Essay Evaluation

The essays I evaluated were Sarcophagus, by Richard Selzer and My Creature from the Black Lagoon, by Stephen King. The essay I most enjoyed was My Creature from the Black Lagoon, by Stephen King. I liked this essay better because it was entwined with King’s emotions and how he felt about seeing this movie. I found this essay more entertaining and elevating than the essay by Selzer. Selzer’s essay was a bit morbid and depressing to read. As I read King’s essay, I felt inspired as well as catapulted into King’s life as he described what seeing the movie meant to him and how it reminded him of certain times in his life. As I read Selzer’s essay, I felt as though I was reading an autopsy report so to speak. The main divisions between King’s essay and Selzer’s essay were very obvious. King’s essay was friendlier almost like a conversation. Selzer’s essay was very descriptive and less welcoming. The abstract phrase from Sarcophagus, by Richard Selzer is as follows, “I understand that in its cellular wisdom, the body of this man had sought out the murderous function of my scapel, and stretched itself upon the table to receive the final stabbing.” The abstract phrase from My Creature from the Black Lagoon, by Stephen King is as follows; “I think my mom, who could be stubborn, intractable, grimly persevering and nearly impossible to discourage, had gotten a taste for captaining her own life.”   The concrete phrase from Sarcophagus, by Richard Selzer is as follows; “It is the act of an outlaw, someone who does not know right from wrong.” The concrete phrase from   My Creature from the Black Lagoon, by Stephen King is as follows, “When Coleridge spoke of “the suspension of disbelief” in his essay on imaginative poetry, I believe he knew that disbelief is not like a balloon, which may be suspended in air with a minimum effort; it is like a lead weight, which has to be hoisted with a clean and a jerk and held up by main force.“