In Praise Of Margins Analysis

Words: 1023
Pages: 5

Amairany Sanchez
Professor Snyder
English 4
November 3rd, 2015

Marginal and It’s Benefits In the essay “In Praise of Margins”, by Ian Frazier, Frazier talks about his experiences with marginal places, he mentions how “marginal people or places or activities are the ones that don’t quite work out”(Frazier), meaning that it’s usually a series of unfocused, unorganized activities that go from being nothing to becoming one of the most memorable and meaningful things people have done and might also be one of the most cheapest things as well. “In Praise of margins”, Frazier explains how marginal play was a part of his life, specifically his childhood, and what it meant to him. The simple things such as making forts, shooting frogs, picking
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Who would’ve thought that the least likeable activity would be the activity that could bring so many great habits in life. According to an article written by Katherine Lee, a school- age children expert, kids who do chores understand the importance of getting a job done. Lee states that “Giving kids chores can emphasize the value of keeping things cleaned and organized”(Lee). When children are at school, and as they get older, at work and they have responsibilities it will be easier for them to get them done. Not only that, but it can also teach kids how to be organized. Simple chores can have a positive long term effect in life, even as one grows older a realization comes that makes people understand how the small things that they were told to do when they were little impacts and benefits their lives now. Even though a lot of times this activities were taking away time from the actual fun, at the end of the day they were always activities that had to get done otherwise it would result in getting in trouble. Those chores that were considered to be boring and unnecessary for us, were the ones that taught us how to clean up after ourselves and to learn how to maintain a clean space everywhere we …show more content…
Of course, as time went by they all realized that going out to the woods was now something they were too old for. Frazier says “ Like Adam and Eve, we saw our own nakedness, and that terrible grown- up question ‘What are you doing?’ made us ashamed” (Frazier). In this phrase we can see that Frazier and his friends realized how old they were getting to still be going to the woods, it was getting harder to do the things they did when they were younger, so that’s when they decided to just stop going. Frazier went back to the woods to go fishing and decided to take his kids with him but on the way there the kids saw a ditch, took their shoes off and started jumping in it and playing with the pine cones that were there. It was than when Frazier realized that he once was a kid too and had that kind of play so despite other people making faces at him and making comments about him staying there with his kids instead of fishing he decided to let his kids play. Frazier mentions that “Every purpose- filled activity we pursued in the woods began as just fooling around”(Frazier). Now seeing his kids playing made him realize how important marginal activities were once for him and how now it was becoming part of his kids lives as well and he didn’t want to stop them from