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Joan Acocella Selfie Analysis

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Kailin Schumacher Writing 116 Segment 2 Selfie Analysis In Joan Acocella’s “Selfie” published in the New Yorker on May 12, 2014, Acocella talks about narcissism and just how different it is perceived within different groups. Narcissism is defined as “excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one's physical appearance” according to dictionary.com, but Acocella advises us that as time has gone on the definition became a lot more complicated. She starts off the article by telling the greek tale of Narcissus, who avidly died staring at his own reflection. While Narcissus really expressed “self-love”, Acocella goes on to explain Freud's thoughts on Narcissism. Freud thought that narcissism was mainly seen in women, because they were so obsessed …show more content…

As time went on, Narcissism became more about over exaggerating, and believing that you're special and entitled to anything you please. This definition configured by the American Psychiatric association developed the idea that Narcissism isn't good or bad, but instead a disability. The rest of the article tells about different views on narcissism from two different books that Acocella gives her opinion on. The first book that Acocella analyses, (for the majority of the paper) is Vanderbilt University history professor, Elizabeth Lundbeck's The Americanization of Narcissism, which Acocella is not very fond of. The second book, which Acocella takes a better liking to is Princeton's Simon Blackburn's Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love. Both books are completely different and show us the differences between good, and bad narcissism and how to perceive it, while Lunbeck claims that she will follow Blackburn's theory, she urges us that there really …show more content…

The first constraint was to give a fair review, to cover both book thoroughly and honorably. This in itself is a big task especially when doing two books, and also especially when Acocella almost completely disagrees with one of them. Now, she didn't have to be neutral thought the article but she did have to make sure to give each book there fair share of time in the spotlight. Also, she had to make sure to provide a two sided argument to the ora of narcissism, not just tell the book but review them in a way that puts the books against each

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