Short Takes- Confessions (Amy Tan) and September (Lia Purpura)

For this week's Short Takes assignment I stumbled across Amy Tan's, "Confessions" essay. Tan describes a scene in which her mother and her are having an argument. Her writing and description makes it seem like the reader is in the room with them watching the two characters fight with one another. In this essay, the author uses dialogue to place you there as well. I liked how this dialogue was minimal, and she only included the pieces that were crucial to the scene she was trying to portray. I think lately in our essays we are afraid to use dialogue, fearing that it might take away from the personal relationship you are trying to create with the reader. I think we can learn how to use dialogue correctly using Amy Tan's "Confessions" as a model.