Get Fruity: In Search of the Lost Mangosteen, Essay Example

The main idea of this essay is explicit. Throughout the tale, the author is discussing his experience with the mangosteen, denoting its mystery. A thesis is an explicit statement of the main idea. The author includes the thesis at the end of the essay. It is clear that the topic of the story is the mangosteen and that he is attempting to explain his fascination with this fruit using poetic language.  The author explains that it is “Better to have embraced them with my whole heart for a short time than to take them for granted” (last sentence), referring to the mangosteens. Ultimately, he is glad that he tried the mangosteens and is sad that he will not be able to access them for a while. Throughout the story, the author is implementing a sense of yearning. He keeps wanting to try the mangosteen and this opportunity keeps escaping him. When he finally has the opportunity to consume the fruit, he recognizes that he has to leave Malaysia, which is one of the only places that the fruit could be purchased.

The other describes his love and fascination for mangosteens in a manner in which most people would describe a person. Throughout the story, he calls the fruit a “seductress” or a “love”, and it is clear that this personification is used to demonstrate his passion for the taste and mystery of the fruit. The tone allows the reader to become curious about the mangosteen since not many people have experienced it. Through the author’s sombre discussion of loss, he allows us to understand the feelings of separation he is experiencing.

These descriptions are used to support the main idea of the story, which demonstrates that he is glad he has loved the fruit and lost the ability to eat it, compared to the alternative which was never having experienced how the fruit tasted at all. A sentence that exemplifies this idea is in paragraph 2, “But through it all, I yearned for just one exquisite taste on my tongue. I couldn’t wait to get to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s sleek capital and the last stop on my tour, where mangosteens awaited me like a long-lost love”.

My thought is, “Mangosteens are a rare piece of fruit that attract tourists on the basis of desire”. The topic is the taste of mangosteens, the purpose is to consider what they taste like, and the main idea is that it is impossible to know what mangosteens taste like from reading a story. The paragraph is as follows:

Mangosteens are a rare piece of fruit that attract tourists on the basis of desire. Tourists often compliment their wonderful taste and their discussions of the fruit make readers want to try it. However, individuals would need to travel to Malaysia to do so. Therefore, it is impossible to know what mangosteens taste like from reading a story. It is recommended that readers go there to try them first hand.

The sentence I selected for the analysis is, “On the second, there was a fusion take on hangi, a traditional Maori roastógreat slabs of slow-roasted lamb smothered in a rich jus, stacked artfully atop wild rice and native greens”, which is located in paragraph 1. In “Step 1: Core Parts and Conjunctions”, it is essential to identify that the subject of the sentence is “was”, while the verb is “was”. In step two, the adjective is identified, which include “artfully”, “fusion”, “rich”, “stack”, “wild”, and  “native”. In step three, I defined hangi as a style of cooking using coals. In step four, I noted that hangi is used to identify the unique nature of the food that is being discussed. This sentence means that hangi is an elaborately prepared food that is served with a lot of other interesting foods.

An example of a coordinate sentence is as follows, “I have seen the ambrosial orbs on these shores once or twice, and I’ve noticed that one nearby green grocery has started stocking mangosteens turns out its proprietor is a fellow addict”, which is found in paragraph 8. In this situation, the subject is the “I”, the verb is “has seen”, and the conjunction is “and I’ve”.

An example of a subordinate sentence is as follows, “Like the resident of any good-sized North American city, I can eat my way around the world without even needing to refill my car’s gas tank”, and is found in paragraph 7. The subject is the “I”, the “verb” is needing and the conjunction is “without even”.

One example of a transition from the essay is “It alludes to the true essence but doesn’t do it justice”, located in paragraph 6. The “but” indicates an opposing idea. A second example of a transition from the essay is “But I’m not that tempted by themónot only because he hawks them for $7.99 a pound (a full dollar more than a pound of T-bone steak) but also because I know better than to think that the heavenly fruit I bought for a dime on the streets of Kuala Lumpur could be had at any price on this side of the Pacific”, located in paragraph 8 in which the “but” is used to link two contrasting ideas.

Comma use is found in “I once made the mistake of paying ten dollars for a handful of mangosteens from a market on Spadina Avenue in Toronto, only to find that the delicate fruit inside was hopelessly spoiled, retaining little of the light, fleshy texture of the real deal and just enough of the mangosteen’s inimitable flavour to bring the true taste maddeningly close without actually supplying a fix”, located in paragraph 8, link the independent clause with the coordinating conjunction.

A colon is used in “It’s a kind of blessing that I had to wait five years: a poignant reminder that convenience is not an absolute good, and that there can be as much joy in yearning as there is in indulgence”, found in paragraph 8 to separate two independent clauses when the second sentence expands on the first sentence. These two ideas are connected and the semicolon is used to do this.