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Summary Of Playing God On No Sleep By Anna Quindlen

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Anna Quindlen is an awarded novelist and journalist. She is the author of the article “Playing God on No Sleep”, that was published the Newsweek magazine. In this article Quindlen, attempts to persuade readers that since “God could not be everywhere… he made mothers [instead]” (2001). She also attempts to convince the readers that motherhood is challenging and overwhelming. In his article Quindlen empathizes and parallels her life of motherhood with other mothers. By doing so, it provides a confusing effect for her thesis. One could conclude that there is not enough evidence in the article to support the thesis. The thesis points out the reasoning for why God created mothers, the article does not compare the two. The article only addresses …show more content…

The empathy for the actions of Andrea Yates overshadows the sympathy for the victims. Quindlen writes of how she asks other mothers about Andrea Yates, and she states that “at some forbidden level she [the other mother] understands” (2001). This statement should not support the ungodly act that was committed by Andrea Yates. Quindlen’s article did include some strengths that would appeal to the the reader. One of Quindlens strengths was being able to use imagery to detail the experiences of motherhood that may make it difficult. An example is when she begins to speak about a day she had she says, “…the part that remembers the end of a day in which the milk spilled phone rang one cried another hit a fever rose the medicine gone the car sputtered…” (2001). This example shows that she can connect with other mothers and not just write and article about motherhood. Another strength of this article is the use of comparing and contrasting the stay at home mom vs the working mom. Quindlen states that “Women not working outside their homes feel compelled to make their job inside it seem both weighty and joyful; women who work outside their homes for pay feel no freedom to be ambivalent because of the sub rosa sense that they are cutting parenting corners” (2001). With this statement she points out no matter what route the mother would take, the weight is still there either more or

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