In this unit, we studied many texts that made arguments for something or another, but two texts in particular seemed similar to me. While these texts are very different, such as one of them being a response to a contrary piece of work, they are also very similar. The texts “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood and “I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece” by Wendy Molyneux make arguments about our culture and how it needs to change. To do this, both authors use satire and exaggeration in order to convince audiences to start being aware of the stereotypes that our society has created. 

Almost all pieces of satire are written for a reason, and this one is no different. Margaret Atwood wrote “There Was Once” in 1993. Back in this time most movies, specifically cartoons still were depicting almost exclusively white Americans. As other types of people began to gain rights and privileges, equal rights refer to all categories even children’s’ movies. Childhood confidence and social skills can be based off seeing good role models even just people similar to you in movies. So in this text Margaret Atwood makes a strong stand for change in a creative way. 

One of the underlying similarities that I found between these two texts that I believe benefits both of them, is the authors use of interjections in order to show the satire more blatantly and therefore make the argument clearer. While they are different kinds of interjections, they are both significant. Atwood uses her interjections very often and throughout her text they get more extreme, one example of this would be near the end of the piece when she is trying to tell her story and her audience is very concerned with the color of the character she just has to 

"Skip the description. Description oppresses. But you can say what colour she was." 

"What colour?" 

"You know. Black, white, red, brown, yellow. Those are the choices. And I'm telling you right now, I've had enough of white. Dominant culture this, dominant culture that-" 

"I don't know what colour." 

"Well, it would probably be your colour, wouldn't it?" 

"But this isn't about me! It's about this girl-" 

"Everything is about you." 

"Sounds to me like you don't want to hear this story at all." 

"Oh well, go on. You could make her ethnic. That might help." (Atwood, 512)

While all of these interjections are annoying and detrimental to the story, Atwood is pointing out a flaw in our societies’ writing history. The stories have gotten repetitive and the audience wants a change in the story line. The stereotypical fairytale story has a tendency to discriminate against certain races and genders, this is one of the main topics that Atwood is acknowledging and making an argument against. 

Wendy Molyneux also wrote her piece in order to make a statement, but hers was different because it was a direct reaction to a different piece of work. Christopher Hitchens wrote “Why Women Aren’t Funny” in 2007. Hitchens is a popular contrarian. He has no trouble in taking the antagonistic side and that is shown in this piece of work. It is pretty well explained by the title. He wrote an entire paper on how women are naturally not as funny as men because they don’t need to be funny to attract mates. In reaction to this many women were frustrated by the generalization that Hitchens had made about their gender, so in response, Molyneux was prompted to write a piece of satire. She intended for this piece to be funny and prove Hitchens wrong about women by exaggerating all of the stereotypical negative things that women do, such as crying. 

Similarly, Wendy Molyneux uses the same type of satirical interjections in her own piece to make a point. While they are less blunt and less often, they serve the same purpose. One example of this comes near the beginning of the story when Molyneux exclaims, “’I will feel better if I try on all my clothes and shoes to the tune of an upbeat Motown song such as ‘My Girl.’ And so I did that. I tried on all of my clothes, and I felt better until I tried on one pair of pants that didn’t fit me anymore. And then I totally started to cry again, because I am so fat.” In this quote the interjection is much subtler than that of Atwood but it serves the same purpose. When she says that she abruptly started crying she is using exaggeration in order to over-emphasize the stereotype that women just cry all the time. She uses this tactic as a ploy against Christopher Hitchens, the individual she is arguing against. By overwhelming the subject she is attempting to discredit the argument, and it works to an extent. 

In both of these two texts we see a masterful use of satire and exaggeration, whether sporadic and often like Atwood uses, or scarcely but significant as Molyneux does. Both methods successfully serve their purpose to shed light on stereotypes that these women find to be misleading or untrue. In these texts the women are making arguments that call for change and reconstruction of the way that people view various topics. 