ipl-logo

Wendell Berry Family Work Summary

806 Words4 Pages

Wendell Berry is an American writer known mostly for his stories about the value of environmental conservation. “Family Work” is an essay about the influence of technology and the need to return to traditional values. He makes the argument that truly living your life is viewed as an impractical practice by modern society because of the reduction of the family unit. Berry also has an unwavering belief that if the public listens to him they will become better people.
I agree that Berry’s ideas are revolutionary and that putting some of them into fruition will make your life better. Yet, I also believe that unplugging the TV from time to time is better than throwing away your TV. The television set should be able to accompany a family tradition, without replacing it. Although, I believe that Wendell Berry’s ideas need to be considered, I do not believe that all of Berry’s ideas are indisputably correct.
In the beginning of “Family Work”, Berry grapples with the notion that our society’s ideals have changed. “Never before has private life been so preyed upon by public life.” (Berry 156). Before the invention of the television set, families were closer together and all the work was done for the good of the family. We had this innate belief that family was one of the most important aspects of our life. In today’s modern society, our ideals have changed and we search for things outside the family life. …show more content…

In theory, throwing out your TV is an amazing solution. We would no longer be overly dependent on our technology and we would be able to return to the traditional, hardworking way of life. However, this good idea has its drawbacks. If everyone were to throw their television sets out, we would exponentially contaminate the Earth with our trash. Furthermore, our landfills would fill up and begin to spill out onto the streets. It would be a national

Show More
Related
274 Words | 2 Pages

Family reunions are often used to dwell upon the past and reflect upon one’s life. Richard Rodriguez, in is his passage, goes to extreme lengths to explain to the reader his carefully taken observation of his family’s life. Looking deeper into the words and feelings of the passage, Rodriguez portrays a sense of strong family values. It is apparent (by his selective use of diction and narrative structure found throughout the passage) that Rodriguez is writing to a more mature, experienced audience. As a mature writer, Rodriguez knows that the best way to connect with his audience is through the one day responsible for some of their greatest childhood memories -- Christmas.

Read More
1029 Words | 5 Pages

He says that some dads enjoy being covered in “baby vomit while their wives work as test pilots”. He believes that stay-at-home dads is the new career for men, and that staying at home can be a big help to men in the kitchen. In contrast, Barry uses asyndeton when he immediantly shifts back to mens lack of skill in the kitchen by describing his “specialty dish” that he makes at least once or twice a year. He continues to use a very long sentence structure to get his point, that even though men can’t be much help in the kitchen, they do try and that should be equally as important to a “cure for heart disease”. This hyperbole shows how a simple kitchen task can be such a huge accomplishment for an ordinary man.

Read More
1350 Words | 6 Pages

Moore asserts that family support shapes one’s identity

Read More
1546 Words | 7 Pages

He isn’t targeting a specific group to be his audience, he is targeting everyone because he believes that everyone has to contribute in order to help the cause. The purpose of this essay is for it to be a call to action to fix a problem we created and for people to join together to help protect the environment and respect it. The basis for Berry’s rhetoric is that Berry and his family have lived on their land for 200 years and have been the caretakers of the land and that is why he believes that we need to stand together and take care of our Earth. Berry’s argument is a product of his audience

Read More
366 Words | 2 Pages

Many descriptive words are used throughout the essay “Family Counterculture” by Ellen Goodman, to explain how hard it is to raise children. “Mothers and fathers are expected to screen virtually every aspect of their children’s lives.” This is one of the ways she defends the point that parenting has changed and has gotten harder. Even though parenting has changed “all you need to join is a child.”

Read More
1794 Words | 8 Pages

Main Analysis The varieties in family structure are exposed in the television series Parenthood. The small families within the Braverman family give relevant examples of the change. Each of the children in the show has their own unique support system. All families prove relevance to prior research conducted on the topic.

Read More
1104 Words | 5 Pages

There’s no typical family as nuclear families as in the past and not everyone lives in a multigenerational household. Same-sex families are also on the rise as sexual ambiguity is undergoing its own wave of acceptance in all political, social, and economic spheres. With the absence of the parents’ presence in the home due to an inability effectively balance work and home life, children could develop an emotional void/absence. Good communicative dialogue between children and their parents where the adults describe their work situation as it relates to the home to create resilient children, could possibly benefit the household.

Read More
1156 Words | 5 Pages

In his first main point he argues that varying family dynamics are the cause for the rising differences in the family. He uses pathos to his advantage and uses the family dynamics of the Clinton Brothers to give the audience an example of sibling differences and inequality. Furthermore, He continues to discuss how the differences in socioeconomic status of the family effects how successful one particular sibling will than the rest of his/her siblings. In addition Conley says that the higher the socioeconomic status of the family, the better chances a sibling has to become successful. He uses Logos during this section and presents the readers with research and statistics to back up his argument.

Read More
863 Words | 4 Pages

In our life, we often have experiences that teach us how and what we want to be like when we grow up. Everyone has ups and downs from time to time that make one want to stop and other times make one want to run while individually they feel free. The Garden Story by Katherine Mansfield and The First Born Son by Ernest Buckler both show how parental pressure, social pressure, and family pressure around an individual can influence the way one will treat others. Once in a while it is an advantage when they want to change the world to make it better for others, but oftentimes it is for the worse because they personally accept the problems they have and never trying to fix them. Both stories have parental influences that want them to stay as they are, tradition influences that professions stay in the family, and they are always compared to the better child that is more like by parents.

Read More
1351 Words | 6 Pages

In a family there are many different roles; there's the role of the mother, the father, the child, the grandparents, then there’s the brothers and sisters. Every single one of those roles has different responsibilities. The father, according to most of society, is supposed to be the breadwinner for the family. However, nowadays the mother is actually quite capable of being the breadwinner just as much of as the father. As they work to show their children what it is to be an adult they are teaching them as well on how to be an active member of society.

Read More
1767 Words | 8 Pages

In her book “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life,” Lareau depicts a family where the eldest son’s schedule “determines where the adults must be and when they must be there, sets the timing and types of meals for everyone… and even shapes the family vacation plans” (42). In the specific story, the parents have jobs with flexible hours, so they are able to give the child the ability to participate in all of the activities that interest him. While it seems like a wonderful thing to be able to allow children to explore everything they are interested in, it can be difficult for the children to learn that their parents’ lives are also a top priority. If a child is taught to believe that their schedule is the most important part of their family life, they may struggle with someone else’s activities taking priority. Also, if the parents have more than one child then they must deal with giving equal priority to everyone, which is difficult, if not impossible.

Read More
1886 Words | 8 Pages

The past decade has not seen any notable family sitcoms that has surpassed such leaps of social justice as some had in the 1950’s or 1970’s. While that may be disappointing to some, this is also a great feat for all television audiences. So many issues that were once considered, “taboos,” now, can be the premise of the sitcom altogether. Even the little things like interracial couples, married partners in the same bed, and even mentioning a pregnant woman is considered normal. Yes, the family sitcom is still no direct comparison to the modern family arrangement, but it is as close as were going to get for

Read More
524 Words | 3 Pages

“An Entrance to the Woods” is an essay by Wendell Berry about the serenity and importance of nature in his life. In this essay, the author uses tone shifts from dark to light to convey his idea of finding rebirth and rejuvenation through nature. In the beginning of the essay, Berry has left civilization for the first time in a while, and finds himself missing human company and feeling “inexplicably sad” (671). This feeling of sadness is in part from the woods itself, and partly due to Berry leaving the hustle and bustle of normal life in the cities, and the violent change from constant noise to silence causes him to feel lonely in the woods. As a result of feeling alone in the woods, the tone of the essay is dark and brooding, as seen through Berry’s somber diction and mood, as seen on page 671: “And then a heavy feeling of melancholy and lonesomeness comes over me.

Read More
1217 Words | 5 Pages

Family members may or may not be biologically related, share the same household, or be legally recognized” (Raney, 2015:6). In the series Modern family, it shows the dynamics of a 21st century family and how traditions and culture has evolved over the years. As opposed to “nuclear family” “No longer does the traditional family consist of two parents and two children; instead, more diverse and shifting family structures are becoming the norm.

Read More
1100 Words | 5 Pages

“The Changing American Family” by Natalie Angier states, “Fictive families are springing up among young people, old people, disabled people, homeless people, and may well define one of the ultimate evolutions of the family concept, maximizing, as they do, the opportunities for fulfillment of specific social and economic needs outside the constraints of biological relatedness.” The ever changing social dynamics and circumstances of this life have opened the definition of family to encompass individuals who can fill those deep-seated needs

Read More

More about Wendell Berry Family Work Summary

Related Topics

Open Document