Categories Leading to the Point

In "Going to the Movies" (p 606 in The Norton Reader)by Susan Allen Toth, Toth places her experiences in categories when describing her dates. By placing her dates and her experiences in categories, she proves to her audience that sometimes it's better to be alone than with bad company. Toth had more fun because she could eat and watch whatever she wanted to, rather than being forced compromise because the other person might not enjoy that type of movie.

Toth uses a set structure when describing her dates. She focuses on one and explains every detail about him, then moves on to the next, and so on. She explains how her dates make her feel by the things they do and don't do. Her structure is easy to see which makes her point hard to find because it's an easy essay to read. Since it's easy to read, we get the sense that something is being left out. It makes you want to look back and re-read the essay to find her point. The point is so obvious thats it makes it hard to find.

Toth focuses on things like habits her dates have while watching a movie, what they eat(if anything), where they park, and what kind of film they see. These are the categories that branch off from her main point. When she places her dates habits in each category, it leads us to the point she is trying to prove. She leaves her experience when going to the movies by herself, in the end, because she already established the "bad"dates so now she will end with the 'ideal" going to the movies experience. The point ,or thesis, is usually found in the beginning of an essay, but Toth decides to place it in the end. She has to place it in the end because after all that classifying, she has to come to a conclusion of what she is trying to prove.

Classifying to elighten

Anyone can classify or categorize; people do so in their daily routines at school or the workplace. Categorizing with style, though, is something only a few can do. Susan Allen Toth's "Going to the Movies" is a perfect example of this. She classifies the different elements that make up going on a movie date- the type of guy, type of movie, and the interaction between themselves- and uses 3 different dates to represent different categories of movie dates.

Toth doesn't only point out the positives attributes that these 3guys have, she also discusses their downsides. With the exception of Aaron, who doesn't appear to have any good date qualities, Toth points out what these guys do during the date, avoiding bias. A perfect example is Bob, "Inside the theater Bob will hold my hand when I get scared if I ask him. He puts my hand firmly on his knee and covers it completely with his own hand. His knee never twitches"(Toth Paragraph 5). At this point, many readers would think that she would simply keep listing all the positive things that Bob has, but in the next paragraph she addresses how Bob refused to stay for one more drink after a movie because "relationships tend to move too quickly".

Toth does the same thing with the other guys, listing their characteristics and what sets them apart from each other. For example, while Bob likes to watch more documentary-style movies about war, poverty, and other social problems, Sam likes to watch entertaining movies. Again, Toth starts to describe several things about Sam that make him interesting, but then she plays the cards down as explains how he has another girlfriend Duluth. Toth is trying to say that there is no perfect match, up to this point.

In her last paragraph, Toth describes how she sometimes goes to the movies on her own and watches romantic films. Instead of categorizing what she does at the movies, she categorizes what the characters do in the romantic movies- "They smile at each other, I smile at them, I feel they are smiling at me." Toth puts herself in the female character's role in the movies, wishing that it was her living the dream. Toth is trying to convey how a perfect date is only seen in movie films, not in real life.

Toth categorizes all the 3 guys to somehow represent three different kinds of men in America. By explaining what each men does, Toth shows the reader how men do both good and bad things, in the dates. This way, categorizing the actions does the job of telling the whole story instead of her having to explain how she doesn't like the guy. Since, to Toth, there is a right way to do things (most likely what people do in the romantic films she watches on her own), Toth is showing how most guys don't do enough to make her completely happy.