Kingston

In her 1975 essay "No Name Woman", Maxine Hong Kingston talks about silence and secret pasts. She does this by telling the story of an aunt who was exiled from her family for bearing a man's child who was not her husband. Kingston merges this story into something she can learn something from and it helps shape the woman she becomes.

Silence is obviously the main theme in this essay. Her aunt was silent about her pregnancy and silent about the man she was having an affair with. Also, Kingston's family is silent to the fact that her aunt ever existed because of the shame she put on their family name. According to Kingston’s mother her father has "all brothers because it is as if she had never been born" (Kingston 383). I believe that in the case of her aunt silence meant love and protection. She did not want her lover to be prosecuted. In order to achieve this protection, this anonymity, "she kept the man's name to herself throughout her labor and dying" (Kingston 390) so that he would not be punished with her. She also did not want to slander the families name with her actions. She kept silent to protect the ones she loved. For her family, however, their silence was about hate and unforgiving anger toward her aunt. They do not want to remember her, so they dare not speak of her. Kingston is trying to create a clear difference between the silence of her aunt and of her family. Ghosts are often used to connect to the aunt and the past in the story. Ghosts, in essence, are things that are almost there but not quite. With her aunt being forgotten but not really forgotten, she is a ghost that haunts the family. She picks at their conscience for forgetting her and she picks at the author's conscience for keeping her a secret.

How did Kingston use this story to shape her? I do not understand the way in which the story ties into Kingston's life.

Hughes

In his 1949 essay "Bop", Langston Hughes discusses "be-bop", a popular style of music in the 40's. He uses another character, Simple, to describe the music and why it is special to only the colored people.

Hughes uses vernacular wording to paint a picture of the craziness of bop music. The words spoken are not actually words but syllables and sounds, crazy sounds in this crazy music. When the author asks what the difference between re- and be-bop, Simple tells Hughes that the difference is race. Of course, it's always race to Simple, but the way he describes the reasoning behind why only colored people understand be-bop takes us to the streets of a 1940's street riot. Simple says that "bop" and "mop" sound is heard when the police beat on the heads of the negro people. So why can't white people appreciate good bop music? Because they are not being treated the way the blacks are, according to our main character. He argues that "folks who ain't suffered much cannot play Bop, neither appreciate it" (Hughes 191). Therefore he is implying that re-bop is different from be-bop because re-bop, an imitation of be-bop performed by white people, does not have the same pain and soul behind it as be-bop does, it does not come from the same dark days. Hughes uses the word nonsense a lot in this essay. I believe that he is using a certain word to paint a certain picture of misunderstanding. It will be nonsense to who ever does not understand this type of music, and his misunderstanding will be nonsense to anyone who perfectly understands it.

Simple tells the author that white people cannot understand bop the way black people do. Do you think Langston Hughes is white because of this, or is he more of a black man trying hard to fit into the white world? Or maybe he has not been through what Simple has?

Wolfe

In Tom Wolfe's 1964 essay "Putting Daddy On," he tells a story about a guy who is going to find his son. He uses a lot of metaphors and tells the story from the perspective of another person, Parker, who has lost his son to the "flipnick" life style. When he finds his son he is surrounded by the weight of the life style he has chosen. Nothing in the way of an agreement is made and Parker goes home to his wife sonless.

There are a lot of extended metaphors in this essay. Even one of his characters is noted to speak in ironic metaphors. I think that the way he describes the crumminess of his sons apartment, how "the walls actually have big slags of plaster missing and the lathing showing, as in a caricature of an extremely crummy place" (283). Caricature, by definition, means a picture that ludicrously exaggerates something. I think that comparing his son's apartment to a caricature of a crummy place also makes his son a caricature of a crummy son. Also, the way they have created names for each other, like Jaywak and Aywak, showing that they're really trying to create something new and different, and I think that when Parker addresses his son in this manner he is poking fun at their attempt at rebellion. Overall, Parker just thinks his son is unoriginal and crummy, just like his apartment, just like his "rebellion", and just like his crummy friends. I get the feeling that he didn't want to find his son, that he was just "putting daddy on", putting that roll on, to make it seem like his son was the guilty party. Now he can tell his wife that he tried, but his son just wouldn't budge.

I think it's interesting that every generation the different groups get called an interesting new word. "Beatniks" and "Hippies" are good examples of these names. Have you ever been called something totally bizarre by a grandparent or other member of the family?

Herr

In "Illumination Rounds" by Michael Herr, Herr discusses the effect on his being and the emotions of others in the Vietnam war. Several different characters are introduced throughout the essay, each with his own take on the war and the emotional damage it is causing them, to whatever degree. But it's not all about emotions and feelings, it has manly things too, like dead people. Yummy!

There are a million great things in the story I could talk in great depth about, like how he hints at things (like that they are in Vietnam, which he does by naming Asian sounding cities) but only directly telling the reader after the reader should have already had an idea of what he was talking about. I could also discuss the language he used, staying true to the way people spoke at the time even though it seems like he wrote it years later recalling what happened. I am more interested, however, in the depth of his characters. The character I found the most interesting was Davies. There is something so real about him that he cannot be the product of the author's imagination, but is so odd a being that you wonder how someone that different could ever exist. The way he acts after he finds out the priest lied to him about his legs is such a display of his odd character that you know just by reading that sentence that he's going to be a wild one. He has adapted to life at war, already marrying where he is stationed and creating the interesting mural on his wall. The attention to detail had to have taken him forever and the symbolism is just incredible. I love how he has the picture of the woman that "began at the bottom with shiny leather boots and rouged knees and ascended in a micro skirt, bare breasts, graceful shoulders and a long neck, topped by the burned, blackened face of a dead Vietnamese woman" (Herr 334). That picture describes how he feels about the war better than any beautifully written essay he could come up with.

The part that really hits the nail on the head in regards to how terrible the war was and the emotional effect it had on the men who fought it was at the very end. The major says, in reply to the dreams that the author is having, "'After the first tour, I'd have the goddamndest nightmares. You know, the works. Bloody stuff, bad fights, guys dying, me dying... I thought they were the worst,' he said. "But I sort of miss them now'" (Herr 341). [A side note- that was a tricky citation.] In that short sentence, to me, he says that nothing, not even those terrible nightmares could compare to the bloody battles of the war.

Another side note- I hate Vietnam stories.

Question- At the beginning of the essay, he says that he is a writer. However, near the end of the essay I get the idea that he is a soldier participating in the war. What role is he actually playing in this war, the role of a reporter or the role of a soldier?

Eiseley

In "The Brown Wasps," Loren Eiseley discusses, rather beautifully, the attachment of animals and humans to things that they know and love. Even though these things may not be there any more, in the mind they are always there to comfort.

There is a lot of beautiful symbolism and comparison in this essay. The author compares the nature of humans and animals alike, showing how they are the exact same when it comes to holding on to memories and past places. The pigeons, like the old blind beggar, will always be at home in the subway no matter whether it stands or not. In their minds it is the only home they know. Eiseley's tree will always stand, and he will always be in it's cool shade, even though he saw with his own two eyes that it had not lasted as long as his father promised it would. This tree is bound to him in his memories. It has meaning to him. He uses the brown wasps as an extended metaphor to show that animals and people will always return to the things that they hold dear to, like the wasps to the memory of a buzzing nest, or the old men to the "comfort" of a hard subway bench. To die in this place is to die comforted, knowing that you were with something important to you when you left the world.

The "black hole" in this essay, the part that makes the essay as powerful as it is, is where Eiseley talks about how this thing, these memories, are a part of life and how every living feeling thing is connected to some memory or place. He says, "This feeling runs deep in life; it brings stray cats running over endless miles, and birds homing from the ends of the earth. It is as though all living creatures, and particularly the more intelligent, can survive only by fixing or transforming a bit of time into space or by securing a bit of space with its objects immortalized and made permanent in time (Eiseley 240)." Such a powerful statement about the nature of living things. We must secure a piece of something and immortalize it to go about existing. We must have this comforting idea or feeling in our minds to survive. While I am not sure I agree with this, it is an absolutely amazing idea beautifully portrayed by the author.

Question: If you were lost and alone, what thought or place would comfort you?

Hurston

In this essay, Zora Naele Hurston discusses what it feels like to be black in a black community and black in a white community. She discusses how she does not care when people discriminate against her, nor does she care about the history of slaves. She believes that this is a new era and she should not have to dwell on the suffering of her ancestors, for they gave way to the life she lives now.

One thing that I thought was interesting was how she separated her character in the black community from her character in the white community. When she is in her natural state, she is Zora. When she is exposed to anything that reminds her of her childhood and all the dancing and singing she did, she becomes Zora. However, when she comes back to reality and sees that not everyone is effected by the jazz music like she is, she feels very colored. Also when she is amongst thousands of white people, she feels separated and colored. She says "I do not always feel colored. Even now I often achieve the unconscious Zora of Eatonville before the Hegira. I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background," such as the sea of white people by the lake. This was not always the case, however, because when she was a girl in Eatonville the only difference between whites and black was that whites passed through the town and blacks lived in the town. When she moved and was integrated with white people she started noting the difference. In one section she compares herself and everyone else to bags against the wall in that we all have basically the same stuff inside our "bags." After you empty the bag you may realize that even though the bag in your hand is brown it contains the exact same material as the yellow bag, or the white bag. This is an amazing comparison in which she points out that everyone is the same no matter what color they are, and I feel that we need to realize that we are really all the same.

However, I do have a question. She acts as though the change from being a person to being a colored person when she relocated was nothing but a little change in scenery. How did she adapt to such a different environment so quickly? Did she really adjust as fast as she leads us to believe?

Thomas

In "Lives of a Cell," Thomas talks about man's detachment from nature. He states that we are constantly trying to get away from it but humans are a part of nature, we are "embedded" in nature, therefore we will never get away from nature because we are nature.

He really pushes this point by comparing complex human beings to tiny little cells. We are made up of cells, we are really a moving blob of cells, yet we think we are so much different than these beings of nature. Also, nature is living inside of us. Viruses and bacteria swim in our veins. They are a part of nature just as we are. He uses the single cell earth idea as an extended metaphor through-out the essay.

The most confusing part about this passage was right at the end when he actually compared the earth in all its complexity to a single cell. To quote him, "Then, satusfactorily for that moment, it came to me: it is most like a single cell." What?! What makes him feel that way? This left me extremely confused.

Does any body understand what this guy is talking about?

Twain on Opinions

In "Corn-pone Opinions," Twain discusses his philosophy on the way human beings form their opinions and beliefs. He states that any independent thought on religion, fashion or whatever other things have opinions on is rare if it even exists at all. Humans will follow the crowd so they will fit in to have the social reputation they long for. Also, they will not have a certain opinion if it interferes with their source of food.

He uses examples like fashion trends to explain how people conform to popular styles and opinions. He also uses the fact that no one wants to be seen as an outsider in his favor, as it shows that everyone conforms. Even you comform. Yes, you.

There is one part of this story that I find contradictory, and that is where he writes, "A new thing in costume appears- the flaring hoopskirt, for example- and the passers-by are shocked, and the irreverent laugh. Six months later everyone is reconciled; the fashion has established itself; it is admired, now, and no one laughs." So the point of this story is that no one forms their own opinions. But if no one can start anything new, no one can think for themselves, then where does this hoopskirt wearing trendstarter get her ideas? Obviously no one has been exposed to the hoopskirt or no one would laugh. This woman had to have formed her own opinion about how she looked in the skirt and decided on her own to wear it. I know you could argue that maybe the trend started outside the country and she picked it up from there. However, she would be again deciding on her own to bring it to America and try to make it popular. This woman is an absolute contradiction to the entire point of this essay. And yes, I did disagree with something Mark Twain said. I am so bold.

Question- Now armed with the knowledge that you are completely "uncapable" of forming opinions with out some outside influence, where do you think you get your opinions from, such as religion, political affiliation, etc?

Mahatma Gandhi

"The moral progress of a nation and its greatness should be judged by the way it treats its animals."
- Mahtma Gandhi

Animal rights are a big issue in this country. Luckily, the government has made it illegal to abuse domesticated animals. However, that does not account for the animals that we use for food. They are treated terribly their entire lives only to die and become a meal. The cows that we slaughter never feel the grass under their feet or breathe fresh air before they are hung by the feet in a slaughterhouse and gutted. Pigs and chickens are forced into over crowded pens which are so small they cannot even turn around or lie. We need to make the lives of these animals more tolerable before we end them for our own pleasure, and make their slaughter more humane. If we follow what Gandhi says in this quote, how does that make America look? Can we say that we are a great country when our animals are abused and treated so poorly? Much respect needs to be shown to the ideas of a man who can win a war with out violence.

LAMOTT, BIRDXBIRD

This reading was all dedicated to the writing process, how it should begin and end, and that no matter how good you are at writing you will always start a little "shitty". First you have the "down draft". Get something down, anything. Ideas are likely to spawn from this "vomiting" of words onto the page. LaMott uses her "School Lunches" anecdote to show that you can be writing about one thing (like what your school lunch said about you and your family as a child) and get a completely different theme or idea out of the experience (like the boy against the fence that you were never to make eye contact with). After you have your "down draft", you find your new theme or direction and turn it into an "updraft", which is just a slightly better writing after you "fix it up". After you have done all your necessary repairs to the down draft, making it your up draft, you then create a "dental draft". In this process, you take your updraft. This step is completed when you "check every tooth, to see if it's loose or scraped or decayed," or even perfectly fine. This is also known as tweaking, and is essential to take your paper from good to great.


LaMott uses hilarious metaphors, like treating the down draft as a baby, and humorous anecdotes like her "school lunches". Not to mention the way she described the boy against the fence as a Polaroid that slowly developed into the character she wanted to include in her novel. The whole developing Polaroid metaphor makes me feel like I understand more of how the writing process works in the head of a brilliant writer. It starts as a white bleached out picture, and slowly develops into a moment or story perfectly captured in time.


One particular passage in this book really describes what it feels like to most of us when we just don't know what we want to write about. It's sort of as if you feel like you're at the end of the writing tunnel, and the only two options are to shape up or ship out. In the words of the author, "One writer I know tells me that he sits down every morning and says to himself nicely, 'It's not like you don't have a choice, because you do- you can either type or kill yourself.'" A humorous take on the frustration of writers block. She goes on to say "We all often feel like we are pulling teeth," which couldn't be more true, for me at least. It feels like I am constantly at war with my mind to just think of something good so I can be done.

Discussion question: If you could create, or describe the Polaroid that represents your life, what would be in it? What images would appear in what order and what would they mean? Also, what would the final picture look like?