Page 339 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade8_Flipbook

aCTIVITy 4.11
continued
planning and revising an analysis of a Humorous Text
my Notes
student expository essay
“The Power of Pets” by Isha Sharma (an eighth-grade student)
1 Every child has gone through a phase in life when they have a sudden fixation with getting a pet, and parents often have to go through a lot of trouble in order to appease the child, at least until the obsession is replaced with another. In the light-hearted essay, “I’ve got a few pet peeves about sea creatures,” Dave Barry uses hyperbole and verbal irony to show how a parent will often go through great lengths to satisfy his child, often hoping that the child will learn something in the process.
2 To point out the often ridiculous experiences parents go through for their children, Barry uses hyperbole to emphasize how complicated getting a pet fish can be. For example, he explains first how a “pet” beetle under his daughter’s “loving care and feeding ... thrived for maybe nine seconds before expiring
like a little six legged parking meter” (1). The additional use of simile and the exaggerated amount of time adds to the humor, as in any case, one’s “loving care and feeding” should not cause the death of anything so quickly, no matter how terrible the “care” could actually be. The explanation of the parents replacing each beetle with another shows how willing parents are to support their children no matter how ridiculous the circumstances. Furthermore, Barry calls the fish he bought “so nonviolent that in the wild, worms routinely beat them up and steal their lunch money” (2). As known to all people, it is fish that eat worms and
not the other way around. This is hyperbolic because worms are not known for “beating fish up” and animals do not have money, lunch money included. This also ties back to a metaphor/analogy Barry made that “an aquarium is a powder keg that can explode in deadly violence at any moment just like ... junior high” (2). Both of these situations are highly exaggerated. Through the use of hyperbole, Barry is able to convey how parents often feel about their struggle even in simple situations, to which a child might react to them as being overdramatic.
3 Also, Barry uses verbal irony/sarcasm to vent and display his frustration, which proves furthermore the lengths he is going to help his daughter. For instance, when complaining about the aggressive nature of fish, he says they could become aggressive if “it was a month containing the letter ‘R’, of if they hear the song “Who Let the Dogs Out”” (2). Months and songs are all aspects of human life, it is unlikely that fish will ever have fish months or fish songs. This adds to the sarcastic tone of the writer, which shows that even through his frustrations, he is struggling to find the right choice for his daughter, no matter how much of a nuisance it is to make it. Also, Barry uses sarcasm when explaining the variety of needs for a fish tank so that “the fish would
be intellectually stimulated and get into a decent college” (1). The author, as with most intellectual people, knows that fish do not have colleges, and seeing
312 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 8
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