Principal Ideas or Arguments Advanced.

¶ … principal ideas or arguments advanced. Limit to a paragraph.

This essay is a humorous reversal of the common notion that 'thin is good' and 'fat is bad.' The essay argues that fat people are more comfortable to be around than thin people, and that fat people enjoy life far more than thin people because of fat people's more easy-going temperaments. Ultimately, the softer, more comfortable life of a self-indulgent person is more human and leads to a kinder existence rather than the harshness of trying to pack too much into one's day and not stopping to smell the roses.

determine the overall tone. State in ONE ADJECTIVE AND DEFEND IT WITH SEVERAL EXAMPLES.

Ironic. Rather than championing thinness, hard work, and a desire to get things done, the essay celebrates fatness, sloth, and laziness. "Give them [thin people] a coffee break, and they'll jog around the block." While we are often exhorted to exercise more in our society, in this essay the author makes exercise seem like a character flaw. The essay cites several examples of the unpleasant, driven quality of thin people who are unable to have fun, laugh, or give comfort because they are so focused on the trees, not the forest -- or on completing a jigsaw puzzle or finding the 'key issues' to solve insolvable problems.

Q3. Fact / Opinion - a fact is something that is verifiable; an opinion is something that is not. Find one example of a fact and one example of an opinion; quote your entire example.

Fact: "If you consume more calories than you burn," says one of my thin friends, "you will gain weight. It's that simple."

Opinion: "Thin people are downers. They like math and morality and reasoned evaluation of the limitations of human beings. They have their skinny little acts together. They expound, prognose, probe and prick."

Q4. Quote and analyze 4 sentences for rhetorical devices (diction, figurative language, simile, metaphor, personification, allusion, analogy, imagery, repetition)

"They've got speedy little metabolisms that cause them to bustle briskly." This sentence's use of alliteration gives an impression of swiftness to reinforce the motion of the thin people who are being described.

"That lean and hungry look." This is an allusion to William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in which one of the murderers of Caesar, Cassius, is described as having a 'lean and hungry look.'

"Fat people realize that life is illogical and unfair. They know very well that God is not in his heaven and all is not right with the world. If God was up there, fat people could have two doughnuts and a big orange drink anytime they wanted it." This makes an allusion to the line in the Robert Browning poem "Pippa Passes:" God is in his heaven / All is right with the world. It creates a striking visual image (imagery) of God overseeing the world, watching fat people eating two doughnuts and orange soda.

The metaphor of the jigsaw puzzle-- "what good would it do to finish early? Three, the jigsaw puzzle isn't the important thing. The important thing is the fun of four people (one thin person included) sitting around a card table, working a jigsaw puzzle"-- illustrates that fat people enjoy the process of life and live in the moment, versus thin people who are purpose-driven and obsessed with completing tasks, even leisure-time activities that are supposed to be fun.

Q5. Identify the author's purpose and discuss whether or not she achieved that purpose.

The purpose of the author is to deflate society's obsession with perfection and to turn a bit of conventional wisdom -- the superiority of thinness and perfectionism -- on its head. The essay, through humor, achieves this purpose. Asserting the position in a serious way would likely have given rise to a debate about the health problems fostered by obesity.

Q6. Find a logical fallacy

"One thin person I know once suggested that we arrange all the parts of a jigsaw puzzle into groups according to size, shape and color. He figured this would cut the time needed to complete the puzzle by at least 50 per cent."

There is no way to 'logically' determine this would speed the completion of the puzzle, depending upon its shape and composition (and same-colored sections consist of smaller and larger pieces).

Q7. Quote and discuss a favorite passage

"They think these 2000-point plans lead to happiness. Fat people know happiness is elusive at best and even if they could get the kind thin people talk about, they wouldn't want it. Wisely, fat people see that such programs are too dull, too hard, too off the mark. They are never better than a whole cheesecake."