The artifact I chose to analyze is a book by Larry Miller called Spoiled Rotten America: Outrages of Everyday Life. Miller is an extremely well-known comedian who uses his personal life experiences as a tool for expressing the lessons he learned. Each chapter tells a different aspect of Miller’s life, but the book is unified with a common theme. I chose to analyze this book in particular because the author incorporates his philosophies and ideologies in the stories which is very intriguing.
Miller presents ideologies about life, specifically speaking to upper middle class and upper class readers. He imposes ideas that they take too much for granted and should step back and realize the important things that truly matter in the world. He speaks of relationships between himself and his wife and how important it is to treat one's significant other with honor, respect, and affection. He relishes in the fact that parenthood is one of the greatest pleasures in life and while it is inconvenient, hard work, and relentless, it is the most rewarding jobs one could ever enjoy. Miller also preaches about religion. He expects a tolerance for not only his religion of Judaism, but for all beliefs everywhere.
The way Larry Miller expresses his ideologies is creative and gets the message across in a way that is unexpected. He begins each chapter by complaining about all of the negative aspects his subject matters entail, but then flips it around near the end and explains why his philosophies and ideologies are the exact opposite of what he lead the reader to believe. This certainly catches the reader off guard by grabbing his or her attention to understand why the ideologies are surprising.
I think that you do a very good job of anaylzing this book as your artifact. Ideological criticism (to me) is something that I'm still trying to understand, but you seem to have a clear knowledge of what it is, so I think that Ideological Criticism may be the method of choice for you're first essay. I also think this is a very cgood choice because the content of the book seems very intereting, therefore you could analyze alot of different parts of the book. :)
ReplyDeleteAlong with Daria, I too am still trying to comprehend Ideoligical Criticism, but it most definitely seems like it would be the way to go for analyzing this book. This book seems very entertaining.
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