Why does subjectivity scare me? It’s likely a fear that has grown out of academic writing—from being told to erase the I’s from my papers—and has flourished when writing for professional and administrative audiences. But subjectivity is precisely what makes the essay a powerful form. The subjectivity of an essay provides it unique, point-making, audience-moving abilities that, as essayist Scott Russell Sanders points out, can fight against the “textureless, tasteless mush” and “empty formulas” we encounter in our “era of anonymous babble” (125).

In her introduction to The Best American Essays, 2005, essayist Susan Orlean confirms the not-objective nature of the essay when she writes, with a particularly strong subjective I, “As near as I can figure, an essay…can be a query, a reminiscence, a persuasive tract, an exploration; it can look inward or outward; it can crack a lot of jokes. What it need not be is objective” (175). She elaborates on this distinction by insisting, as Walter Murdoch does with his idea of the essay as “a good talk,” that the essay is a kind of conversation.

And just as with a conversation, the essay is an opportunity to meet someone. In “The Self on the Shelf,” writer Sara Levine urges us to embrace the subjective and meet the writers of the essays we read: “I hope to the essay you come—you should come, I’m telling you—with the hope of confronting a particular person. In places the freshly painted person still shows cracks…You leave the essay feeling as if you have met somebody” (159). As I learn to allow readers to “meet” me, I’m further drawn to the subjective strategies of other writers, especially those that go far beyond the simple first-person “I.”

Levine offers a thorough analysis of such strategies through her close reading of Joan Didion’s “Why I Write” and her analysis of Stanley Elkin. Each writer skillfully manipulates adjectives, selects specific pronouns, varies sentence structure, and plays with words on the page to make a distinct impression on the reader.

This week, we observed skillful manipulation and word play in Leslie Jamison’s piece “The Empathy Exams,” which incorporated other types of texts, such as patient profiles and medical records, that offered unique opportunities to “meet” the writer. In the following imagined recording, Jamison explores a different kind of doctor’s report, one that intermingles her internal feelings with the expectations of the outside world:

“Patient didn’t think she hurt at first but then she did. Patient failed to use protection and failed to provide an adequate account of why she didn’t use protection. Patient had a lot of feelings. Partner of patient had the feeling she was making up a lot of feelings. Partner of patient is supportive… Patient is angry disappointed angry her procedurnee failed. Patient does not want to be on medication. Patient wants to know if she can drink alcohol on this medication. She wants to know if two bottles of wine a night is too many if she can get away with a glass” (23-24).

Jamison strikes out specific words to contrast her true feelings with how she is expected to feel, allowing us to witness the tension and conflict between the two. She also removes “I” from the record and inserts “patient,” which would seem to further distance her, but because her crossed-out thoughts and feelings are left in, we are actually drawn closer to “Patient.” We are given an intimate, subjective perspective of Jamison’s experience through this “naked, stuttering tape.” One that allows us to “meet” Jamison in ways that an objective telling of her story never could.