Outside Reading: Reflective Essay 3

The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell; published 2002
(borrowed from Ms. Holmes)
Essay: “Wonder Twins”

January 10, 2011
Pg 141-146

As usual, Sarah Vowell’s unusual humor catches the reader pleasantly off-guard in her essay entitled, “Wonder Twins.” “In December 1999,” she writes, “the Associated Press released a photograph of Luther and Johnny Htoo, twelve-year-old twin brothers commanding a ragtag guerrilla army in the rain forest of Myanmar (formerly Burma)… Every time I saw the picture the first thing that popped into my head was this: I miss my sister.”

Being a fraternal twin, Sarah uses the Htoo brothers as a way of comparing her domestic twin life with her sister, Amy, to that of the Htoo brothers and “God’s Army.” Using her obviously sarcastic tone, created by the absurdity of some of her comparisons, Vowell makes references to both her childhood and adulthood with Amy. “I’m a single careerist with a walk-up apartment in New York City; she’s a married, dog-owning mother in Montana with a, swear to God, white picket fence.”

Amusingly, Vowell writes, “The similarities are uncanny. Luther and Johnny were illiterate, Baptist, messianic insurgents struggling against the government of Myanmar, and my sister Amy and I shared a locker all through junior high.”  Vowell cites these kinds of “domestic” events to contrast the unstable childhood of their Myanmar counterparts. I wonder if the creative phrasing of her life’s events just comes naturally to her…

Vowell’s unorthodox voice makes me laugh, ponder, and sigh, all at once. I laugh because of some of the ridiculous remarks that she makes about events that have happened to her and her sister, such as when her sister threw up on her and how her sister thought it was so funny that she went and got their parents, who took a picture. I ponder what it would be like to have a twin. Because my father has an identical twin, I can understand many of the feelings that Vowell discusses, but on the other hand, being an only child, I never got to experience the benefits and many disadvantages of having a sibling.

I could potentially see this piece being used as an AP Prompt, or possibly as one of the essays that the ACT uses on the reading section. Students could easily write an essay in response to reading this essay: whether it be to discuss Vowell’s voice throughout the piece, or whether it be to analyze her relationship with her sister in contrast to that of the relationship between the Htoo twins.