What You Do Is What You Are English Class 11 Notes

McWhirter’s tone of the essay is quite serious and heavy. It is judged through his writing style. In this essay, he has criticized the society that people are in a bad habit of judging others with what they do or with what profession they belong toe has used the question technique so to draw the readers’ attention towards the serious but ignored the ect matter. He uses the words like a tired teacher, a laid-off worker, just something valued and valueless etc. to establish the tone.

The title of the essay is self-explanatory. The theme of the essay ‘What You Do Is What You Are’ is that we, as a whole are involved in a bad habit of judging other people’s worth on the basis of their jobs instead of their personal qualities. People used to give respect to others based on their job and the pay they are getting from it. The people who do menial jobs get little or simply no respect at all. On the other hand, people who do business or are doing corporate level jobs get respect from others, though it is a bitter reality that such people are usually involved in the bad habit of fraud, cheat, bribery, etc. But they are respected in society due to the fortune they have.

Yes, I agree with the writer’s point of view. We, ourselves, are the witness of this fact that people in our surroundings define and judge others on the basis of the job they perform or the position they enjoy in the corporate sector or the business they run. The more a person earns from his job, the more he receives respect from others. Similarly, we too want to get respect from people around us according to the job we perform.

According to McWhirter, people usually show indifferent attitude towards unemployed people. He says that people consider unemployed people worthless human beings who don’t have the right to be respected by others in the society. People regard such people valueless for the present and define such unfortunate, unemployed people in terms of their past job history.

A job or career is considered esteemed in the eyes of society on the basis of the nature of job or business, salary received, social prestige, and the relative position being enjoyed. People are usually respected by others on the basis of these aspects. The people who are unfortunate to have all these in their lives, they do not get respect from others.