|
|
Post by Mr. Vitale on Jul 7, 2015 16:43:52 GMT
Write your responses to the essay "The Cowboy and His Cow" by responding to this thread.
|
|
|
|
Post by sziemba on Jul 29, 2015 23:17:09 GMT
Out of all seventeen of the essays in The Eloquent Essay: An Anthology of Classical and Creative Nonfiction, Edward Abbey’s, “The Cowboy And His Cow,” stuck out like a sore thumb to me due to its simplistic and childish title. Upon first glance, I thought this essay would be a cake walk; a simple essay about modern day cowboys and their historical roots. However, upon closer inspection, I discovered that this work had much more to offer. Intrigued by how the simplistic title had deceived me into reading into a much more serious topic, I indulged into Edward Abbey’s work with a childish curiosity. After receiving my fill of Edward Abbey’s opinion of modern day cowboys and ranchers, two puzzling questions arose in my cobwebbed brain.
The first of two major questions that emerged in my head upon finishing Edward Abbey’s “The Cowboy And His Cow,” was why Edward Abbey included the voices of the crowd he was telling his tale to. These voices rarely chime in, but their presence stuck out like an apple in an orange basket. They add no real value, nor are they very important to the message of “The Cowboy And His Cow,” but yet the author included them in his final draft. Edward Abbey uses the crowd’s voices during the final draft of his essay to show the humanity of his question and how his response shows the controversy of the topic and how touchy the subject can be to people. “A yell: Cowboys do it better! Answered by another: Ask any cow! Coarse laughter.” This quote from the rowdy audience shows how this topic is touchy to people and is one that needs to be taken seriously.
The second question that plagued my sun bleached cranium is why the author chose to opened his speech/essay with his personal life. Edward Abbey starts with his time at the University of New Mexico, and his experiences with his college and “fair bronc rider” friend who, for privacy sake, was named Mac. After some deep though on this question, the answer came to me. Edward Abbey included his personal life to add some background information to his arguments. He included his tales in college and his desire to be rancher to show that he has a personal experience with ranchers and the life style they live. He also included it to show how his original opinion of wonder of the life of the cowboy changed throughout his life.
|
|
|
|
Post by marissamcgaffney on Jul 31, 2015 19:29:39 GMT
"The Cowboy and His Cow" by Edward Abbey did not immediately spark my interest. This speech was actually a recommended read so I decided to give it a chance. After reading "The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank," I needed something a bit more pleasant, and this did just the trick. Edward Abbey allowed for his audience to get to know his background and some of his personal life, while also creating an argument about livestock and cowboys. He is very blunt and open about his opinion on this topic, which as the reader I found enjoyable.
"The Cowboy and His Cow" is a speech that was delivered to the University of Montana. Edward Abbey adds the remarks he heard through out his audience, and this made the tale feel even more realistic and relevant about the topic. This created a humorous tone throughout the essay, "We were both crude, shy, ugly, obnoxious—like most college boys. (Interjection: "Like You!"). Although, Edward Abbey allowed his audience to chuckle, his speech is very serious to him and he has very strong feelings towards Cattlemen. He says, "First, I'd get rid of the stinking, filthy cattle. Every single animal. Shoot them all, and stock the place with real animal..." This is just one of many examples of how passionate he is about removing the cattle.
After reading his speech I was skeptical about his closing statements. "Let those cowboys and ranchers find some harder way to make a living, like the rest of us have to do." "They've had their free ride. It's time they learned to support themselves." I did not fully understand why he was saying these things about the cowboys. I guess I just didn't realize cowboys have it easy, maybe I just need to do some extra research about these cattlemen.
|
|
|
|
Post by Alyssa Bright on Aug 11, 2015 20:09:08 GMT
I have to say, this essay is fairly relevant to today in just about everything it covers. From the stereotypical "way out west" types of things to the minds of college aged boys, and even the things the author, Edward Abbey, mentions about welfare. I felt that some of the things that were stated in this essay were so accurate that I had to go back to the beginning of the essay and double check what year it was written in. Although it wasn't written too terribly long ago, 1985 that is, things have still changed enough within the past thirty years that you would think the stereotypes of these things would have changed by now.
Things like college and welfare have evolved so much (you would suppose) that it is hard to believe how similar they are to today to how they were back when this essay was composed. It is like these things have changed and then gone back to the way they were before for some reason that I can not seem to understand.
I assume that I sound very unsure of myself on where I am going with this response but now it is beginning to cross my mind, have college and welfare really even changed? How can our country go through so many changes, laws, and presidents and still seem like we are back at the starting line with little to no progress? The similarities of the college boys' minds back then to the college boys' minds now is mind boggling. Girls on their minds, partying all the time, and even some hunting. I suppose nothing has changed there. But the accuracy in the description of the way welfare works is unbelievable.
Abbey says that people who are living off of welfare are parasites. They suck up a free ride on the public's money and land. Today, welfare is pretty much the same, people who apply for it take money right out of the pockets of all hard working Americans and their families through tax money. The similarity is so real it makes me wonder if our country has really truly made and progress at all in the past thirty years.
I guess after all, the only thing that has changed about welfare is the amount of money the government gives out has risen and the amount of people who receive welfare has risen as well. It is saddening to believe that is true of our country, in a country full of opportunities, this is what we have had to amount to.
|
|
|
|
Post by carriestango on Aug 14, 2015 18:47:07 GMT
The essay/speech "The Cowboy and His Cow" by Edward Abbey took an entirely different turn than what I had previously anticipated. Abbey began by talking about the childhood dream of becoming a cowboy, so naturally I expected him to write about how and why the cowboy is a child's fictitious hero and how a child idolizes them for all the good they appear to do. Instead, Abbey began tearing down the glorified cowboy by making the people realize the issues that the cowboys and their cattle have brought. One of these issues being overgrazing which is destroying the land, and Abbey said: "As we destroy our land, we destroy our agricultural economy and the basis of modern society." (Abbey, 80)
"Our public lands have been overgrazed for a century. The BLM knows it; the Forest Service knows it. The Government Accounting Office knows it." (Abbey, 80) Abbey talked about how the most these corporations have "acted" in trying to appease the issues of overgrazing was by proposing little stratagems. Doing so allowed them to avoid cutting down on cattle, which would be the worst thing they could do. However, Abbey talked about how he would solve the overgrazing issues which included reducing the cattle's population and opening a hunting season on them. Abbey also claimed that if we eliminate the public-lands beef industry in the west we would save tax money, that would have went to the cattlemen's subsidies, without having the price of beef in the supermarket skyrocket. This also further proves the point that Abbey made when he said that the "work" the cowboys and ranchers do is not hard, difficult, dangerous, or valuable in anyway.
Abbey also stated, "I'm not going to bombard you with graphs and statistics, which don't make much of an impression on intelligent people anyway." (Abbey, 79) He is correct in both regards. Rather than slapping down a bunch of graphs and statistics, he paints a picture of what the world really looks like with overgrazing, and would look like if it continued. He also claimed that both graphs and statistics would not make much of an impression on intelligent people, and he is right. They want to hear others personal ideas and opinions in order to gain a more valued and respected perspective on the subject. Anyone could give you graphs and statistics but not just anyone can speak for your opinions and how you see things. And what better way to make an impression than though a speech that could have offended many and ruined the beef ranchers industry; not that it would be such a terrible thing.
|
|
iant
New Member
Posts: 4 
|
Post by iant on Aug 30, 2015 22:27:59 GMT
Ian Taylor
Mr. Vitale
AP English 11
30 August 2015
The essay of "The Cowboy and His Cow" by Edward Abbey caught me out like what Carrie said, but with some minor differences. Like Carrie said, I thought that the author would be talking about an action hero or some past event that taught him what Cowboys were and why they were amazing. However, I figured an essay (after taking a quick glance at first (for a hypothesis)) that is about as long and as detailed (Maybe more than a quick glance, as I was interested in this passage as soon as I read it) as the others would not go ahead and tell the reader how amazing Cowboys were. I was partially expecting the author to go ahead and ruin the "name" of the cowboy, and I wasn't wrong with my thoughts. The author went right for the jugular of the Cowboys with this essay, and it was generally a nice read.
The way the author "attacked" Cowboys in general was one I have not seen before. He went at it with an immense-amount of emotion, which is something that I love about essays. The only difference I see between him and other authors is that he was attached to the object he is now against. Abbey feels that they as humans are not necessarily worth all of the trouble that comes with them, and that if they all disappeared, we wouldn't even notice. I agree entirely, and I dislike the feeling entirely. I try to assume that everyone has their uses in society, but when I am proven wrong, I get feelings of disappointment and a good sense of reality. Cowboys and cow ranchers have little-to-no uses in American society, and I agree with the author that they are not needed.
As said before, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and was extremely happy to read it. Any author willing to throw out opinions to the public like that is a courageous guy or girl in my book, and that is why I appreciated this essay so much.
|
|
|
|
Post by kaylawilson on Aug 30, 2015 23:59:14 GMT
The Cowboy and His Cow by Edward Abbey was based off of a personal experience of the author. Originally, Abbey praises the stereotypical "cowboy" due to the fact that for one, he was completely misguided as to what a true cowboy was. Secondly, he had lived with a room-mate in college who was the ideal "Western Cowboy". So, as a result, he believed that cowboys were "cool", and wanted to be one himself. Abbey even felt disrespected when someone talked badly about a cowboy, and took it personally because he wanted to be one. According to Abbey, it took him 30 years to figure out that a cowboy was not at all what he wanted a cowboy to be, but that in fact a cowboy was something that he started to despise. Abbey begins his rant by stating that cowboys (western cattlemen) were nothing more than "welfare parasites", and then begins to rant about how cattle in the Western part of the U.S. were "damaging the land" and "national park" just by grazing. Abbey seemed furious in his essay that Utah allows Cattle grazing, and will do so for the next ten years, with the possibility of the time being extended. Abbey says that "overgrazing is too weak of a term", and refers to most of the Mid-West as "cowburnt", which means that the once beautiful, green grass has now been turned into brown fields filled with dead weeds. Once Abbey's tirade is over, he begins to come up with ways to extinguish the "overgrazed" problem in the Mid-West. Abbey provides examples such as "reducing the number of cows on public lands", and opening a hunting season on ranged cattle. Basically, the whole essay consists of Abbey ranting about things that no one will ever care to fix. To put it bluntly, America loves beef too much to resolve any of the cattle "problems", and with all of the food industries that rely on cattle, the things that Abbey wants will never happen. I did not enjoy this essay very much, as the author uses a rather negative way to get his point across. I rather enjoyed the way Abbey introduced the main point, as it seemed nostalgic in remembrance of happy times. The essay took a turn, and began to just get on my nerves. I would not recommend that specific essay for anyone to read, as it gave off a negative vibe and made me uncomfortable even though it was just words on a paper. Abbey uses satire and negativity to get his point across which just flat out irritated me as his mentality seems to be of one who is a complete narcissist.
|
|
|
|
Post by Gustavo on Feb 10, 2021 23:05:46 GMT
Wow, amazing weblog structure! How long ave you ever been running a blokg for? you make running a blog look easy. The full look of your wbsite is fantastic, let alone the content material! www.patreon.com/posts/44360157writing a essay writing a essay |
|
|
|
Post by Leandro on Feb 15, 2021 12:54:14 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Kerri on Feb 19, 2021 12:57:15 GMT
hello!,I like your writing so a lot! proportion we be in contact more about your post on AOL? I require an expert in this area to unravel my problem. May be that is you! Taking a look ahead to look you. essaytypwe.wordpress.comLow priced Essay. custom essay writing service uk |
|
|
|
Post by Marie on Sept 11, 2021 10:39:17 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Mel on Nov 9, 2021 16:53:24 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Verlene on Nov 12, 2021 13:15:18 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Antony on May 7, 2024 7:46:38 GMT
The Top Reasons People Succeed In The Pornstar Industry Top
10 Pornstars
|
|
/0389/