Just Walk On By Annie Dillard Analysis

The Social Conflict

A Comparative Critique of Just Walk on By and Polyphemus Moth The essays of "Just Walk on By" written by Brent Staples, and "Polyphemus Moth" written by Annie Dillard suggest that they are very contrasting in their attention to what specific problems that each author addresses, but in actuality when you look much deeper into what each essay purposes, they are not so different. This is an essay of how and why they share the same goal in expressing their intention toward society's problems. We will look at how it affects our writers and how society is blind to our differences that aren't our own.. Both essays give us the preconception that life is chaotic in nature and has little to do with any influence of our own.

A graduate student none the less, and defaulted into the negative side of public perception he had no part in nor wanted any part of. Staples writes "I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into- the ability to alter public space in ugly ways" (Staples 1). Societies are often characterized by patterns of friendships between people who share a separate culture altogether. But here we are understanding that there is a part of society that is constructed by ugly and negative social hypocrisies. We start to understand that our writer in this story is suffering from the social problems that are described in an ironic manner. Staples shows us just how uncomfortable he is "As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to raw chicken let alone hold it to a person's throat-I was ...dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny" (Staples 2). The "flight" analogy uses symbology to show that because of this racial stigma he misses out on a potential lover or friendship opportunity because of people reaction toward his skin color. It is clear that this has an impact on Staples loathing and to be seen as friendly. Staples describes his upbringing as anxious and a violent environment. He fought to be different and lead a positive lifestyle only to be portrayed as the very thing he grew up being

Staples comments that "Black men have a firm place in New York mugging literature. Norman Podhoretz in his famed (or infamous) 1963 essay, 'My Negro Problem-and Ours,' recalls growing up in terror of black males"(Staples 3). It shows that people don’t even have a chance to grow and be how they want to be perceived. In retrospect, Annie Dillard has the very same opposition that Staples sees in life which is saddening and oppressive. Dillard expresses her feelings different than Staples does by comparing her life as a moth that didn’t have a chance at life. "The Moth set out walking. It could only heave the golden wrinkly clumps where its wings should have been; it could only crawl down the school driveway on its six frail legs" (Dillard 3). Both Staples and Dillard are broken down by societies problems before they even have a chance for their wings to expand and grow so they can fly