Critique on "Conveniently Portrayed"

Sara Angela Rodriguez

A415-002/Chambers

Student Critique/ Conveniently Portrayed

3/12/2013

When I first read the piece I had to go back and look at the title and ask myself, “Who is being conveniently portrayed?” I had to assume that the word ‘convenient’ was defined as ‘appropriate’ or ‘fittingly’ in order to understand that Hodge was being portrayed in a fitting manner through his various actions. Hodge is nervous, which we see from his awkward interactions with Lucille/Margaret, yet he paints a picture of overconfidence that we see from his interactions with the waiter (the ordering of the expensive steak and the confirmation of its rarity). I really enjoyed reading your story and found it clever, though I did not see what about it would be considered experimental. The usage of the footnotes to correct the woman’s name was interesting but I wish that you would have gone all out with the footnotes. Looking at the piece I saw many opportunities to use the footnotes to either elaborate on the main story or give asides/digressions that went along with the story. I think that if you were to take advantage of using the footnotes and maybe even add end notes (or headers/footer) your piece would be much more experimental. If you were to keep it as is, with the footnotes being use conservatively, I would at least add a footnote per page. I think that this would make the piece more consistent. I hope that my comments can be of some help.