Phillip Lopate in his classic anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay, used in many college classrooms, says this about the personal or narrative essay:
The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy. The writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom. Through sharing thoughts, memories, desires, complaints, and whimsies, the personal essayist sets up a relationship with the reader, a dialogue—a friendship, if you will, based on identification, understanding, testiness, and companionship. At the core of the personal essay is the supposition that there is a certain unity to the human experience.
We then examined the structure of the essay and how its focus revolves around a theme, topic, or central issue.
As an exercise, I encourage you to identify the theme of each essay we read in Bragg’s book and try your hand at this form.
