Kong Xiong -- People...Am I right?


  It might be hard to appreciate for students today, but the kinds 
  of things A. Square says are 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.  

  I think you are taking a dictionary definition of satire in your
  first paragraph. That is fine, but you should identify where you 
  found that information.

  You seem to want to say that the book is satirizing other things
  too besides views of women.  That is certainly true, so it is 
  a good point to make.   But then the logic gets a bit
  unclear.  For instance, in the first paragraph you say:  "The 
  satire isn’t specifically about society’s views on women."  But
  then the first sentence of the second paragraph seems to contradict
  that by saying "First, the book is a satirical statement on how 
  society views women."  To make what you are trying to say clearer,
  you might include "solely" and "in part" like this:  "The 
  satire isn’t specifically or solely about society’s views on women." 
  Then:  "Even though it is not only that, the book is in part a 
  satirical statement on how society views women."  Give your reader
  enough signposts to help them understand what you are trying to say.

  You're right to point out the sarcastic tone in that paragraph, 
  but you don't say very much about where that tone comes from.
  It's the (borderline racist-sounding) phrases like "of the lowest type" 
  and "his degraded caste" that produce that reaction in the reader and 
  it would have been good to point them out.  

  On page 2, I'm not sure I follow the main point in the full 
  paragraph about Abbott's satire of education.  To me, the grandson's
  reaction just shows he is smart enough to know that talking about
  three dimensions is going to get him into trouble because of the
  repressive rules announced by the circles.  How is that a satire
  of education?  Plus, the sentence  "There was a passage before 
  where the Grandson was on the verge of understanding three dimensions, 
  and now that Square knows about three dimensions and there is a law 
  not to speak of three dimensions, the Grandson plays it off saying 
  how it could not possibly be that a youngling could even imagine that"   
  is a run-on.  Split it into two sentences after the "understanding 
  three dimensions."

  At the top of page 3, you are referring to the passage we discussed
  in class, but there is a lot more going on there than you indicate.
  The discussion in the paper is not detailed enough to make it clear
  what the satire is.

  Finally, a small point:  Abbott's names have two t's in addition to 
  two b's.

  Content:  B

  Mechanics: A-