Blog 9

In the narrative essay" Eat, Memory" (2017), David Wong Louie describes his personal experience with not being able to eat following surgery for his throat cancer. He walks his reader through his initial cancer diagnosis and the troublesome events that led to him being reduced to the "G-tube". Louie scrolls down memory lane and gives very detailed accounts of his experiences both with food and without food in order to show his reader how monumental of a role it played in his life. Just like so many people across the world, dining out and bonding over food was a big part of Louie's work and personal life. Eating is something one takes for granted without even realizing it. This essay's intended audience are those who are dealing with the excruciating alienation of not being able to connect with people as they once were able to and those who may need a reminder to show more gratitude for the small things. 

The way in which Wong presents to the world his cancer survival story is something that calls for admiration because even though he is writing about his battle with cancer, he finds a way as a writer to include some humor in the essay and entertain his audience. The author does this by including sarcastic comments and exaggerating some trues. We think that what Wong did in “Eat, Memory” represents what every writer should do with their work because our job as writers is to make people want to know what we have to say at all cost. Another thing that we found to be useful to take from the essay was the way in which Wong uses metaphors throughout the work. Metaphors could be a powerful tool for writers if they are used the right way, and we think that if we follow Wong example, we will be able to learn when is the right time to use them.