country" ("Flatland" should not be in italics there).  

  The last sentence of the first paragraph "In this way, Abbott creates a world 
  satirical of 19 th century Victorian England, where he was living, through his 
  depiction of women which is infuriating to the reader but done nonetheless done 
  for a reason" could be rearranged to flow better, like this:  "Through his
  depiction of women and other aspects of the society, Abbott creates a world
  that satirizes 19th century Victorian England."  I think you can "save" the
  idea that the depiction of women can infuriate a modern reader until later.

  On page 2, "piece-cry" should be "peace-cry" (the idea is that the women
  are supposed to announce their presence to keep the peace and keep the men
  safe from their "pointed" natures).  

  The sentence "Abbott's overall depiction of life ... " seems like a natural
  place to start a new paragraph on page 2.

  The sentence "No concern is given to how education could be beneficial to 
  women, only that it could be a detriment to men"  is not quite correct;
  the Square is saying that *not educating* women is causing a detriment
  to men.  Recall, the idea is that having to "talk down" to the women is
  causing the enfeeblement of male intelligence(!)

  I think you are taking a dictionary definition of satire in your
  paragraph that starts at the bottom of page 2. That is fine, but you should 
  identify where you found that information.   

  Your last sentence seems a bit wimpy.  I think what you mean to say there is
  just that today's society can also be satirized because, although things
  have changed somewhat, some of the same issues of mistreatment of certain
  classes of people still exist.  

  Content: A-

  Mechnanics: B+