Reflective essay

Eseul reflexiv (the reflective essay) – este un eseu mai complex decât cele discutate până acum. El
testează abilitatea de gândire, descriere, ordonare a ideilor şi de a insera exemple extrase din propria
experienţă de viaţă, imaginaţie, studii etc.
Există două tipuri de eseuri reflexive:
 eseuri descriptiv-reflexive (descriptive-reflective essays) – implică deopotrivă un proces complex
de descriere şi reflexie; de obicei, acestea au un titlu format dintr-un singur cuvânt (de exemplu
Restauranting, Gardening etc.) şi presupun nu numai descrierea subiectului respectiv, ci şi
exprimarea propriilor opinii şi sentimente, sau experienţelor care au legătură cu acesta.
 eseuri abstracte – accentul cade mai curând pe raţionamente decât pe descrieri; şi aceste eseuri pot
avea un titlu format dintr-un singur cuvânt, dar acesta desemnează o realitate abstractă (de
exemplu Beauty, Truth etc.). Uneori însă, titlul unui astfel de eseu poate apărea sub forma unei
sintagme care începe, invariabil, cu cuvântul On (de exemplu On our necessity to work, On lack of
courage etc.). În tratarea unui subiect de acest gen descrierea nu este atât de importantă ca
raţionamentele, sentimentele şi părerile personale.

După stabilirea titlului, cel mai important lucru este stabilirea tipului de eseu pe care-l vom avea
(descriptiv-reflexiv sau abstract).

De exemplu, “frontiers”; într-o abordare de tip descriptiv-reflexiv putem include detalii ca:
- frontiers between countries
- geographic descriptions (land, water, air)
- frontiers seen as a separating space between two or more communities
- they can be movable, or fixed
- frontiers in history
- frontiers seen as a defense etc.

Într-o abordare de tip abstract, subiectul trebuie tratat metaforic:

- frontiers seen as a person’s intimacy
- psychical limit
- boundaries
- means of isolation
- prevention from communication (language, behaviour, culture etc.)
- why do we have inter-human frontiers?
- do we build such frontiers voluntarily or not? etc.

Odată ce modul de abordare a subiectului a fost stabilit, este foarte important să ne rezumăm doar la unul
dintre ele şi să nu le „amestecăm”! De exemplu, dacă am ales eseul descriptiv-reflexiv, ne limităm doar la
descrierile din punct de vedere geografic ale frontierei şi ne exprimăm părerile sau sentimentele în legătură
cu acestea. Nu amintim de factorul psihic sau de latura metaforică a subiectului.
În compunerea unui astfel de eseu se îmbină mai multe abilităţi:
 analiza (analysis)
 sinteza (synthesis)
 descrierea (description)
 exemplificarea (illustration; giving examples)
 contrastarea (contrast)
 umorul (humour) – unde este posibil

Pe lângă acestea, trebuie să avem grijă ca stilul ales să fie constant pe tot parcursul lucrării. De exemplu, nu
putem folosi un ton serios, pentru ca apoi să-l schimbăm brusc cu unul comic, decât dacă există un motiv
real pentru acest lucru. De asemenea, eseurile nu trebuie să fie prea personale (redactate la persoana I
singular), decât dacă se specifică acest lucru în indicaţii. Cel mai bine este ca lucrările să folosească un ton
impersonal pentru a putea exprima generalul.

Title: Tourists
 Type: Descriptive-reflexive

Main idea: Tourism today is a minutely organized affair. The average tourist actually sees very little of the
country s/ he visits.

Brainstorming:
- leaflets, brochures, guide books
- tourists plan their holiday a long tome before it actually takes place
- winter time
- local colour
- souvenirs
- sun glasses
- beach
- cruise liners
- ruins, spas
- post –cards
- typical scenes and traditionalism
- rush
- hotels
- travel agencies
- programmes
- tourists see little and have no time to understand and analyse
- holiday is over; back to work; another year full of work ahead of us

Introduction:
- means of transportation for the tourists
- guide books, maps and travel agencies make everything easier

Body:
- the tourist is planning his holiday ling time before it takes place, even in the long winter months (making
decisions, calculating and balancing all the offers)
- nice thoughts about the holiday to come
- holiday time approaching and the host countriea getting ready to receive tourists (spas, ruins, castles,
typical scenes, traditional food and entertainment, souvenirs etc.)
- sight-seeing; tourists see little and have no tyme to analyse and value things; they only have time to take
pictures and send post-cards to their family and friends; snapshots

Conclusion:
- the holiday is over, the tourist returns home
- s /he is refreshed and ready to start work again

Tourists

By car, by train, by ship and by plane, thousands and thousands of tourists depart from home like
migrating birds every year. They provide the best possible evidence to prove that the world is not
big enough. Armed with all sorts of guide books, leflets and maps which tell them where to go
and how to get there, what to see and eat, where to stay and what to do, tourists wander the globe
in search of the unseen, the unique, the unbelievable. There are travel agencies everywhere to
cater for the tourist’s needs and make all the necessary preparations for him. They make out
ambitious programmes and promise to show him as many as seven countries in a fortnight or, if
he is in a hurry, they will cover the same ground in fewer days.

In the safety of his own home, away from the cold winter time outdoors, the tourist begins
planning the summer holiday he longs for. Spread out before him on the floor is a splendid array
of brightly/coloured leaflets, brochures and guide books all of them equally tempting. Here is a
magic island, there a magnific cruise liner, the leaflet on the table reveals a superb blonde
blinking an eye while sipping an exotic cocktail and enjoying the sun…Now is the time for big
decisions to be made, for a fortnight’s holiday is not to be squandered lightly. Would he like to go
on a cruise and swim in the ocean? Would he like to ski and sip a hot chocolate in Aspen? Would
he like to visit a remote corner of the world and hunt? And above all, would he like to do
something he will always remember? It is all there for the asking. Shivering before the fire in the
fireplace and armed with his best paper and pencil, the tourist makes all sorts of calculations and
balances everything in his mind. It takes him an eternity to decide in which particular promising
land he should invest his heard-earned money.

Once the decision made, the tourist is free from worry. He now has something definite to dream
at and discuss about over a cup of coffee, at the gym, when bowling or playing cards. In the
tourist’s mind there is now a little heaven of peace and quiet taking shape minute by minute. This
idea comforts him during the bitter winter months.

Winter passes and the time draws near. The simple tourist is often innocent of the fact that most
countries in the world have become tourist-conscious. For months now, each country has been
advertising its beaches and cities, its spas and ruins, its beauty, modernity and tradition in a
frantic effort to be chosen. They do their best to meet the tourist’s needs and be up to his
expectations. So, it ges without say that they provide”typical” scenes: costumes, food, music,
ways of entertainment etc. Representatives of the tourist organization give the visitor a hearty
welcome the moment he sets foot on their “teritory” and vendors of souvenirs find themselves in
a permanent competition.

It is no wonder that the tourist is an extremely busy man. He barely arrives at the hotel that he is
immediately taken on a conducted tour of the city by day or by night (according to the moment he
arrives). In the morning, he goes through another ardous course of sight-seeing. He has barely
had the possibility to recover, or find out exactly where the hotel is located, before he is off again
to another part of the country. It is not a tour what he gets. It is a snap-shot view. No time to
analyse or even understand what everything is about. He only has at most half an hour to take
some pictures which he can sort when getting home and proudly show them to his friends. The
only inconvenient would be that he can no longer remember where each of them was taken and
what they represent. In his perpetual race against time, the tourist is always sending post-cards
to his relatives depicting wonderful views of places stored randomly in his mind, like more and
more pieces of puzzle.

No other fortnight in the whole year passed so quickly. Travel-worn, the tourist eventually arrives
home proudly displaying his collection of passport-stamps. Truly rested, he is back at the office
the next day with a year’s work ahead of him. But winter comes again and he will begin another
chase of best paradises to see during his next summer holiday.

Title: Tradition
 Type: abstract

Main idea: Tradition is like a living body, in a permanent change.

Brainstorming:
- perceived as a rigid thing
- association with the old
- struggle to accept the new
- re-examination and re-evaluation of the past
- tradition is misunderstood
- war
- what does tradition mean?
- Darwin; social revolution
- slow assimilation
- tradition is like a city
- we get it from our ancestors and pass it on to our successors

Introduction:
- the word ‘tradition’ is misunderstood; it is not a fixed rigid thing

Body:
- there is a struggle to accept the new
- we cannot decide if everything which is dazzling new will ever become tradition: fashion, arts,
politics etc.
- exception: atomic energy, for instance; there have been dramatic changes (slow process, but
sure)
- the manner in which new ideas are accepted: half way by one generation and completely by
the next one
- Darwin’s example

Conclusion:
- tradition is like a city, always changing.
- it is something we inherit from our ancestors and pass to our successors, but we do not keep it
unaltered.

Tradition

Due to the fact that the word itself is widely used, it is frequently misunderstood. It is regarded as
a fixed entity, rigidly hostile to change, something to be defended against those who do not
treasure it. Nothing could be more mistaken. Tradition is not only made up of our important
beliefs, but also the great host of trivial daily habits and customs we acquire in the course of
growing up. Nor is it inflexible. New ideas are continually being adapted to fit in with the old.
This process is slow but sure. And when old ideas become obsolete, they fall into oblivion.

There is a permanent struggle concerning the acceptance of the new. People do not wish to give
up notions they hold dear. Thus, tradition protects itself, for by providing a testing-ground of the
new, it allows only what is of some value to assert itself.

In this way, tradition acts like a protector against the easy acceptance of new ideas which seem
to be attractive on the surface. Not everything which is dazzling new is worth to be labelled as
long-lasting item, but it is impossible for us to decide whether it is valuable or not. What seems to
be extremely new and trendy in arts, politics or science may no longer be valid in a few
years’time. The desire for novelty which is so important in fashion, architecture or design
sometimes affects our most important beliefs and institutions. We are often urged by the media to
“re-examine” and “re-assess” long-established views which have taken centuries to form and
replace them by opinions which have been conceived in a few hours or days. One may wonder
how many such “re-assessments” will be remembered in few years’ time.

It is equally true that sometimes a discovery may completely alter our outlook. Ideas which have
been kept intact for centuries can occasionally be swept away over night. For instance, present
advances in nuclear physics have totally changed our “traditional”conception of warfare. The
very word “war” has now taken on a new meaning which was unknown as recently as 1944.
Nevertheless, dramatic changes of this sort are unusual. The big social revolution we have
witnessed in the twentieth century still has a long way to go before reaching anything like
perfection.

Ideas which are half-accepted by one generation are often completely accepted by the one that
follows. Novelty is harshly attacked by those who cannot conceive of a new order and are judged
by standards of the past. This is due to the fact that people’s sensibilities are confined to what
they have always known and believed. What was totally new to one generation is easily
assimilated by the following one because sensibility has widened enough to allow a notion that
was once considered radical to establish itself. A good example is Darwin’s Origin of Species:
the controversy that it initially provocked has lingered down to this day. If at the beginning
Darwin’s arguments were hotly disputed, now they are part of our cultural heritage. This means
that they no longer shock our sensibilities. In the same way, modern music does not strike us as
discordant because it does not conform to former conceptions of harmony. What were once new
ideas have withstood the test tradition has imposed on them.

Our view of the past is always changing. Tradition is like a great city which is growing and
developing continuously. Old buildings disappear and new ones take their places. Regardless of
its form, shape or size, each new building alters our vision on the already existing ones. The city
we have in front of our eyes is not the one our ancestors saw and used to know. Nor is it the one
we shall pass to our successors.

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