My argument, however, is that the essay on Descriptive Writing is indeed more than just an essay providing pointers on descriptive writing. My argument is that the essay presents very specific and locatable political opinions that are elided by the essay's ostensible concern with prose style. Exactly what these hidden opinions are should become evident upon a perusal of the MOO spaces I have constructed--if they are fully successful. That is, in fact, the point of using the MOO spaces as an avenue of critical thought and pedagogy. But let me make explicit here the political position that I want to uncover in the essay on Descriptive Writing, to wit: the editors of The MacMillan Reader criticize Marie Martinez's use of a figure of speech that compares the effect of the salt marsh to that of a soothing drug because they think that by doing so she is comparing the salt marsh to something artificial (the soothing drug), and that this is out of keeping with the naturalness of the salt marsh. However, the editors praise Marie for comparing the salt marsh to a painting of van Gogh, and to motor oil and mash potatoes. The point is, of course, that van Gogh and motor oil are just as, and probably more, artificial than a soothing drug. Thus, the editors' construction of a natural-artificial opposition depends entirely on the fact that they want to marginalize the idea of drugs as "artificial" and other, while including high culture in the form of van Gogh as "natural."
E.B. White's essay "Once More to the Lake" is about White's trip to a lake in Maine with his family after an absence of thirty years. White notes the changes at the lake (my argument is that the changes he notes are all economically motivated), and he also notes how many things have remained the same (my argument here is that the things that have remained the same depend on chance--e.g., the Bather who washes himself with soap in the lake is still there thirty years later). White reflects on his mortality as he watches his son do all the things he used to do at the lake, and he feels himself becoming his own father. White finds qualified comfort in the idea that he will live on in his son after he dies, and that fact enables him to accept the changes at the lake. I show that this idea of White's is entirely illusory, and that economic changes will ultimately bring the symbolic death that he wants to prevent with his son.