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Alex Kistler

10/24/18

English 1010

4th Period

Optimism in the United States

The United States is a country that thrives on consumerism and people wanting to grow

in the community. In the article, “The More Factor,” written by Laurence Shames in 2015,

published in ​Signs of life in the USA : readings on popular culture for writers,​ Shames makes a

poor attempt at informing the common reader about consumerism in the United States. The essay

is compacted with big words and unnecessary points that confuse the reader. The abundance of

vast vocabulary make the reading difficult and tiring.. His purpose of the essay is to inform the

reader that every American is an optimist, which is a fallacy which builds many arguments

against it. All of the reasoning and examples to follow.

The article talks primarily about in America's early years and how the residents have

always been wanting to expand. He uses the analogy of buying a vacant lot and turning it into a

small town. Later on in the article he speaks on how the economy is responsible for Americans

craving more than they already have. He uses examples from the job market ratios and stock

market numbers. He concludes the essay with a brief overview of what he wrote and ends with a

question. He says since the early years of America, everyone is an optimist and wants more, and

even to this date he believes that.

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In the first several pages of his essay, it takes him too long to get to his thesis statement.

It takes Shames two and half pages to get to his thesis statement, which bores the reader. It is

common knowledge that the thesis should be early in your essay to let the reader know what they

are going to be reading for the next several pages. “ The key was frontier, not just as a matter of

acreage, but as an idea.” (77) The thesis itself is great, but it is in the tenth paragraph in the

essay. It takes too much reading to figure out what he is writing about, and not just a old western

town trying to expand. Another mistake being he seems to be trying to impress the reader by

using words that are unnecessary to the context of the essay. It makes the reader have to make a

brief pause in their reading to make sure they understand what point he is trying to make. For

example, in his essay he makes the error on page 80.

“Compounding the shortage of more was an unfortunate but critical demographic fact.

Real wealth was nearly ceasing to expand just and the moment when the members of the

unprecedented population bulge known as the baby boom were entering whet should

have been their peak years of income expansion.” (80)

These few sentences could have been butchered down into a few words. For example.

When the baby boom unexpectedly happened, this limited the income of a common family. An

essay should be clean of clutter and straight to the point. Adding excess words to make the

illusion of knowledge is tiresome.

The body paragraphs make you feel overwhelmed and illiterate. They are riddled with

statistics and large vocabulary; which makes the essay unenjoyable to read. He talks about how

America was full of optimism and a giddiness to expand. But it has a negative connotation due to

the fact his vocabulary makes it seem like expanding, especially in the 1800’s, was a bad thing.
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Expansion, the desire for more, manifest destiny, was the foundation of what we as a country are

today. The fact that he believes that our expansion cursed us from the beginning is an outrageous

claim.

This essay uses really large, and unhelpful words at an attempt make its claim. It takes

several times to read a sentence due to the unnecessary word choice. From the book “Writing

Well,” by William Zinsser, published in 1976, published by ​HarperCollinsPublishers​ ​it says that

you should keep the essay as straight to the point as possible, by getting rid of not needed words

and and this fails to do so. Passages like “Neutralized by the gargantuan carrying costs.” (79)

could easily be summed down to easier and more simple words. One might argue that the use of

bigger words can describe a situation better than a more simple one, and they are correct.

However, an excessive use of such words give off an illusion of trying to seem smarter than one

is, which drain the reader and make them disengaged from the writing.

The main purpose of the essay is that all Americans are optimists who are always seeking

more. This claim is false because it is a generalization of US citizens. There are many people

who are content with what they have and do not wish for anything else. This false sense of greed

is what burdons his claim from the beginning. He assumes that every American wants more

which creates a fallacy. The second reason that his claim is false because, wanting more is a

human trait. If an individual is living in poverty, they are more than likely going to make an

attempt to get out of their situation. It is a common thing for people to want to achieve greater

things, from a young child to an elderly person. But you cannot claim that every single person

wants to upscale their house and have several children and get a raise at their job. Being content

with your life is a valuable trait to have, it allows you to appreciate the finer things in life.
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The essay “The More Factor.” by Laurence Shames is an attempt at speaking on

consumerism and optimism in Americans. It speaks on early America and its growth over the

many years. The claim is made that Americans always have craved “more” in their lives, and

how Americans have great optimism and are pursuing a more. However, his claim may have

some evidence, his stylistic and grammatical choices make the essay difficult to read and tire the

reader. If Shames had cut down on some of his large terms, his essay would have been

outstanding.

Shames, Laurence.”The More Factor.” ​Signs of life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture

for Writers.​ 8th Edition, ed. Sonia Maasik, John Solomon, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s

2015, 80-86. Print.

Zinsser, William, 1922-2015. “On Writing Well : an Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction.”

New York, NY :HarperCollins, 1976. Print.