Response to Robert Connors' How in the World Do You Get a Skunk Out of a Bottle?

Robert Connors’ How in the World Do You Get a Skunk Out of a Bottle? is about a university professor who saves a skunk from the terrible fate of having his head stuck in a glass jar for the rest of its life. He starts off slightly hesitant to whether he should save the skunk because of the possible consequences, but ultimately decides to forgo his rescue. He comes up with several ways to help the skunk, but they’re all too risky. The solution that he ends up using is just to hold the poor creature in one hand and the jar in the other, and twist and pull. After its release, it looks back, and the two of them share a moment of understanding.

The essay is titled as a question because Connors spends a majority of the narration coming up with a solution to the problem. He first goes through a process of convincing himself to approach the skunk, and when he finally decides to do it, he has to think about a good way to free the creature. At first, it seems unlikely for it to be released with the skunk getting scared and spraying him or it getting hurt. At the end, he does come up with a solution to the problem, and that’s why the title is in the form of a question.

I think the purpose of Connors’ essay is to entertain the readers. Very few people have ever encountered a problem like having to pull a skunk out of a bottle. The readers might find it quite interesting to see (from the point of view of the narrator) what it’s like to go through such a thing, so it makes them feel like they’ve had this kind of experience before too. Another purpose would be to persuade the readers from littering. Connors’ essay recalls the step by step thought process of freeing the skunk, and the reader gets a first-hand account of how difficult that is. He states that the skunk is suffering and suffocating, and he has to go through all sorts of possibly dangerous feats to rescue it. This is using pathos to play on the sympathy of the reader and persuade them not to litter anymore, because small animals can easily get trapped in its confines and die.