Week 7 - September

 


   This piece has taken the cycle of life on earth and shaped it into the form of this small cat. We don't

know how this cat died, all is that it's bones are now pressing into the earth. It may have been sick or


run over, or it may have died naturally; but its body is still disintegrating and becoming part of the


earth. Every individual being has different circumstances, but Purpura shows us in the form of a


cat that eventually all living things will turn into dirt. She shows us creatively that this is part of life


and we will all at one point or another become one with the earth. All that is now left of the cat are


the bones that are halfway into the earth, and left their imprint in the mud. Everything else has burned


 away. Its skin, its eyes, and its fur have all turned to dust and rejoined the earth as is the cycle of life.

week 7- postcards from the edge of consciousness

The deep and personal experience we get in this piece made this informative as well as sensational. We get an idea of the sensory deprivation and the hot tubs provided out there to host such an experience. When the piece first started I thought it was describing a fiction or dream-filled background. I think this non fiction was really empowered by the description of the speaker in the chamber. The description used strong words and images to create a atmosphere where the reader felt connected to the described experience. This piece was written really well in my opinion and balanced the facts, the experience and data on research done.

Week 7- Postcards

This journalism- style piece was captivating, and certainly did its job of thoroughly describing REST. Rich with historical anecdotes and interesting, relevant facts, the story offers a wide range of perspectives on a subject which is likely unknown to most readers. I found the part about biological warfare to be particularly interesting...the event is introduced as a bizarre, yet completely relaxing out-of-body (or perhaps the exact opposite) experience. Crist obviously had done extensive research to gain the historical knowledge of sensory deprivation, and was able to fully represent the practice from various points on a timeline. It is fascinating that such a profoundly spiritual existence could have once been used as  form of psychological warfare, even producing "powerful hallucinations." The human psyche is endlessly intriguing, as Crist displays here. A wonderful piece that explores a truly fascinating subject that was previously unknown to me, though I am encouraged to research even further after reading this. I think that the author's ability to peak interest in such a way is a mark of great, effective work.

Week 7- "September"

This was a short piece, but also one that held a lot of significance within the words. It seemed as if you had to read between the lines to figure out what it was exactly that the author was attempting to portray. The first sentence stuck me to be a bit odd, " Laid out perfectly where they fell in the tall grass, half sunk in the ground-". As I read this, I depicted the bones floating in mid air and then falling into the ground. Bones don't show up from thin air and float in the air, then drop. It just seemed odd and perhaps simply because the wording could have been written with a better flow to it. I found it very interesting how Purpura described the cat in, " The shape of sleep, of full and open expectancy, mid-stride in an airy leap.". It was a very specific line as if the author wanted the audience to image a sleeping peaceful animal as it seems in the piece that the cats time to live has come and gone, so it is to be  laid to rest just as it looked when it slept. This was an overall great piece of writing and was concise yet depicted a peaceful death, almost to tell the audience to embrace it and not be afraid.

Week 7- "September"

This piece was so short but the language used was very interesting and compelling. Attention to detail gives this piece a different meaning. The last line I think is the most important to focus on, "A home receiving the body in, expecting it." That's such a complex sentence, and you could focus on so many things from it. Like, the fact that it isn't just saying 'receiving the body' but 'receiving the body IN'. Using the word 'in' doesn't seem necessary because it is already stating that the body is being received but the fact that it is being received in is quite significant.

Also, the fact that the decomposing of the cat is going to 'a home' is interesting because typically a home is where someone is during the majority of their live, but a home is also "where the heart is" and where people belong and the cat probably belongs in the earth like that. 

Week 7- Short Talks

Ann Carson's Short Talks confused me, because I found it difficult to define a thread that linked the short sections together. Part of why I love the hermit crab essay format is that, when done properly, it connects multiple threads, ideas, into one understandable concept. I realize that Carson's piece is a lyrical essay and not a hermit crab essay; however, for a piece to carry significant value to the reader, it should come to a point at the end. Even if there isn't a point at the end, and the story is left to lazily drift off the page and into our thoughts, then the author should at least frame her/his reader in the title.
France in Twenty-Five Exposures, a piece that I found similar to Short Talks, takes a similar approach in terms of format. Buuck splits sections into snapshots of places, people, and experiences that make up France as a whole. The title and the section titles (meat, the bellmaker, etc) tell the audience what they're viewing and how it ties into a larger picture. I feel as thought Short Talks fails to create that larger picture for it's readers. That said, it was still an enjoyable piece to read, since all of the sections were strong and thoughtful.

Week 7: notes of a nitive son,

For me the piece "Notes of A Native Sons" compared to the others seemed much more sentimental. the entire story the speaker is talking about how much he hates his father, and we sort of see him become his father through his violent actions. another way that we see him become like his father is when he says that he hadn't been home in almost a year by the time he went back to see his father before he died. We know from the emptiness of the funeral and the church that the father isolated himself from previous Friends and loved ones, the speaker sounds like he is well on his way to that, already moving away and spending such little time with his family.  We see his actions showing up the the funeral drunk and throwing the pitcher at the waitress in a fit of anger, much like he describes his father going off on tangents. The entire story its self leaves me with the one question, or rather with the lurking suspicion: if we don't grow to understand our parents we are doomed to become just like them?

Week 7 - “September”

To me, this poem is about transience - both the transience of life, and of memory. The way the cat seems to dissolve back into the earth- returning to the womb which birthed it - reminds me of going to mass on Ash Wednesday; the priest spreads ashes across your brow as a reminder that ”you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. In the end, not even the memory of us will live forever, like the animals in the cave paintings that Purpura describes, whose names we have forgotten. Despite some of the more shocking imagery (particularly the image of the animal’s eyes burning away), this idea of the earth taking back what it has given isn't inherently morbid. I don't think it is meant to scare or disgust, but not to comfort either; it just is. It’s a reflection on the reality of death, and how, like those animals in the cave, we too will eventually fade. Just like September, which teeters between abundant summer and autumn’s fading chill, all living things walk a line between life and death.

Week 7- Anne Carson's short talks

I really loved short talks because each piece was unique and meaningful. On the Mona Lisa was my favorite because it was mysterious, just like the painting itself. I love the opening line, "Every day he poured his question into her" because it shows how the artist didn't even know what he was making. It was like he was asking her questions, but never received answers, adding to her mystery. I also like the line in On Homo Sapiens that says, "In every story I tell comes a point where I can see no further." This shows how all stories have ends because nothing can last forever. In class, someone said how important the titles of these pieces are since they tell the reader what the story is about. I really agree because in the story On the Mona Lisa, her name isn't mentioned again. If her name wasn't in the title, we wouldn't know who the story was about. 

week 7 Carson

I adore Carson’s Short Talks. To me, they seem like such simple ruminations that she merely jotted down separately in a journal. Juxtaposed, they work wonderfully. The way in which she writes does not sound overly-edited or forced. The style is simple, yet powerful. Even just a line like, “Someone has put cries of birds on the air like jewels”—it’s so delicately worded but not too intricate. Much of her writing lilts with whimsy and ponderings that are very unassuming but really hold your attention.

I’ve read through each piece of Short Talks several times now and I can still hear certain lines echoing in my head. This work definitely stuck with me and has inspired me to do something in a similar vein.

Week 7: "September"

I’ve always been terrible about finishing stories. I can write great, descriptive introductions, but when it comes to things actually happening to make the story move along, I flounder. I don’t enjoy crafting plots anyway. I prefer playing with language to make it as beautiful as possible, moving words and sentences around like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I didn’t know that there was a name for this kind of writing until today’s class, when I was introduced to the lyric essay.

Of the two lyric essays we read for class, I loved “September” the most. My favorite thing about it was its use of unexpected, surprising language. In the very first sentence, Purpura describes the bones of a deceased cat as being “laid out perfectly where they fell in the tall grass”. Saying that the bones fell, rather than simply having ended up where they did because it’s where the animal died, is jarring to the reader. In the second sentence, the narrator wonders how long it took “for the bones to clean, for the flesh to slip off and the eyes burn away” as if the carcass tidied itself up, shrugged its skin off like it would a jacket, and set its eyes ablaze. The process of decay is also described like a thing the dead body did to itself later on, when Purpura writes that it only takes days for an animal’s body to “return itself to bone” and “to press its outline back into the soft earth”. This use of reflexive verbs is surprising, since decomposition is usually thought of as many different things (bacteria, insects, scavengers) acting on the body, not the body acting on itself. It is even stranger when you consider the fact that a body especially cannot act upon itself if it is no longer living. The final sentence, “a home [the earth] receiving the body in, expecting it” is unusual because not only is the earth being compared to a house, but at the same time it is being personified as a welcoming, accommodating human figure. 

SHORT TALKS AND CRYPTICISM // Week Seven

Anne Carson's Short Talks is a strange collection of stories that flash by, even by the standards of flash fiction. They are presented as a cohesive work and yet each piece functions like the city-states of ancient Greece: independent of one another and strong in spite of it. Each piece is strong. Each fragment narration is wonderfully absurd or meaningful and always well written. That's key here, I think. Using cryptic language and devices in one's works is a balancing act between how well you can confuse your audience and how well you can delight them. If the reader does not wholly understand something but they enjoyed reading it nevertheless, they will put time and effort into making sense of it. If what they read was overwhelmingly confusing and no fun to read either, the reader will dismiss it.

A great example of when this balance working would be "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. This poem works to entice the reader with lilting couplets and flowing phrases even as it leads them deeper into an inner dialogue and deeper into the question of "Do I dare?". The delicate balance of beauty and mystery within it has made it one of the most famous poems from the twentieth century.

Postcards from the edge of Consciousness

I really enjoyed this piece. The way the author opened with a recollection of her own experiences successfully set the tone of the piece and laid the foundation for the rest of the text. By interchanging narrations from her own experience and factual evidence and history regarding the subject, she was able to keep the readers interest while also delivering important information pertaining to the subject of the piece. In the opening, she talks about the setting, comparing the REST chamber to a seventies-era Jacuzzi, giving it a personal feel, while also describing her own emotions (being nervous with anticipation etc.). Without the personal feel of the essay, it would have been quite bland: just a history and information session on REST and what it is. By including what she went through, she was able to connect to the audience on a greater scale and make it a more entertaining, realistic piece that is relatable to her readers.

Week 7: Notes of a Native Son

I did not enjoy this piece as much as some of the others we have read throughout the course, due to the fact that I believe that the story was lengthy when it may not have needed to be. However, I still think that Baldwin was able to strongly portray the idea of the racial hatred and the internal conflict of the protagonist quite effectively. In class, we discussed the bitter tone of the speaker, where it could have derived from. A possibility that was not discussed in class, that I believe was the cause of his bitterness, was the speaker's own reflection in itself. Throughout the piece, his thoughts and memories seem to have been spilling out as if they had been bottled up for a long time. When his father died, the speaker was forced to reflect on his father and then on himself. I believe that the speaker's bitterness came directly from the confrontation with his thoughts and feelings, because he had avoided them for a long time, and that many of these thoughts and memories were quite painful. His reflection came with bitterness because he had to face the reality of what awful events had occurred from racism as well as the sad realization that he wished he could have had a stronger relationship with his father before he passed.

Week 6 Time and Distance Overcome

  For me, this piece was extremely disturbing to read. It didn't start out this way; in fact the  beginning gave absolutely no hints of where this piece would go and how it would turn out. I originally thought that this piece would go into detail about the invention of telephone poles, how and where they were set up, and stories about how they overrode multiple objections. But as I read further into this piece I realized that the author was only preparing us for what was to come. Bliss starts out with the way telephone phone poles came about and then moves on to how they were put up and how much fighting took place over whether or not they should be put up. When she moves into the shocking cruelty brought about by these polls, I started to wonder if they were truly worth it. There were people who never wanted them up to begin with, and they were more often serving the unjust purpose of executions because very few people used telephones. They were used to painfully execute African Americans for no real reasons. They were  undeservedly burned, beaten, cut, electrocuted, and much worse; all they asked for in return was time to pray. This was very hard for me to read and it made me question if we really needed telephone poles. Today they are no longer shaped like a crucifix, but I will never look at a telephone pole the same way. This piece was an eye opener; and though it doesn't show our country in a positive light, I learned more about the past that everyone tries to forget.

Week 7 - "Notes of a Native Son"

           I really enjoyed this piece by Baldwin. He paints a pretty vivid picture of his dysfunctional relationship with his father growing up. Seemingly, he tried to avoid his father at all costs, viewing him more as an angry, cantankerous man than a parental figure.  As he states, "I had not known my father very well" and then later on remarks, "He was, I think, very handsome." This second line really struck me. I find it interesting that the speaker avoided his father so much that even after knowing him for nineteen years, he can't quite recall what his dad looked like in person.
             I feel much of the resentment that Baldwin had towards his father growing up came from not being able to understand his father's point of view. However, once Baldwin goes to New Jersey and experiences the horrors of racism more directly than he has before, he gets a taste of perhaps what life was like for his father growing up. Amidst the race riots, Baldwin comes home to bury his dad but has a new perspective of his father. I feel this essay reflects a confused Baldwin who wants to continue to hate his father but yet can't quite now.  He almost feels remorse for not relating better with his father while he was alive but now it's too late.

Week 6 - "Me Talk Pretty One Day"

I really liked this piece and I thought it was very relatable, especially as someone who had studied French all throughout middle school and high school and never had any idea what was going on. I can totally relate to the fact that the whole class is struggling so hard to speak and understand the language and they are butchering it so badly.
I thought it was really interesting though that the teacher was so abusive  towards the students, yet the speaker ended up learning more of the language than he thought he would. Maybe it was a tactic that the teacher used and she genuinely wanted to help her students and wasn't that awful in real life.
The way it is written, also, is up for interpretation because I am unable to tell how this story was told. Was he documenting all of this information as it was happening, or was he recounting the events? If it was the latter, he must have a really good memory or he is over exaggerating and making up some of the details.
In general I thought the piece was really good. I liked the way it was written and I understand how the speaker feels in being unable to comprehend a foreign language.

Week 6- What Sacagawea Means To Me

What intrigues me the most about this piece is the constant shifts it undertakes. First you have a second person narrative, explaining a future in which American people will pay to experience some fun in a park, and exit said experience with a better appreciation for Sacagawea. The rest of the piece is told in a first person narrative, however the overall message of the piece develops and continuously changes the opinion of the reader, who is almost lead to anxiously await the conclusion. While there is discussion on the negative effects of colonialism, the point of the piece is to show the good that came with the bad. That the United States is certainly not without its faults, but it's not without its triumphs as well. The piece finally ties together with the author's personal views on the country he lives in, a country he does in fact love, and how Sacagawea is a major inspiration for that. Overall I believe these shifts definitely add to the reader's understanding of the point being made by the author; being given information that seems contradictory in purpose, only to find that it is in fact pointing out the contradictions that are prominent in this country's history.

Week 6: Notes from a native son...

This is a powerful peace that really encompasses the intense struggles and hardships faced by black people in the early to mid 20th century. Within this meaningful text, Baldwin is able to use just a bit of hyperbole like when he describes the scene when he and a white friend are walking on a street, "People were moving in every direction, but it seemed to me, in that instant, that all of the people I could see, and many more than that everyone was white. I remember how their faces gleamed..."

By making it seem as though the white people in this scene are somehow glowing, somehow alien, Baldwin is able to keep his reader interested and engaged in a piece of nonfiction that could very easily become very uncomfortable and to some extent unreadable. It seems as if the whole narrative is carefully constructed as to take a delicate and uncomfortable matter and turn it into something that can b objectively viewed and not dismissed by any race.

Week 6- The Morphology

I geek out over creative nonfiction. This was undoubtedly the unit I was most excited over, and part of that is that, while all writing holds some kind of truth, creative nonfiction holds truth at the forefront. I find that the hermit crab essay is one of my favorite formats to read, because it constricts the essay, making the author focus on the truth of the piece that is, the main point of the piece.
"Morphology of the Hit" used the rules from the "Morphology of Folklore" to focus the conversation, which seemed like the perfect approach, given that Jamison kept drifting off topic when she neared the end of a long section, like when she started talking about confusing punctuation marks on her computer. But also at the same time, she used the essay format (the rules) to act as a sort of metaphor for her piece. The distance that she's placed between herself and the subject material of this piece makes the story seem almost like folklore or a cautionary tale.
I really just loved this essay, since it reminded me of "The Pain Scale." Both pieces use the hermit crab format as well as focusing on painful memories that require a stricter format to write. Also Jamison mentioned Eula Biss in her essay "How to write a Personal Essay," so it seems likely that Jamison might have used similar techniques to Biss in how she constructed the essay.

Week 6 - "Morphology of the Hit"

Although Jamison uses the structure of the essay to ‘distance’ herself from the event in question, I still get a sense of rawness around the subject; her actions say a lot about what she must have been like at this point in her life, and I get the feeling she wasn’t in the best state of mind to begin with. She begins by saying how she has been ‘leaving home’ for years, something that based on insecurities you can pick up later in the piece, can roughly be translated to ‘running away’ (from what we cannot tell). She seems desperate to be liked, included, even though she is fully aware that her status as a foreigner makes this impossible. She suffers through the microagressions of a societal ‘other’, but I get the impression that the slurs don’t bother her as much as the creeping sense of not belonging. And, though she knows it is futile, Jamison continues to force herself into their circles, she laughs at their jokes, makes them sangria. In the aftermath of the assault, she falls into numbness - even she doesn’t know how to describe how she feels (‘Guilt always sounded wrong’). Once again, her actions define her character more than the narration, how she gets her nose fixed as though removing the evidence will remove the memories (just like how ‘leaving’ means a new slate, a new beginning). She sees an ex, maybe so someone else can be angry and righteous about what happened to her and feel what it seems she cannot. Mainly, I think, this piece is about how she feels she has failed as the ‘hero’ of her own story - she does not win, she does not fight back, she just goes on, conflicted and confused, even more a stranger to herself than she was to begin with. 

week 6: time and distance overcome:

The piece "time and distance overcome" offers an interesting subjugation, and although I'm not that fond of it, i think there is a lot to be said about Biss's wonderful use of subtext. the thing that astounds me most about this piece is that she never says says a thesis; but she manages to prove a point none the less - no where in the passage does she outright state that the advent of telephone polls cause lynchings all around the state, yet the reader is able to take this away from the piece as a whole. also as was mentioned in class, Biss uses complex metaphors to relate himself and the loss of innocence that all things experience to the telephone polls whose use was once just to connect, and now serves to drive people apart. through her whole piece Biss does a wonderful job of showing not telling, and letting the reader gather their own ideas on the subjects which she presents.

Week 6- " Time and Distance Overcome"

The title actually keeps throwing me off the more I think about it. Assuming we've all read this story, its very clear of the gruesome turn it takes. This being said, why call the piece what it is? I suppose Bell "overcame"the rebellion to setting up telephone poles and made the first call from New York to California but, that wasn't the theme of the piece was it? The theme to me was humanity becoming violently resistant to the new changes between African Americans gaining freedom and rights as well as advancements in technology. They called this "The turn of the century" but they should call it something of a dark turning period in our history. Bliss states, " Now, I tell my sister, these poles, these wires, do not look the same to me.". This line alone at the end make sit clear to me that Bells grand achievement might have been a huge breakthrough and perhaps its the positives which we need to focus on. But what Bliss seems to want to make clear is what history attempts to avaoid  revealing, the lynchings and massacres of African Americans using the telephone wires and poles as weapons. It was almost like these people in this century were killing two birds with one stone by taking their hatred on the two things they wanted gone. Its a very dark piece but unfortunately Bliss is right in my opinion to expose us to this so we are to know history in order to prevent things like this from ever happening again.

Week 6- Time and Distance Overcome

I was intrigued with this article as soon as I read the first paragraph. I thought it was so interesting when she used the line, "the world was not waiting for the telephone". That's  a different way to think of this invention, but also about all other inventions. Some people may say the world was waiting and other people may argue that it wasn't, as Biss says. The telephone enhanced communication, but was not necessary to human life. We don't "need" the telephone. That line made me think a lot. I also think the line two paragraphs after that says a lot. It reads, "Even now it is an impossible idea, that we are all connected, all of us". The whole point of the telephone was to connect the world and she's drawing attention to that, but the point she makes later in the essay shows the opposite effect. It appears as though the telephone poles allowed for racism to escalate to a whole new level, ripping the races farther apart, when the intention was always to bring people together. How disturbed and heartbroken Biss must feel about this and she emulates that feeling to the reader.

Week 6- Time and Distance Overcome

I really admire the style of this piece and how the author goes about expressing her opinion. I like how she saved her meaning of the telephone pole until the end. The whole piece was meant to taint the reader's vision, in a way, of the telephone pole. This allowed for the reader's opinion to align with hers in the end. Our vision changes throughout the piece as hers did. She says, "I believed that the arc of telephone wires along the roadways was beautiful...I believed that the telephone itself was a miracle." This shows that she once felt a specific way but altered her opinion after a telephone pole "smashed [her grandfather] onto the road." She then says, "these poles do not look the same to me." Her view has clearly been tainted due to such a tragic accident. She uses the history of telephone pole hangings to create a horrified feeling in the readers so they too will not look at telephone poles the same ever again.

week 6- Time and distance overcome

The structure of this piece really amazed me. It felt like I was reading accurate, unbiased history that had creative and interesting language all about the significance of a telephone pole. I never thought about the establishment and history behind a telephone pole, so it was shocking and enlightening to read about stories about the horrific and negative ways people used this new part of life. Telephone poles are apart of our every day life an communication, and I know I do not think twice when I look outside my window and see two or three around me. I am very aware about the tradgies of lynchings, primarily in the South, but I had no idea that telephone poles were once used for lynching in 46 states. The piece shows how an invention intentioned for easier communication ultimately had an unintended side effect- it was the perfect mechanism for hanging men during the race riots. Very clever and well put together I thought.

week 5- Enoch and the Gorilla

In this piece I feel there is a lot about Enoch that is not directly said to us, but rather showed through actions and words in the story. We read about the children Enoch is surrounded by in line for the gorilla greeting and it seems out of place for a young adult male to be in line for the same thing. An interaction between him and the waitress seems to scream of a sort of social disability. "The waitress happened to turn around to see if he hadn't gone. 'What's the matter with you?' she said. 'Did you swallow a seed?' 'I know what I want,' Enoch murmured. Enoch completely ignores the waitress' question and instead it is like he is talking out loud to himself or is in his world. This is common with kids or adults with a mental disability or social problem. Enoch's character seems to be highly underdeveloped for his age and we feel a lot of empathy towards this lost man in a big world by himself.

Week 6: Time and Distance Overcome

       I found this piece to be very interesting. I never knew that there was such a disturbing history behind a simple object like a telephone pole. The way that Biss described the horrors behind the history of telephone poles was very effective. One thing in particular that i noticed was how she contrasted the progression of this new technology with humanity's failure to progress along with it. Biss described how, "By the turn of the century, there were more telephones than bathtubs in America", showing the rapid spread of this new technology. However, soon after Biss stated this fact, she began to discuss all the lynchings that were brought by the invention of telephone poles. I connected these two points of emphasis and drew an interesting contrast between them. I thought it was possible that Biss was trying to show the reader how telephones and telephone poles were advancing the technology of the world, however, the people were not advancing along with it as humanitarians. Humans back then were still stuck in a phase of racism and senseless killing, and I believe that that is one theme that Biss was trying to highlight with this contrast.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

I really liked this piece, though I think it's because I went at it from a different angle than other people. I thought the narrator had a more cynical approach; sure, he had a hardy optimism and a willingness to keep trying, but he started to bend when things weren't going his way. He completely stopped talking to people and I feel like he continuously questioned why he was there throughout. At the very beginning he spoke of the benefits of going to college and gave off the air that they were meaningless bonuses to him, mostly because of his age. We, as readers, never figure out why he went to France in the first place; but we know he did not have a very good time. Even at the end, he mentioned his ability to understand his teacher was deceiving, and went about describing that in an almost humbling way. Like he didn't want to get his hopes up. He's realistic and I liked his character. The shimmer of hope in the last page really drew the piece together, even if there was a dash of cynicism involved. The exaggerated details regarding his instructor were a little overblown for me though. Instead of laughing at these exaggerations, I took them with a grain of salt and really felt what it must have been like to be in that environment, even if it hadn't been that bad. I don't think he used comedy for just emphasis; surely, he used it to entertain, but I think he wanted our sympathy more than anything.

Time and Distance Overcome

“Time and Distance Overcome” is a shocking piece that reveals the atrocities of human nature. As history has proven over time, and unfortunately continues to prove in the modern world, humans are capable of unfathomably horrific acts. Eula Biss describes gruesome accounts of violent racism in excruciating detail, which were laced seamlessly into an initially lighthearted narrative. To the unsuspecting reader, these events are particularly upsetting and shocking. Though such detailed descriptions are disturbing in every sense, it is important for humans to learn about and acknowledge the cruelties of our past as a race. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Human nature will not change. ...Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from…”. As an attempt to prevent repeated mistakes, and move forward as a populace into a more progressive world, this piece is invaluable. From a literary perspective, the story effectively conveyed the messages, with crude language that left little to the imagination. Informative, sickening, engaging. The telephone pole has a surprisingly grisly past.

Week 6: "What Sacagawea Means To Me" & "Time and Distance Overcome"

I’m really struggling with this creative nonfiction unit. I just don’t understand how nonfiction can be creative. Writing my own creative nonfiction, I feel kind of stifled and smothered, like I did in my AP Literature class last year when we had to write historical fiction. I couldn’t just write like I normally do, in the way that comes so easily to me- I had to do research and incorporate it into my story, and that made what should have been an enjoyable assignment for me a grueling chore instead. I had the same difficulty with our first creative nonfiction assignment.

The pieces of creative nonfiction we were assigned to read only added to my confusion. Although “What Sacagawea Means To Me” was the less confusing of the two for me, I felt like it was just a bunch of fragments of essays haphazardly thrown together. The first paragraph, which talks about a hypothetical amusement park where for a nominal fee one can step into Sacagawea’s virtual shoes, could certainly be further developed and placed into one of those dystopian novels that are all the rage right now. The second paragraph grabbed my attention from the start with “Sacagawea is our mother. She is the first gene pair of the American DNA.” Right away, I was intrigued and hoped for some elaboration. Unfortunately, the rest of the paragraph didn’t follow up on these claims, instead discussing Sacagawea’s death, and drawing parallels between it and the early colonization of America. The third paragraph shifts focus entirely away from Sacagawea, mentioning all the other people involved in the Lewis and Clark expedition, which seemed irrelevant to me. Then in the fourth paragraph, we are finally introduced to what we can probably call Alexie’s central argument: that America is a land full of contradictions. This argument is strengthened in the final paragraph when she states that these contradictions are echoed in herself and in Sacagawea. I wondered why Alexie didn’t introduce this idea of contradictions right off the bat and dedicate the entire piece to it. The paragraphs of this piece individually made sense to me- but together, I think they fail to be cohesive.

“Time and Distance Overcome” seemed even choppier. The first half could have stood on its own as an examination of the effects of the invention of the telephone on society. The second half could have stood on its own as a history of lynching in the United States. The final paragraph is the only part of the piece that is creative, because it is the only place where Biss ties her own experiences, beautifully recounted, to the collection of facts that form 90% of the piece. I also thought there were far too many of these facts, and felt they were simply listed off rather than explained and developed, especially towards the end. Hopefully creative nonfiction will make more sense to me after reading a few more example works. 

Week 6 - "Time and Distance Overcome"

 I really enjoyed the work "Time and Distance Overcome" by Biss. Namely, I like how she took this seemingly ordinary object, the telephone pole, and showed us the rich history behind it. Generally, most people don't even pay attention to telephone poles; they just fade into the background. However, as Biss demonstrates, the pole symbolizes so much American history. She discusses how Mark Twain was one of the first people to own a telephone, the Sioux resistance to the poles, and the lynchings that utilized the telephone poles. As I read the hate crimes that used the telephone pole, the pole took on this monstrous identity. But in reality, the pole is an inanimate object. As Biss contends, "The poles of course, were not to blame. It was only coincidence that they became convenient as gallows, because they were tall and straight, with a crossbar, and because they stood in public places. And it was only coincidence that the telephone poles so closely resembled crucifixes." Thus, it is us humans who distorted the original genius of the telephone and telephone pole. That said, next time I see a telephone pole, I will see it in a different light. 

Week 5 - Puss in Boots

  This was one of my favorite stories we've had to read so far in this class. I used to read Puss in Boots a lot as a small child, but reading it again now I've picked up so many new things I never noticed before. As a younger kid I always thought puss in boots was very funny, and smart to trick people to get what he wants; but now there is so much more I pick up about his personality, and the details in his elaborate plans. This version of the story was also very different from the one I've grown up reading so it was interesting to see the small differences that come with a different version. I've always known Puss in Boots to be an extremely sly and cocky cat who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. He cares a great deal about his social standing and in my opinion, he believes that he should receive special treatment. But as self centered as he is, Puss in boots always manages to get whatever he or his master may want; the more challenging it is to get, the more elaborate and ridiculous his plan will be. He works extremely hard to please himself, his master, and his friends and admirers. Even when it seems impossible, he (insanely) always comes out on top. Though he deserves to take credit for his accomplishments, he does not deserve to be cocky; especially since he constantly blows himself up and out of proportion. Even with all he has going on, he takes the time to tell us about his boots and explain all of his special tricks in detail. Puss in Boots may spend a good portion of his story talking about himself, he really does care about others, which he proves every time he helps his master. He may be cocky, but he really does have his friends and masters best interests at heart.

Week 5- "Alice Weir"

This piece was so compelling to me. I wanted to know so much more about Alice Weir, the seeming subject of the piece, but I didn't learn much. Alice is the subject of the piece but the speaker seems to not be able to focus on his/her alleged subject, as he/she gets easily distracted by their surroundings. Their seems to be so much hustle and bustle about this train station. As the speaker states, however, it is rush hour and Alice Weir appears to be a regular at this train station. But what is it about her that draws everyone to watch her? The speaker claims that everyone is watching her, but she doesn't appear to be doing anything interesting. All the speaker sees her do this particular time is get off the train and wait for a taxi. What is so compelling about that? I want to know her story.

It is actually quite frustrating to me that the speaker diverts his attention to something else. He/she seems to enjoy people-watching. He watches a family interact with each other and then he's like, "okay, back to Alice...but she's gone." Okay great thanks.
And the oddest thing to me is that everyone knows she will be back. How do they know this? And what has she done to deserve all of this attention?

This piece left me with many questions and I really want the answers to them.

Week 5- Puss-In-Boots

I enjoyed Angela Carter’s take on Puss-In-Boots. The perspective from which the story was presented most impressed me. It is not very often that I read a story told completely in first person where the main character often refers to themselves in third person. But what better character to pull off this feat than the amazing Puss?? The fact that this story is seemingly told through two different yet perfectly simultaneous perspectives is completely appropriate within the stories context. Puss sees himself as such a magnificent character that it is foolish to even consider his character could be contained into one form of narration. The controlling force of the story is Puss and his actions. In addition Puss is the only character that sees everything that goes on. He understands his masters situation from dealing with him firsthand, and he understands the princess situation through his meeting with his lover. Puss is the eye that sees all and knows all. The major plot of the story is obviously the predicament of Puss’ master, but the title of the story has nothing to do with his master because, to put it plainly, he’s not important. The title of the story is “Puss-In-Boots”. That is the title for a reason. Puss pervades the story with his charismatic presence and this unbearable ego is successfully conveyed through Puss’ mixing of the first and third person storyteller.

Week 5 - "Butter Cow"

One aspect of this story, aside from the purposeful vagueness of the identity or point of view of the narrator, which really captured me was the rhythm that Martone created through repetition, both through diction and subject matter. This created an almost droning effect as I read it to myself. The repetitious description of the cows, their behavior and the generations of cows that came before them also helped encapsulate the droning monotony of a landscape that rolled on and on and on, flat in every direction. The way he describes the people at the fair roaming around, eating, chewing, consuming thoughtlessly and endlessly directly mimics the cows, making the people feel like cattle in our proverbial eyes. The whole piece has this unsettling way of making everything blend together – fields and roads, cattle and people – melting into Dali-esque dreamscape. It becomes even more surreal as it draws to a close, the repetition of words growing closer together until sentences are hardly coherent, and leaving, at least to me, a yawning, empty space which soon after floods with confusion. This piece left me with the kind of frustration I get when not only I do not understand, but feel as though I was never meant to understand in the first place.

Week 5 Butter Cow

I found a lot of word play as I read this piece. In the beginning when he writes, "through this state, you don't have to think about driving" he means state of mind as well as the geographical state. When he discusses there being an intersection every mile I think he was creating a metaphor for life. Life goes steady for a while and then it reaches "an intersection" or time when we don't know which choice to make (the roads representing the choices). As the narrator describes the different sites she sees it is a metaphor for the different conditions or phases of life. She discusses parts where fences have been torn out and parts where there are fences and crops and animals. Bad and good times in life. I'm not sure if the metaphor was intended, but it works in many places. I was also wondering why the narrator can't just ask the man what he's thinking. I thought when i first read it that maybe they had gotten in an argument in the car ride and then stopped talking, but then they would have probably went home instead of to the fair if they were fighting. Maybe she is just shy or likes not knowing and would rather guess what he is thinking.

Fern response

As I reread this story I found a new prospective meaning in it. I believe Jean Toomer is assimilating the characteristics of a beautiful emotionally conflicted women with the south. I first notice this when he begins to describe her. "When she was young a few men took her, but got no joy from it. And then, once done they felt bound to her." What I believe Toomer is referencing is slavery in the early colonial south. It has been common for men to describe no human things as "her" or a "she". The idealistic characteristics of beauty are usually attributed to women. Ever since ancient times when men wanted to describe things as beautiful they compared them to women. Now when Toomer says that "a few men took her but got no joy from it" I believe he is describing how African American slaves were forced to work the fields and maintain the prominence of the south under extreme scrutiny. They gained no joy from this they simply were forced to do it; but afterwords when slavery was abolished some couldn't bring themselves to leave. For although it was forcibly made there home it was still there home none the less. The beauty and majesty of south lured men from all over. I believe this is where the main character comes into play. After the civil war the south entered an era known as Reconstruction. During this era people up north traveled south to take jobs and reap other benefits that the brutalized south had to offer. Southerners referenced these northern yankees as carpetbaggers. Toomer states that "he" came down on a train and was enthralled in the beauty just like every other person who was lured to her siren like call. Like everyone else he asked to much from a place that just wasn't in the position to give it.

Week 5- Alice Weir

There are many unique aspects of this piece that I would like to touch on. First, the use of 1st person plural narration goes a long way in making the reader realize that a group of people share the same ideas about the situation. It is as if the speaker is speaking for everyone in the train station. Places like, "...we are only interested in the people who are arriving this evening" and "We're tempted to tell her to wake up and pay attention" show how multiple people are watching the scene since the word "we" is being used. I also like how this piece is a perfect example of a camera panning around a certain area. I enjoy how the author cuts from the scene with Alice to the scene of the family. It's relatable in that sense because usually when people are watching other people, they tend to get distracted by other things.

Enoch and the Gorilla

I found this piece to be almost overbearingly sad. Enoch, as a character was very interesting; he didn't fit in anywhere and was forced into a city he didn't know because of his father. The narration in this piece is particularly interesting. It gave us an outsider, third person perspective with hints that it was from Enoch's point of view. However, while reading it, I almost did not realize just how strange Enoch's actions were throughout the text. The narration made it seem like these actions weren't very out of the ordinary, in fact, it displayed them like any other simple task one might perform throughout the day. It's only when the reader takes a step back to truly analyze what Enoch was doing that we realize just how out of place he really was. In the beginning, he's standing in line to shake hands with a gorilla. On top of that, he's standing with children. Think about that a minute; an adult man would look ridiculously out of place among a throng of kids that probably barely reach his waist. Again, when he shreds the umbrella, the narration describes this action almost offhandedly. Now, imagine what Enoch would look like with a sharp skeleton of the umbrella tucked under his arm.

The narration seemed to lull the reader into a sense of sympathy for Enoch, and this sympathy (for me anyway) can blind the reader into noticing weird or important things about the text.

Week Five -"Alice Weir"

            People-watching is fun. Entertaining. “Alice Weir” reminded me of being out in public and simply observing the people passing by with their day-to-day routine and habits. The piece begins with the idea that “as the train stops, the story should begin”; everyone has a story, why they’re going where they are going and from where have they come. In this train station, it feels like the narrators may even be inventing stories for all of the people they observe.

            The biggest question for me is who the narrators are. A group of people? Do they know Alice Weir, or are she and even her name someone for whom they have made up a story? The narrators, in my opinion, are indeed a group of people, although they could also include the reader, since it seems that without physically moving we are able to leave the train station with Alice and venture outside to see a family getting out of a cab. However, it seems that the narrators get fed up with Alice and her dilly-dallying on the sidewalk, just like the fellow passengers whom she is blocking, and their attention diverts to said family.

            By the time they get bored with this family, their attention reverts to Alice who is gone. But they must go on this people-watching excursion often, because they know that since it’s only Monday, “[s]he’ll be back”.

            At this point in my reading, I believe the people-watchers are all-seeing and include the reader. It’s like panning in and out of scenes during a movie, following the action. So, I conclude, that people-watching is justified because it is simply like watching a movie.

Week 5: "Puss-In-Boots"

Angela Carter did an excellent job of assuming the voice of a cat in “Puss-In-Boots” (that is, if cats had voices). Cats are independent, proud, mischievous, and uppity, and Puss-In-Boots’ characterization is true to these traits. The use of illeism- like when Puss says “proud of his fine, white shirtfront that dazzles harmoniously against his orange and tangerine tessellations… proud of his bird-entrancing eye and more than military whiskers; proud… of his fine, musical voice”, referring to himself- serves to convey the feline’s egotistic personality. His assured declarations, such as “[French] is the only language in which you can purr”, indicate a high level of refinement and sophistication, as does his lofty speech like when he says “Puss can perform a back somersault whilst holding aloft a glass of vino in his right paw and never spill a drop”. The fact that Puss almost single-handedly brings his master and the object of his master’s affection together attests to his wit and penchant for mischief. “Puss-In-Boots” has it all: humor, adventure, suspense, and romance, all told through the eyes of a faithful pet cat. I thoroughly enjoyed this story.     

STRUCTURAL IRONY IN PUSS-IN-BOOTS // Week Six

I really enjoyed the narration of the short story “Puss-in-Boots”, by Angela Carter, and in particular the structural irony that Carter’s narrative endows the story with. By using a non-human narrator, she is able to create a discrepancy between the descriptions of events that take place and the actual events themselves. For example, when Figaro describes himself performing his “meditative toilette” and the pensive deliberation that takes place at the same time, it contrasts very sharply with the image that I have in mind when I think of a cat using a litterbox. The narrative as a whole effectively makes use of this contrast across the whole story, as an intelligent cat describes many things that ordinary cats do on a regular basis from his own perspective. I enjoyed reading this clever reinvention of the classic European fairy tale, and especially so because of the witty narration and feline turns of phrases.

Week 5- Enoch and the Gorilla

Throughout this story, the reader gets the sense that Enoch has had a troubled past, and carries a negative aura with him. I noticed that O'Connor used the presence of rain quite often in this story, and I began to see it as a symbol of Enoch's outlook on life. The story starts out with a downpour where Enoch needs to borrow a broken umbrella. This directs the scene into a wearisome, defeated set of images. Continuing on, the presence of rain is mentioned in every page up to page five. It is almost as if it is a way of showing how Enoch feels that his life is sinking into the dreary rain, or is being washed away by it. For example, on page two, the narrator describes the music of the "Tarara Boom Die Aye" to be "almost drowned out by the rain" and how the Gonga truck's record was, "barely a mumble in the rain." On page five, however, the presence of rain seems to disappear. Coincidentally, this is the page where Enoch undergoes his transformation where he finally claims, "I know what I want." As a result, I thought that O'connor's utilization of rain as a symbol in Enoch's life throughout the story helped compliment the scenes as well as the changes that Enoch underwent in the story.

Week Five - "Butter Cow"

As I was reading “Butter Cow”, I couldn’t help but wonder about the connection between the “I” and the “he”. Is the “I” female and the two are on a date or are they relatives or friends?  Whatever the case maybe, the “I” seems extremely bored with the “he”. Namely, this is seen when the narrator states, “I am thinking, he is thinking…” The repetition of this line throughout the story demonstrates a strong familiarity between the narrator and the “he”, or at least the “I” believes she knows him well enough to predict almost every thought. The first paragraph describes the road intersections at right angles, the soybeans, and cattle. The narrator describes the drive as “mindless”, but this could also apply to the “he”. From what the narrator reveals, the “he” has a great breadth of agriculture knowledge and is seemingly fascinated by it. However, perhaps the narrator is not actually interested in agriculture and feels the whole fair experience to be banal.

            The narrator’s disinterest in the fair and arguably in the “he” as well is demonstrated when the narrator describes the scene. For the narrator contends, “And at the fair people there walk and eat, lap up against each other, wave the paper napkins stained with four kinds of grease across their moony faces…” As I read this, the description made me wonder who actually are the animals. And perhaps, that is the narrator’s point.  

Week 4- "The Sock"

This piece was very intriguing to me because of the almost emotionless narrator, and her apparent lack of emotion gives off so much. You can tell that, though she is still possessive of her husband and still has some sort of sweet feeling for him, she's trying her hardest to be accommodating; to not be known as the "bitter ex-wife", to keep everything together so that her son doesn't grow to resent either parent. You can tell she's almost being taken advantage of because of this, the fact that her ex husband asks that she takes care of his mother, knowing that she'll agree because of how accommodating she's been thus far, and you almost get the sense that she knows it too. Her little victory, the only revenge she really takes, is when she doesn't remind her ex husband that his sock is in his back pocket, that she lets it go and she lets him feel foolish even for just one slight moment. Her sort of flat tone throughout the piece indicates a person who is really emotionally spent, someone who doesn't even have the energy to be upset, someone who has been reduced to finding small pleasure in very, very small moment.

Week 5 -Enoch and the Gorilla

This piece was really confusing for a while, it spun in my head as I tried to re -read sections and wrap my head around what was going on. At first I pictured Enoch as an older man as the beginning of the story mentioned, " Enoched had borrowed his landlady's Umbrella-". The first thing that I figured was he owed his own home of some sort and was some awkward looking man. He even stated he hated kids as he stood in line to wait for the gorilla. We find out he is actually 18 and the ends of his front teeth were broken off. We also get a sense that this "Gorilla" is an animal from a zoo of some sort but instead its some jerk in a suit. But what really threw me off was how Enoch suddenly found some inner courage after reading the whereabouts of all the stops this fake gorilla was going to be. I would have never suspected Enoch to jump into the van and suit up in the gorilla suit. I took it that he had a great idea to rat out the fake gorilla and show everyone that he's a fake. When he began to dig a hole for his cloths and put on the gorilla suit, I pictured a man transforming into a werwolf but instead this was a gorilla. I had to read it over a few times to finally understand what was going on.

So I suppose what I'm getting at is, there were misleading parts or rather parts to this piece that made you jump to conclusions and then later find that you're conclusion was wrong. But thats what kept the drive of this story, it had you think one thing and then made into soothing else. Filled with surprises and and overall rather interesting piece. 

Week 4 - "Yours"

“Yours” is an extremely subtextual story - we are put in a position where we as readers have very little information about the private scenes we're eavesdropping on, and must read between the lines in order to understand the story. In particular, I wish to focus on the significance of the letter from Clark’s family.

One of the only pieces of information we are freely given about Clark and Allison’s relationship is the age difference.This seems a reasonable explanation for why Clark's family is so set against their relationship - they think that Clark is an ‘old fool’ for being with her. Initially I thought that the insinuation might be that they think Allison is a gold digger, who means to steal his money. However, the inclusion of the check makes me think that the letter was in response to a request by Clark to borrow money, implying that he is hardly wealthy. In addition, Allison’s illness has already been heavily hinted at -  this brings up the possibility that they might have needed the money for her treatments, which makes the inclusion of the false check an even crueler gesture.

The most crucial detail, however,  is the fact that when Allison finds the letter with the rest of the mail, it has already been opened. If Clark was the one who read the letter, it begs the question of why he would leave it where Allison would undoubtedly find it and read the terrible things his family had to say about her. There is significant tension in their dialogue that could suggest that it was a sign of doubt and aggression -  that Clark was starting to believe that he really is an old fool; however this seems out of line with his attitude as the story progresses. It could simply be a way of letting his wife know that they couldn't get the money, because he can't bear to say it himself, or, even more glumly, a sign of resignation - because if they know by now that Allison is terminal, they wouldn't need the money anyway.

However,  Allison finds the letter with the maid’s chore list, and the dinner she has prepared for Clark, making it a definite possibility that Clark hasn't seen the letter at all - that maid has read it and hidden it from him, perhaps to spare his heart, but left it for Allison to read, revealing a strange dynamic - though Allison is dying, she is still the one taking care of Clark, not the other way around.