Article: Macho by Perri Klass

For this week’s forum discussion, I was assigned the article, Macho, written by Perri Klass. I went through the other assigned readings in the reading folder and found “I wish you were a boy”, by Elizabeth Cady Staton to be the closest in theme to Macho. Both the readings are about a human characteristic that is desired by the characters in the readings. What is a Macho, according to the reading article, “Macho is a number of things”. It is just like a desired style. For example, in one instance, two people, after successfully completing their tasks engage in a conversation that I quote “And as we start to clatter down the stairs to breakfast, our morning mission successfully accomplished, she and I are both singing under our breaths: ”Macho, macho doc, I wanna be a macho doc.”. In the “I wish you were a boy” a father tells his daughter ““Oh, my daughter, I wish you were a boy!”. Being a macho and a boy is what seems to be a perfect human status in both the themes.

Macho and being a boy has been used as symbols in both readings in my opinion. These are symbols synonym to perfection. The tones of the characters have emphasized this symbolism in their own unique ways. As I quoted from both the readings earlier, the characters are emphasizing on the desire to be macho or being a boy with a specific tone and style. It is as if you can already hear what they feel about what they desire in themselves or, in the case of the father in the “I wish you were a boy”, in others.