"Objects of Affection"

“Objects of Affection” is written by essayist and literary translator, Ewa Hryniewicz- Yarbrough. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, The American Scholar, TriQuarterly, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review as well as The Best American Essays 2012.

In "Objects of Affection", Yarbrough talks about her attachment to objects and how she became so attached to them. She also explains her grandmother's influence on her hoarding habits. This essay's targeted audience is most likely middle-aged people because a younger audience may not be able to understand the World War II references and the environment that Yarbrough grew up in.

Yarbrough grew up in a communist Poland, during a period with many shortages of practically everything, including food, clothes, furniture. She states that this may be where her complicated attitude toward objects stems from. She also attributes her reluctance to part with objects that could possibly be repaired to her grandmother. Her grandmother seems to have been a significant figure in her life because the author goes into great detail about her and how the 1944 Warsaw Uprising effected her attitude towards objects. Contrasting with her own fascination of objects, Yarbrough says her grandmother owned only "the necessary items, simple and functional, no trinkets of any kind" (171). We can infer that her grandmother developed this unsentimental attitude after everything she had perished in the Warsaw Uprising.

I think the author achieved her purpose of explaining why objects are important to her. To help achieve her purpose, Yarbrough mainly uses pathos. She describes her childhood memories with her grandmother to appeal to the readers' emotions. Her writing is also sprinkled with colorful similies. For example, she described the food in the U.S. piled like "elaborate pyramids" (170). At the end of the essay, Yarbrough writes, "objects help us exorcise some of our fears, ...they are stronger than we are, perfect and independent,... they give us a semblance of permanence and grant a stay against chaos, darkness, and oblivion" (175). Yarbrough loves objects because they are a tangible part of history to her. They connect her to the past and to people, like her grandmother. I agree with her that objects have meaning because they have history, however, I disagree that "objects are stronger than we are". Although sometimes objects may outlive people, without us, their memories and stories are meaningless.

"Semblance of Permanance"

"These mute witnesses to human life inspire awe and amazement at the mere fact of their survival" (167).

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