Davenport Discussion Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Writings 09-30-12).

I.

Summary

Davenport relates her essay “War Doll Hotel” as a series of snapshots over various portions of her lifetime, focusing on her stay at the YMCA in NYC during the 1970’s as its central focus. Davenport, in her essay, reconciles her divided self of her youth in NYC that had not yet embraced multiculturalism as openly as it does today, by looking back through the lens of her present state, one of a more profound appreciation for not only her own uniqueness, but realizing that we all come from a place of searching for what we are, and having to go through our own journeys to find ourselves as well.  

Analysis

Born to a Hawaiian mother, and a Caucasian father, neither of which imprinted their culture upon her during her youth, she flees her native Hawaii for NYC in the hope of escaping the place of her birth and youth in the hopes of becoming successful in assimilating to the larger, corporate America.

“You see the trouble I was in; I still didn’t know who I was. I would lose a whole decade, all of my twenties, before I learned that recognizing who you are isn’t the subtext of a life. It’s the main point” (14).

She arrives at NYC in her early twenties, hoping to find success in corporate America, a form of America that was mostly Caucasian, believing that the assimilation into this culture is the definition of happiness. She finds herself at the YMCA, amongst other refugees from other places and cultures, that had caused these women to be labeled outcasts by others, or causing the women to see themselves as outcasts from a circumstance that they were running away from. Some women are more readily able to assimilate themselves into the culture, Davenport herself appeared white and thus had an advantage. Other women had a more difficult time in assimilating, using other methods such as finding husband’s which they believed would give them a way into being accepted by the larger community. The women at the YMCA became their own tight-knit family, in order to support each other, and help each other make sense of this new society that they had to somehow navigate. Other women could not so readily fit in and develop this ability (the suicide and the woman who appeared to have gone insane), and I noticed Davenport did not mention these women by name, as they were probably incapable, possibly through their own negative self-beliefs, to join and participate within this group of women. The women who did succeed were able to reconcile themselves within the needs and requirements of the larger society as a whole. Some retained their personal uniqueness, while other women may have had to shed their past identities completely to adopt one that they felt would compel society to accept them.

“I think the fact that we could do that, that such profoundly dislocated, homesick young women could buoy each other up, assemble, and take aim; well that was the important thing. New York, the target, was insignificant. Targets change” (15).

Synthesis

One is not the sum of one’s potential lineage although the traditions and rituals handed down to people through their heritages gives them their sense of identity as a means to participate in the world before the person find’s their own traditions and rituals with which to adhere. One is how well one can read one’s environment and meet its needs and help participate toward its goals. As society becomes further fractured there is very little holding it together. In the past there were more clear and precise demarcations for the roles of women and men, and for black and white. Society used to be much less difficult to read and participate within as most of us looked like each other, causing us to mostly copy one another in behavior and thinking. Now that society is becoming more increasingly used to seeing various races and cultures, the lines of what is acceptable as to what group to belong to, and thus what behaviors and ideals to adopt and emulate as our own are more confused. We are now subject to the value judgments of many kinds of different people, each one right according to their own culture and place. It is now up to the individual to have to successfully mitigate many different kinds of what is right and wrong in many different kinds of circumstances. To the uninformed individual, our society may appear as just a random set of happenings, causing the individual much confusion and distress in one’s participation of the world. The individual, in this day and age, is compelled to not only try to make sense of the world in order to better fit in it and prosper in a myriad of forms, but to make sense of the world to define ourselves, and what is proper for us as the individual as to how much of society has a personal worth, and what of its values are worth devoting our energies to, and which have no worth to the individual whatsoever. Essentially our lives are a series of photographs, it is only through our environments, and an informed study of it, which gives us the meanings that we assign these moments of time in our personal history.

“When we’re young, we record things very fast. Life develops the film. Ritual for sleepless nights: shuffle mental snapshots, fan them out like playing cards. Choose one” (13).

II.

• Bloom’s Taxonomy is actually unfinished, having only completed the first two domains. Others have attempted to create and define the third domain but it has not yet been officially recognized. The taxonomy that we have been exposed to in the course only touches upon the Cognitive Domain, and not the Affective Domain, or the Psycho-Motor Domain. If the other two domains were taken into account, the taxonomy may become even more of a useful and powerful tool in its application.

• Taxonomy should be made available to school children, as well as teachers. It would perhaps better inform the students as to the process of teaching, understanding the fact that there is a tool being used in how they are taught by the teacher. Students would be perhaps more interested in learning if they could engage with the subject of learning by anticipating the possible approaches the teacher may use in their teaching, recognizing at what level the subject is being taught and tested upon by being informed of the various keywords with which are being used. It would also be helpful for the student to be aware that there is a higher process of thinking than only one, and that everyone is capable of these higher processes in some form if only they are given the means, and one devotes oneself to using them for their personal gain.

• One’s thinking occurs on several different levels, active engagement with a subject is the only means to which one can achieve the higher orders of thinking concerning any subject. Ones ideas can go from the general to the sophisticated and the taxonomy is a useful tool to examine any subject from multiple points of view in order to not only retain the basic fundamentals of the subject, but to achieve more than a superficial understanding of the subject as well through being able to see and use the subjects through a variety of means.

• I watched some videos on YouTube and looked at the various images of “Bloom’s Taxonomy” through Google. Seeing it in its many forms helped to more deeply appreciate it and make it all come together. I think seeing it from various perspectives better informs one’s sense of what Bloom Taxonomy is, and better gives a broad awareness of what the taxonomy is. It is after one finds a broad view, or overview of the subject, the learner can then narrow down further into the respective categories of what the taxonomy is. When one finds a multitude of ways of how others have presented the subject, it makes it more readily able to choose which one fits us the best, yet understanding that other people may understand the subject in a completely different way from ours.

• The difference between Declarative Knowledge, and Procedural Knowledge was something that I needed to define.

 Declarative knowledge is knowing that something as an indisputable fact – “that J is the tenth letter of the alphabet, that Paris is the capital of France. Declarative knowledge is conscious; it can be verbalized” (para. 1).

Procedural Knowledge, on the other hand, “ involves knowing HOW to do something – ride a bike for example. We may not be able to explain how we do it. Procedural knowledge involves implicit learning, which a learner may not be aware of, and may involve being able to use a particular form to understand or produce language without necessarily being able to explain it” (para. 2).

• Definition of terms used in Bloom’s taxonomy were also necessary for me. Most people assume the given meanings of everyday terms, and to help myself I had to define various terms in order to know that my understanding of the terms used were not based falsely on assumptions, thus leading to a misunderstanding.  

Works Cited:

Davenport, Kiana. "War Doll Hotel." Daily Fare: Essays from the Multicultural Experience. Ed. Kathleen Aguero. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1993. 65-77. (in Selected Readings booklet). Print.

http://unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL/affiche_theorie.php?id_concept=90&lang=eng&id_theorie=1&id_categorie=3. “Declarative Knowledge vs. Procedural Knowledge”. Accessed 09-27-2012.

Icebreaker Post (U.S. Women's Multicultural Writings 09-21-12).

My multicultural experience occurs every time I go to the gym, the Aspen Athletic in Driver’s Village at Cicero, N.Y. In the gym, there are several different types of people. There are the stay-at-home mothers who come religiously every morning, bringing along their multiple children to the facility’s day care, who scream and run through the gym every time they come. There are the hardcore weightlifters that look like they could rip you apart with their bare hands, who throw heavy weight around, and watch your pathetic workout from the corner of their eyes. There are the kids out of school who come to do one rep, then occupy the machine/equipment for a half an hour, sitting there resting and staring into space or pretending not to be self-conscious, while playing on their cell phones, or gather together and converse. There are the guys who have the expensive exercise clothes, and brings a gallon of drinking water every time along with their pads and papers to keep track of what exercises they did, how often, and how much. There are the guys who show up and exercise in jeans and designer t-shirts, yet work out as intensely, or more so than the average gym-goer. Then there are the starlets of the gym who come and do an intense workout in the midst of several men, each one surreptitiously studying her while she pretends to ignore all of them. Lastly there are the local celebrities. I’ve worked out next to Tom Hauf, one of the local Syracuse weathermen, and another one who I think is an anchor for one of the news stations. I have seen many people come and go, some people coming religiously for awhile and then mysteriously disappearing, perhaps from some change of job, or like me occupying themselves while they are unemployed, then either giving up the gym, or coming again at a different time. Then there are the types like me, who wish they were married to someone who could support them while all I had to do was watch the children, and my figure, more of the day belonging to myself and my children, rather than trapped in some place of employment. There are the types like me who wish they were massively muscular, and get respect wherever they go, who never have to suffer the slights of the occasional emotional or inconsiderate person. There are the types like me who wish they could go back to being a teenager, living in this day and age of more tolerance and acceptance, rather than the oppressiveness of cliques that prized the jocks over everyone else. There are the types like me who should probably put a more scientific effort into their workouts, rather than showing up and winging it every time as I do, just trying to get a quick but intense session in to keep oneself in general good health and shape. There are the types like me who wish they had an audience to ignore, who had a body that keeps other people captivated. There are the types like me who wish they had some kind of employment that made them local celebrities, all they have to do is read off of the teleprompter, looking good while they do it. 

Final Reflections (Shakespeare 09-14-12).

Joseph Melanson

Shakespeare

Prof. Tryon

30 August 2012

 Shakespeare Final Reflections

            I selected James Holmes for this essay, the apparently bright and gifted graduate student who walked into a theater on July 20^th of this year, in Aurora, Colorado, and killed 12 people, while injuring another 58. He had entered into the crowded theater dressed combat gear in, and opened fire on people who had come to see the newest Batman movie, “A Dark Knight Rises”. When he was apprehended he had underneath his

combat gear, the appearance of the character the “Joker” from the Batman series of comic books and movies, the nemesis and antagonist of the Batman.

            James Holmes did not seem like the typical person who would throw away his life, as well as carelessly destroying others as well. He is described as a bright and gifted, yet socially awkward graduate student who was attempting to pursue his doctorate and applied to multiple universities. He writes in an application letter about a youth that seemed strict, yet agreeable. Holmes writes about his ability to gain the trust and love of children as a camp counselor, as well as children with mental illnesses. Holmes had pursued his desire to study neuroscience, in the hopes of helping to unlock the mysteries of the mind.

            Holmes was denied admittance into his school of choice, the University of Iowa, after earning his degree at the University of California at Riverside, and turned down an offer of acceptance at the University of Illinois. Holmes presented himself as an unsuitable candidate at the University of Iowa, despite the many awards and accomplishments that he had made. Dan Tranel, a “neurology professor and director of psychology” strongly recommended against his admittance into the school’s neuroscience program (Hill, para. 2). Holmes would have probably never heard the reasons for the denial of his admission, but he would probably wonder forever what the reasons behind it were. Perhaps it was the final thing that needed to happen to set off Holmes’ madness into violence.

            All of us are the stars of our own shows in our heads, having the leading role in a story that is always evolving, gaining and losing characters, some bringing with them tragedies, while others bring us comedies. In all, they are both the histories that we share, only to later be forgotten in the passages of time, but like all history it repeats itself, and we can all find much of ourselves in others lives.

            One has to wonder if Holmes, like a character of Shakespeare was compelled by ghosts that only he could see like Hamlet, felt himself betrayed and manipulated by his personal circle like Othello, persecuted and prejudiced against without recourse like Shylock, surrounded by enemies and seemingly unreliable allies like King Henry, or consumed to fulfill his own dark prophecies?

            Was James Holmes a weak character, suffering from either a mental illness, a personality disorder, felt shunned by his society, his madness finally erupting into violence like a burst pipe to people like this who have no means to unburden themselves of life’s inevitable pressures, trapping within themselves their emotions, which inevitably spill over into our shared world, after becoming compacted and mutually destructive to all?

            Did James Holmes possess a character flaw which became a madness that could not properly interpret this world, limiting his participation within it, and thus driving him into murdering innocent people who he probably had never met?

            Does our culture play a part in how people like James Holmes seem to end up at their inevitable homicidal rampages? What kind of home life, what kind of parents and friends did he have that he thought it was a good idea to massacre strangers? It seemed he presented warning signs, yet did anyone think to approach him and try to show him how to live and be, or does our culture still encourage us to shy away from, and shun people like him? Influenced by a culture that glorifies violence, prizes audacity and vulgarity, a society that offers weapons of mass destruction for sale, perhaps a rampage against the Dark Knight is in effect an attempt to attack a culture that abandons people thus betraying them, leaving people like Holmes with only their dark obsessions, and the voices of ghosts that will forever haunt them?   

Hmmm... definitely a terrible story from the recent news.  Really unreal.  But did you realize that you only made reference to Shakespeare in one sentence out of the whole paper:  “One has to wonder if Holmes, like a character of Shakespeare was compelled by ghosts that only he could see like Hamlet, felt himself betrayed and manipulated by his personal circle like Othello, persecuted and prejudiced against without recourse like Shylock, surrounded by enemies and seemingly unreliable allies like King Henry, or consumed to fulfill his own dark prophecies?”  I think this is a really interesting comparison, but I’d love to hear more specific reasons that you think this is an apt comparison.  What lines from Hamlet, for example, call James Holmes to mind for you?  What lines from Othello?  Because the point of this paper is to help you take away from this class a sense of the relevance of Shakespeare in modern society, I would challenge you to really think on some of those amazing passages that have stood the test of time—that we hear ringing in our brains when news stories like this come up.  At some place in your brain, those stay with you forever… 86%.

Works Cited:

Hill, Cole Garner. “Read Dark Knight Shooter James Holmes’ Rejected Grad School Letter”. Books and Review.  August 30, 2012.

An Attempted Portrait Essay of My Grandmother (Creative Nonfiction II 09-12-12)

Joseph Melanson
Creative Nonfiction II
Prof. Cahan
21 August 2012

My Grandmother - A Portrait

My grandmother is eighty-two years old, one of the last of the two surviving members of our two person family, and one of the last two of her own large brood. Born in Del Rio, Texas she grew up in stories she told me, of Catholic school which seemed uneventful, as well as being one of two girls in a family of six brothers.

She tells me she thinks her father may have been Native American, as well as old Mexican, now new American, as many became after we won the Spanish-American War in the early 1900's, winning from our mostly Hispanic neighbor the great state of Texas, as well as other bits and pieces of our now southern states.

She speaks Spanish and English, inspiring me to learn more about these two languages, hoping that some day I could master both.

            She cooks the best food that I have ever eaten, causing me to carry extra weight, and being heavy for the majority of my life. Recently I was told I have high cholesterol and am pre-diabetic. I don’t stay away from her food, I only choose to exercise more so I can keep enjoying it.

In 1988 grandfather died, my father died several months later, her mother, my great-grandmother died when I was in high school in the early nineties, and her only child, my mother Dolores died in 2009. Together my grandmother and I have watched death come and go all of our lives it seems.

            My grandmother met my grandfather and they married, my grandfather staying in the Air Force, finally retiring in the seventies, and they ended up staying in Syracuse, N.Y. because my grandfather’s last station was Hancock Air Force Base, which is now nothing more than an industrial park for a few small businesses, and dilapidated apartments that are now homes for animals and insects, occasionally being trespassed by neighborhood vandals, and the occasional person who wanders through imagining what life was like for the people who lived here so many years ago. Before my grandfather retired they crossed the world, being stationed in San Antonio, Germany, Japan, my mother being born in San Antonio.

I have watched her go from a strong, tough able-bodied woman, to an aged, elderly state, as I floated through the past few decades in my own smoldering cemetery.

She gets several checks a month that enables our lifestyle. I have been living with her for the past several years, unable to find any kind of tolerable job that would allow me to depend upon for a steady paycheck to find a place of my own. I am unconcerned, as I have a girlfriend who loves me, and a grandmother who enjoys my company. We are not the same people that we were when we were young, we have gone through too much together for me to be so ready to abandon the nest.

I think she used weight loss pills in the late eighties as she used to have these extreme mood swings or inappropriately intense reactions to inconsequential things, or go maudlin telling me “Oh God, I wish I was dead”, alternated occasionally with “I wish I could crawl into a hold and die”. I gave up trying to please her, or have any contact with her, as her low level of mental functioning or lack of the desire to increase her mental capacity, caused me to understand any real attempt at being understood and appreciated as I needed to be at the time, only left me with the burning sense of frustration as conversations with her took bizarre tangents, unjustified reasoning, and strange lines of thinking, concepts. When I had the clarity to see through the fog of her befuddlement, knowing that she made no sense at all, she would remark that talking to me was like “talking to a brick wall”. I realized at a young age that I was essentially home alone.

            She lost her wedding ring having put it in a wadded up Kleenex, then one day having taken it out and forgetting that anything was in it, or just cleaning up around the house one day, she thinks that she threw her diamond ring in the trash.
            She drove a 1997 Chevrolet Celebrity, long after it had been completely replaced piece by piece, after mechanical breakdown after mechanical breakdown, long after it had been completely devalued for any kind of trade-in value, long after my mother and I had given up trying to get her to replace it. When she finally sold it to some unfortunate kid who either was too broke to afford anything else, or had no sense about cars, he bought it off of her for a measly five hundred dollars. To this day she thinks the kid got a good deal. If the kid was smart he would have driven the worthless piece of crap to the scrap yard and made more money off of the metal.
            My grandmother does the jumble in the paper every day, generally completing it that day, her mind figuring out its words. I tried to tell her a few times how to more easily solve it by collecting the letters of the words that she had already solved, and use them to plug into the final answer at the bottom, thus giving her a means to solve the other remaining words. She sticks to her own method, as it has always worked for her before.      
            She enjoys gardening, and has always had a colorful yard and maintained a garden. The past few years though, she has slowed down, a garden is a lot of work, and these new summers with their consistent days of ninety degree weather, against the rigors of aging has made the act an ordeal. Now instead of tomatoes, cucumbers, and the occasional watermelon, she limits herself to flowers which are a a lot less of a chore, and less likely to be afflicted by the bugs and the squirrels.
           
Joseph, this is a fine capstone for your course writing portfolio this term! I enjoyed reading your essay and how you lock in reader interest from the outset with your engaging narrative voice. From there, you do quite well blending factual with emotional truth and vivid specific descriptions, personal impressions, facts, examples, reasons and explanations to support your impressions of your grandmother. (Were you to revise I’d suggest adding even more dialogue to help create a sense of scene and characterization unfolding before the readers’ eyes, rather than mainly telling about what happened.) Your flowing and rhythmic writing style controls the conventions of the writing system, while the important themes you explore command reader interest with their universal implications of aging and surviving/overcoming challenges of life – excellent. Grade for Essay 4 is A-. 90% - Prof. Cahan.

Sonnet Analysis, Creation, Reflection Assignment (Shakespeare 09-11-12).

Joseph Melanson

Shakespeare

Prof. Tryon

30 August 2012

 Shakespeare Sonnet Assignment 

I). Analysis of Sonnets.  

1). SONNET 15

“When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new” .

1). What is your general impression of what the sonnet is about?

This sonnet is about how everything that lives eventually grows old and dies.

2). Who is speaking? To whom?

The text says that the sonnet is directed from Shakespeare to another man, but I don’t see how it can be determined, on the face of it, whether or not it is directed at a man, or a woman, or anyone in particular. It could still have been an imaginary and unformed character in Shakespeare’s mind.

3). Is there a dominant image, or a variety of imagery?

The dominant images are of the natural world: vegetation (“everything that grows” (15,1) , “plants” (15,5), “sap” (15,7); the heavens (“stars” (15, 4), “sky” (15,6); and images and measures of Time (“youth” (15,10), “memory” (15,8), “night” (15,12), “decay” (15,11) (Shakespeare 22).

4). Which words, phrases or lines appeal to you the most?

“Whereon the stars in secret influence comment” (15.4). I like how it infers an outside influence on the events of our lives.

5). What is the sonnet’s tone or mood?

Sentimental, nostalgic.

6). Is there a ‘turn’ (where the mood or meaning changes)?

7). Which words or lines do you find difficult?

“Presenteth”, “debateth”. I know what they mean on the face of them. It makes it seem as if you could get away with, in Shakespeare’s time anyway, with adding “eth” to words and they are still valid, while adding another syllable as needed.

8). Read the guidance provided with each sonnet page, then attempt the activity

suggested.

b). Create a title for the sonnet.

The Rebirth of Youth

  

2). SONNET 29

“When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings”.

1). What is your general impression of what the sonnet is about?

The sonnet seems to me to be about jealousy, or envy, at other people’s more handsome features, and/or talents.

2). Who is speaking? To whom?

The text says the sonnet is directed by Shakespeare towards a male friend, but it does not appear to me to be definitively directed toward anyone in particular, whether man or woman.

3). Is there a dominant image, or a variety of imagery?

4). Which words, phrases or lines appeal to you the most?

“And trouble deaf heaven with bootless cries” (29,3). Bootless means useless according to the text, I would not have come to that conclusion on my own.

“Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope” (29,7). It sounds good and flows.

“Like to the lark at break if day arising” From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate” (29, 11-12). I like the imagery of it.

5).What is the sonnet’s tone or mood?

Melancholy, despair.

6). Is there a ‘turn’ (where the mood or meaning changes)?

The turn seems to occur in line, “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising” (29, 9). Shakespeare seems to chastise himself for these feelings.

7). Which words or lines do you find difficult?

“Haply” was a word I found difficult to interpret on my own, Gibson defines the word as “Fortuneately, by chance” which I have to take his word for it (38).

8). Read the guidance provided with each sonnet page, then attempt the activity suggested.

b). There is much uncertainty about line 8. What was it that Shakespeare most enjoyed but which now gives him little pleasure: his acting? His writing? Whatever it was, do you feel that the line expresses a familiar experience of a depressed person?

“With what I most enjoy contented least;” (38). There is no discerning whether it is his “acting”, or his “writing” as Gibson offers, it could be anything, it could be the fact of life that everything becomes old and tired eventually, a going through the motions after one does something long enough, no matter how much joy or pleasure it offered in the beginning. The line does suggest the “experience of a depressed person” as Gibson suggests.

 

SONNET 144

“Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out”.

1). What is your general impression of what the sonnet is about?

The sonnet appears to be about conflicted emotions, the battle of good and evil that one fights in oneself.

2). Who is speaking? To whom?

Shakespeare is speaking to himself.

3). Is there a dominant image, or a variety of imagery?

There are references to the afterlife, heaven and hell (“angel” (144,3,6,9,12,14) “spirits” (144,2,4), religion (“saint” (144,7), cleanliness (“purity” (144,8), “corrupt” (144,7), human emotions (“comfort” (144,1) “despair (144,1), “pride” (144,8).

4). Which words, phrases or lines appeal to you the most?

“Two loves I have of comfort and despair” (144,1) “I guess one angel in another’s hell” (144,12). I like the contrasts of both, especially the imagery in the second.

5). What is the sonnet’s tone or mood?

The mood of the sonnet seems dark, gloomy, and sad.

6). Is there a ‘turn’ (where the mood or meaning changes)?

No, it seems that the theme continues throughout, at the end Shakespeare is still in doubt.

7). Which words or lines do you find difficult?

None

8). Read the guidance provided with each sonnet page, then attempt the activity suggested.

b). Create a title for the sonnet.

Two Spirits, or The Spirits Intertwine.

II). My Original Sonnet.

1).When light of youth wanes upon its shadow

2). And thy sweet dreams depart thy mind in flight

3). When thy blood no longer flows in marrow

4). Whose star is seen in our heavens less bright

5). A shell no longer gilded cage thy ghost

6). The inevitable dissolve a cruel blow

7). This earth our stage no longer serves as our host

8). As we depart the world to leaving woe

9). Our curtain closes all things find darkness

10). As the old hears another baby’s cry

11). Find your peace on earth or find thy madness

12). To make sure the truth of our life is no lie

13). We emerge hot into cold world from womb

14). To lose our heat forever to haunt a cold tomb

III). My Process.

            I bought grid paper in which I would create my lines. I figured grid paper would help me keep track of lines, words, and better help me keep track of my syllable count. I made a list of words that stood out as having a common usage, and power of imagery. I created rhyming words to go along with my selected words, and decided upon the best pairs. I started with a loose idea about what a sonnet was and began to compose some loose lines, expecting to fine tune the sentences later. The fine tuning began after I had decided on the best idea of both my sentence structure and overall story I wanted to tell. The only struggles that I had were with coming up with ideas, necessitating dropping or changing words to maintain my syllable count while having to overlook proper grammar. I also could not figure out how to make a turn that seemed to make a difference, or change the outcome. In all, I think I would find it a lot easier to master this method with practice.

First of all, great sonnet.  I love that you worked with grid paper.  That wouldn’t even occur to me, but that’s an incredibly logical way of doing it.  You adhered perfectly to the structure on an Elizabethan sonnet, which isn’t always easy for people to do.  Again, the point of the assignment was really to get people to struggle with all of the work that it takes to “build” this type of art, so hopefully you got a good sense of that.   Your analysis of the three sonnets seems like you were in a rush, correct?  I’d love to hear more than a one or two word answer from you for some of the questions.  The questions are seemingly simple, but some do merit a bit of exploration to really explain the answer as you see it.  88%.

Works Cited:

Shakespeare, William. The Sonnets. Ed. Rex Gibson. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1996. Print.

An Unfinished Literary Analysis of "Somehow Form a Family" by Tony Earley (Creative Nonfiction II 09-10-12)

Joseph Melanson

Creative Non-Fiction II

Prof. Cahan

24 June 2012

 Literary Analysis of Somehow Form a Family by Tony Earley as it applies to the criteria

of Memoir.

           

            Memoirs invite us into the lives of their authors, and offer us a unique perspective about the world we share. Memoir either remains on a specific day and what it caused, or it embody significant events across a period of time in the author’s life. Memoir is told from the perspective of things that had already occurred, or from the present moment, or it can go back and forth from the present to the past, and then back again. Memoir records events that occurred in the order occurred, having a clear linear timeline, or it can cross backwards and forwards through the author’s life in order to tell its story. Memoir allows us into the life of its writer, in order to relate a story in which we can compare to our own, perhaps even seeing ourselves in the writer’s recollections of his or her past. Memoir attempts to answer questions that are relevant to both authors and their readers. The authors of memoirs utilize scene and detail with a compelling and authentic voice that attempts to make sense of their past to show us how they came to be the person they are now. Memoirists offer a glimpse into their personal memories, and use various techniques mostly specific to the criteria of the memoir. In “Somehow Form a Family” by Tony Earley, one can see how this essay applies to the genre of the memoir.

           “Somehow Form a Family” by Tony Earley, is his personal and family history in front of the television as it was interspersed with the episodes of his own life; the July 1969 lunar landing in which the television failed to do what it was built to do, the death of his sister, dad moving out, his contemplating suicide, dad moving back in, his marriage to a woman who couldn’t care less about the events of television, and his glimpsing Ann B. Davis who played Alice on The Brady Bunch, a woman with whom he had spent countless hours watching on television but with whom he “could not think of anything to say to her about the world in which we actually lived” (199).  “Somehow Form a Family” illustrates how we are unknowingly seduced into becoming spectators to the rest of the world by the empty images and sound that comes from the television. 

            Memoir can comprise “a single day and its effect”, Perl and Schwartz state, “or it can capture key moments over time” (182). “Somehow Form a Family” occurs across the significant events of the life of its author, Tony Earley, coinciding with the shows that were on television at the time. It begins with his anonymous, but perhaps typical youth. Then a new television arrives to replace an on outmoded and barely functioning model, this new television bringing into his home what would later become an integral part of his life. Television became almost a retreat and an escape to Tony Earley, influencing his rebellious adolescence, occupying what seemed the majority of his time and developed into an addiction, coloring his memories of his youth, serving as an empty distraction through his sister’s death, serving as the greatest gift that he could give his parents when he received a Christmas bonus from work one year, and then later losing it’s power over him when he later marries a woman whose family did not make television their religion as much as his family had.  

           According to Perl and Schwartz, memoir is “told in past tense, or in present tense, or shift between past and present” (182). Tony Earley, in “Somehow Form a Family”, relates his personal history in the mostly in the past tense, yet occasionally the present intrudes upon his memories. Looking back on his deceased sister, in one memory of her she frolicked in the backyard imitating weightless astronauts, and chasing lightning bugs, Earley relates “I am tempted to say that she was beautiful in the moonlight, and I’m sure she was, but that isn’t something I remember noticing that night, only a thing I need to say now” (193). On the same night as his memory of his sister, during the night of the July 1969 lunar landing, he recalls “the moon, as I remember it, was full, although I’ve since learned that it wasn’t” (192). “Somehow Form a Family” is an essay that relates Tony Earley’s youth, occasionally colored by his present self.

           Memoir, according to Perl and Schwartz, can be “chronological, a memory told form beginning to end, or it can jump back and forth in segments of time” (182). “Somehow Form a Family” is told chronologically, with a structure that Perl and Schwartz state, “moves forward from beginning to end in a straight narrative line”, generally having a “rising action, climax, and resolution” (34). The rising action of the essay is the arrival of color television into his family and how it eventually overtook their lives, the climax occurring at his sister’s sudden death when Earley was a freshman in college, and the resolution comes as Earley realizes how much television became a substitution for living, rather than what should have been a true participation in the world.

            According to Perl and Schwartz, memoir invites us into the author’s past lives and how we will connect and identify, even find some of ourselves in the writer’s memories” (182). Earley, in his essay, relates the shows that he was watching at a particular time in his life. “We watched Hee Haw, starring Buck Owens and Roy Clark; we watched All in  the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and Mannix, starring Mike Conners with Gail Fisher as Peggy; we watched Gunsmoke, and Bonanza, even after Adam left and Hoss died and Little Joe’s hair turned gray; we watched Adam-12 and Kojak, McCloud, Columbo, and Hawaii Five-O; we watched Cannon, a Quinn Martin production, and Barnaby Jones, a Quinn Martin production, which co-starred Miss America and Uncle Jed from The Beverly Hillbillies” (Earley 195). What Earley seems to be saying by relating this list of shows is how he, as

well as the rest of us watched our lives pass before our eyes, squandering our youth and our years in front of the television.

            The authors of memoirs, according to Perl and Schwartz, attempt to “answer personal questions such as “why, of all the stories I can tell, am I telling this one?”, and “what’s at stake here for me - and for my readers?” (182). 2 Examples. Look back on how much we invest of ourselves into our distractions and entertainments, rather than actively participating in the world and learning how to better relate to and appreciate the people in our lives.

            Memoirs, according to Perl and Schwartz, use “detail and scene to make the past come alive” by creating “one or more appealing voice for telling his or her story” to show “how each struggles with and reflects on the past”, and how this voice or voices “makes connections to whom they are now” (10).

            According to Perl and Schwartz, “it’s only through details that you can relive that moment – and recreate it for others” (23). “In July 1969, I looked a lot like Opie in the second or third season of The Andy Griffith Show” Earley begins his essay, giving us a clear and specific picture of his appearance using one of the most well known characters with a unique and distinct first name from one of the most popular shows in television history (191). Earley then minimal of description of his family, likening them to the stereotypical television cast of most popular television shows by saying “I was the brother in a father-mother-brother-sister family” (191). Earley then casts the focal character of his essay, the television, and it’s massive antenna that was attached to the roof, as a predatory insect. “It looked dangerous, as if it would bite, like a praying mantis” (193). Of the television that was beginning to fail he later states, “It’s picture narrowed into a greenly tinted slit (Earley 199). “It stared like a diseased eye into the living room where Mama and Daddy sat” (Earley 199).

“Scene makes characters come alive on the page”, Perl and Schwartz state, “using dialogue and description to zoom in, like a camera close-up, on key moments in the story” (50).

“Voice”, according to Perl and Schwartz, “conveys personality” and “counts as much as information” because it is through the writer’s stance that helps us decide whether our perception(s)

            According to Perl and Schwartz, “reflection offers the writer’s thoughts about what is happening and what it means” (52). “Shelly died on Christmas Eve morning when I was a freshman in college”, Earley informs us, his sister died in a car accident (198). Earley allows us to see that he knew no other means to deal with his grief other than turning to the television for comfort. “That night I stayed up late and watched the Pope deliver the Christmas mass from the Vatican” (198). “There was nothing else on” (Earley 198).

           “Connection”, according to Dictionary.com, means “a connecting or being connected, a thing that connects, a relationship; association” (  ). “And what I’m trying to tell you now is this: I grew up in a split-level ranch-style house outside a town that could have been anywhere” (Earley ). “I grew up in front of a television” (Earley  ).

Populated world

Works Cited:

Earley, Tony. “Somehow Form a Family” Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. Eds. Sondra Perl., Mimi Schwartz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2006. Print.

Neufeldt, Victoria. Sparks, Andrew N. Sparks. Webster’s New World Dictionary, Pocket Books Paperback Edition. Simon & Schuster Inc. 1990. Print.

Dictionary.com

 Joseph, you did very good work with your literary analysis. Frequently quoting Earley offers your reader a comprehensive look at his essay as well as a clear perspective of your classification of “Somehow Form a Family” as a memoir. With originality you offer evidence of close analytical reading, as you integrate literary terms and concepts into your essay’s overall fabric to prove your main point (i.e. “Somehow Form a Family” fits the textbook definition of a memoir). You offer plenty of specific details to support your general statements as you create a convincing perspective. You control your essay with a well defined thesis and, with effective diction (word choice) and variety of sentence structures, engage reader interest from beginning to end. Grade for Literary Essay #2 is B+. 87%.

The Motif of Robbery and Rebellion in Henry IV, Part 1 (Shakespeare 09-09-12).

Joseph Melanson

Shakespeare

Prof. Tryon

16 August 2012

The Motif of Robbery and Rebellion in William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1.

              Motifs are an important part of most narratives, acting as a literary device to help tell the story, and some narratives can contain several different motifs. A motif, according to is a “recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work or a dominant theme or central idea” (Dictionary.com). Within William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 we find several motifs occurring in the play through the words and deeds of its various characters. One particular motif that we find in Henry IV Part 1 is the motif of robbery and rebellion. The definition of “robbery” and “rebellion” according to Neufeldt, is respectively “1) to take money, etc. from unlawfully by force; steal from” or “2) to deprive of something unjustly or injuriously” and “1) armed resistance to one’s government” or “2) a defiance of any authority” (509, 491). In William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 we see the motif of robbery and rebellion through the actions and words of its various characters.

              Robbery and rebellion as a motif is featured through King Henry’s plan to invade the Holy Land and take it from the Muslims which would also rid himself of potential threats by sending his armies to Jerusalem, stealing glory for himself through these men’s deaths. “Therefore friends, / As far as to the sepulcher of Christ – / Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross / We are impressed and engaged to fight – / Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, / Whose arms were molded in their mothers’ womb / To chase these pagans in those holy fields / Over whose acres walked those blessed feet / Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed / For our advantage on the bitter cross.” (King 1.1.18-27). King Henry amasses his power by stealing it, while occupying those who may become a threat to him with the accrual of the Holy City.

             The motif of robbery and rebellion is also demonstrated in how King Henry feels robbed of a proper heir and important ally in the rebellious activities of his son Prince Hal. He voices his discontentment with the prince to Westmoreland of Hotspur’s numerous victories on the battlefield, and his own son’s seeming lack of promise. “Yea, there thou mak’st me sad, and mak’st me sin / In envy that my Lord Northumberland / Should be the father to so blest a son, / A son who is the theme of Honor’s tongue” (King 1.1.77-80).

            King Henry even goes so far as to wonder whether their sons were switched at birth. “Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, / See riot and dishonor stain the brow / Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved / That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged / In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,” (King 1.1.83-87).

             King Henry continues this motif when he admonishes his rebellious son Prince Hal for his behavior. “I know not whether God will have it so / For some displeasing service I have done, / That, in His secret doom, out of my blood / He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me. / But thou dost in thy passages of life / Make me believe that thou art only marked / For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven / To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else, / Could such inordinate and low desires, / Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean / Attempts, Such barren pleasures, rude society, / As thou art matched withal, and grafted to, / Accompany thy greatness of thy blood, / And hold their level with thy princely heart?” (King 3.2.1-19). King Henry, in his remarks, continues this idea several times throughout the play how he is robbed of a virtuous heir in his rebellious son, Prince Hal.

             Robbery and rebellion as a motif reoccurs in how King Henry robbed his throne from the previous King Richard II, according to the leaders of the rebellion against his majesty. Hotspur remarks to this effect in one conversation between Hotspur and his uncle Worcester. “He will forsooth have all my prisoners, / And when I urged the ransom once again / Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek looked pale, / And on my face he turned an eye of death, / Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.” (Hotspur 1.3.143-147). Worcester responds, “I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaimed / By Richard, that dead is, the next of blood?” (Worcester 1.3. 148-149). Hotspur again reiterates the claim that King Henry has wrongfully gained his crown. “Nay then, I cannot blame his cousin king / That wished him on the barren mountains starve. / But shall it be that you that set the crown / Upon the head of this forgetful man” (Hotspur 1.3.162-165).

            Hotspur again restates his and his company’s belief that King Henry was wrongly installed upon the throne when the king’s own envoy, Sir Blunt, comes to them to find out the reasons behind their revolt.

          “The King hath sent to know / The nature of your griefs, and whereupon / You conjure from the breast of civil peace / Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land / audacious cruelty.” (Blunt 4.3.47-51). Hotspur responds, “The King is kind, and well we know the King / knows at what time to promise, when to pay. / my father and my uncle and myself / did give him that same royalty he wears.” (Hotspur 4.3.58-61). Hotspur

elaborates upon the reasons behind the rebellion. “Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong, / and in conclusion drove us to seek out / this head of safety, and withal to pry / into his title, the which we find / too indirect for long continuance.” (Hotspur 4.3.108-112). The leaders of the rebellion against King Henry believe that the king has wrongly obtained the throne.

           Robbery and rebellion also features as a motif in how the rich profit off the poor, and how they plunder the country for their own gain. Shakespeare uses characters unnamed, using their professions to designate them as common workers, and thus everyday, common people. The characters designated as “carriers” converse about the conditions for their kind. 

            “Peas and beans are as dank here as a / dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the / bots.” (Second Carrier 2.1.9-11). His reference to “jades” is a term for a horse, or a common work animal, much like the common workers like them, can easily end up with some kind of intestinal illness by having to eat such low quality of food due to their inability to afford anything else. 

A second everyman that Shakespeare designates as only “second carrier” remarks concerning another destitute ostler, or a person who tends to traveler’s horses. “Poor fellow never joyed since the price / of oats rose. It was the death of him.” (First Carrier 2.1.13-14)

            The character of Gadshill remarks to them how he is no common thief but operates with impunity as an ally of such powerful people like Prince Hal and Sir Falstaff. “I am joined with no / Foot-land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, / None of these mad mustachio purple-hued malt- / Worms, but with nobility and tranquility, burgo- / masters and great oneyers, such as can hold in, such / As will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner / Than drink, and drink sooner than pray, and yet, / Zounds, I lie, for they pray continually to their saint / the commonwealth, or rather not pray to her but / Prey on her, for they ride up and down on her and / Make her their boots.” (Gadshill 2.1.78-88). Those in power rob the country with impunity, perhaps in some form sowing the seeds of a future rebellion against them. √

           Other characters have the power to add strength, or to rob it from the rebellion. Northumberland robs from his comrades some of their strength in their rebellion against King Henry. Hotspur remarks to his uncle Worcester about his father’s sudden mysterious illness. “Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick / in such a jostling time? Who heads his power? / Under whose government come they along?” (Hotspur 4.1.19-21). “Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect / the very lifeblood of our enterprise.” (Hotspur 4.1.30-31). Worcester affirms Hotspur’s chagrin at his father’s pulling himself out of the battle. “Your fathers sickness is a maim to us.” (Worcester 4.1.45). Hotspur relates how serious his father’s sudden illness will become a blow to their rebellion. “A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off!” (Hotspur 4.1.46). Worcester again relates how much damage to their cause that Northumberland has wrought, his actions will certainly create doubt in their success in the allies of the rebellion. “And think how such an apprehension / may turn the tide of fearful faction / and breed a kind of question in our cause.” (Worcester 4.1.69-71). The character of Northumberland steals a majority of the force of the rebellion, and lending doubt to its success by the remaining characters in choosing not to participate.

             Robbery and Rebellion features as a motif in how an irresponsible and opportunist Hal steals Hotspurs glory and valor in the service of his king and country. Prince Hal remarks to Sir Falstaff about Hotspur’s exploits upon the battlefield in the service of his father King Henry. “I am not yet of Percy’s / mind, the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me / some six or seven dozens of Scots at a breakfast, / washes his hands, and says to his wife “Fie / upon this quiet life! I want work” (Hal 2.4.104-108).

             Later in Act 5, Scene 4, the two men meet and converse before their inevitable duel to the death. “Why then I see / a very valiant rebel of the name. / I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, /  to share with me in glory any more. / two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, / nor can one England brook a double reign / of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales” (Hal 5.4.62-68). Hotspur responds, “Nor shall it, Harry for the hour is come / to end the one of us, and would to God / thy name in arms were now as great as mine.” (Hotspur 5.4.69-71). Hal boasts to Hotspur that he will make himself glorious in the eyes of others when he kills the valiant Hotspur. “I’ll make it greater ere I part from thee, / and all the budding honors on thy crest / I’ll crop to make a garland for my head” (Hal 5.4.72-74). After the men fight and Hotspur lays dying, he tells Prince Hal that he has stolen his life, and the honor he bestows upon himself, from him. “O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth. / I better brook the loss of brittle life / than those proud titles thou hast won of me.” (Hotspur 5.4.78-80)

             Robbery and rebellion as a motif, is also represented in the character of Falstaff who is the type of person who allies himself with powerful people but only serves his own selfish purposes.

             Falstaff boasts about his duplicitous nature. “I was as virtuously given as a / gentleman needs to be, virtuous enough: swore little; diced not above seven times – a week; went to / a bawdy house not above once in a quarter – of an / hour; paid money that I borrowed – three or four / times; lived well and in good compass; and now I / live out of all order, out of all compass. (Falstaff 3.3.15-21).

             Falstaff again reiterates the motif of robbery in speaking with Prince Hal, remarking how they take advantage of their positions. “Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king, / let not us that are squires of the night’s body be / called thieves of the day’s beauty. Let us be Diana’s / foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the / moon and let men say we be men of good govern- / ment, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble / and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal” (Falstaff 1.2.24-31).

             Lastly Falstaff presents his predacious nature, in how he takes advantage of the rebellion. “Well, God be thanked for these / rebels. They offend none but the virtuous. I laud / them; I praise them” (Falstaff 3.3.201-203). Falstaff represents the type of person that only takes advantage of whatever opportunity that arises, pursuing his acts of robbery, perhaps including himself in any rebellion that would put himself in a better position.

            The motif of robbery and rebellion occurs in many different ways during the play Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare. King Henry attempts to steal the holy land from the Muslims, and rob men of their lives in the pursuit of attaining his glory. King Henry believes that he has had stolen from him a true heir in his rebellious son Prince Hal. King Henry himself has stolen his throne, a rebel himself against the previous king, Richard II. The motif of robbery and rebellion also occurs in how those in authority profit off of those without wealth or power. Another form of the robbery and rebellion motif occurs in how other powerful characters can rob their allies of their strength to properly ensure the success of the rebellion against King Henry. Prince Hal robs the glory from the rebel Hotspur. The motif of robbery and rebellion is also represented in characters like Falstaff, who has no true allies or enemies, but puts himself in whatever advantageous position that presents itself, stealing for himself whatever he can gain, even glory in fighting against the rebel Hotspur, when he did not participate at all.

Nice exploration of the themes of robbery and rebellion in this play, especially in your discussion of Falstaff and his role in playing out this motif.  Kudos. 94%.

Works Cited: 

Neufeldt, Victoria. Sparks, Andrew N. Sparks. Webster’s New World Dictionary, Pocket Books Paperback Edition. Simon & Schuster Inc. 1990. (509, 491). Print.

Shakespeare, William. Henry IV, Part 1. Eds. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. Washington Square Press. New York. 1994. Print

Dictionary.com “Motif”

An Unfinished Literary Analysis of Anne Fadiman's essay "Do Doctor's Eat Brains" (Creative Nonfiction II 09-08-12)

Joseph Melanson

Creative Nonfiction II

Prof. Cahan

20 August 2012

A Literary Analysis of Do Doctors Eat Brains? by Anne Fadiman as it applies to the criteria of Literary Journalism

            Literary journalism mixes reportage with a personal intimacy of the writer, relating a tale with skillful use of language. Instead of traditional journalism’s focus on the cold facts, literary journalism puts us in the scene with its characters, showing through its characters their perspectives. In this way we arrive at an understanding without the journalist being strong presence within the story, yet still we come to understand the true meaning of what the piece of literary journalism is trying to express. When it is successful, the piece of literary journalism allows us to reexamine our own world through the lens of the article or essay. “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” by Anne Fadiman one finds an example of literary journalism as it meets the criteria of the genre.

 Anne Fadiman in her essay “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” relates the dichotomy between the Hmong people of Laos in the refugee camps of Thailand, and their culture of shamanistic healers, homeopathic types of medicine, and their reaction to Western medicine. Fadiman’s essay also gives us the perspectives of the western doctors and nurses that staff the medical camps, and their practices which often contradicts the Hmong’s cultural beliefs. Anne Fadiman is absent in her tale in this contrast of opposites, rather we are given a narrative that intertwines the opposing cultures. She immerses us in the Hmong culture of superstition and belief in shamanistic healers who battle the spirits whom they believe cause sickness, the use of dermal treatments like acupuncture, and herbalism, versus the typical procedures and practices of western medicine with its focus on taking samples of body fluids, vaccinations for illnesses that they do not have, and dismissing the importance, or even the existence, of the soul. In “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” by Anne Fadiman uses the genre of literary journalism to demonstrate a clash of cultures.

 Literary Journalism, according to Perl and Schwartz, “combines investigative reporting with personal voice, story telling, and memorable language” (13).

            Fadiman begins her essay by opening with the return of Mao Thao, a “Hmong woman from Laos who had resettled in St. Paul, Minnesota” who returned to “Ban Vinai, the refugee camp in Thailand where she had lived for a year after her escape from Laos in 1975” (304). “She was the firs Hmong-American ever to return there, and when an officer of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which administered the camp, asked her to speak about life in the United States, 15,000 Hmong, more than a third of the population of Ban Vinai, assembled in a soccer field and questioned her for nearly four hours” (Fadiman 304) . Mao Thao was asked many questions such as: “Is it forbidden to use a txiv neeb”, or a shaman, “to heal an illness in the United States?” (304) “Why do American doctors take so much blood from their patients?” (Fadiman 304). “After you die”, one question went “why do American doctors try to open up your head and take out your brains?” (Fadiman 304). Another question Thao was asked was “Do American doctors eat the livers, kidneys, and brains of Hmong patients?” (Fadiman 304).  And in another instance a refugee wondered “When Hmong people die in the United States, is it true that they are cut into pieces and put in tin cans and sold as food?” (Fadiman 304).

            Rather than the cold, objective reportage of traditional journalism, with its center on the facts; the who, what, when, where, and why that only tells us what had occurred, instead literary journalism immerses us in the scene of the event being studied, and into the perspectives and experiences of the characters that had experienced it. (13). Fadiman relates in her essay “Do Doctors Eat Brains?”, the perspectives of various people who had inhabited the medical camps with which the essay is set, immersing us into the experience of the camp.

            Anne Fadiman balances her essay by relating the perspectives of the Hmong people for whom the medical camps were built. In one instance she relates the experience of a Hmong couple named Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee. When they brought their three sick children to the hospital at Mae Jarim, Fadiman states, “they were engaging in behavior that many of the other camp inhabitants would have considered positively aberrant” (306). The Hmong believed that these western staffed hospitals “were regarded not as places of healing but as charnel houses” (Fadiman 306). The Hmong had come to believe, Fadiman states, that the hospitals were “populated by spirits of people who had died there, a lonesome and rapacious crew who were eager to swell their own ranks” (306).       

            “So I heard them tell this Hmong minister” Fadiman quotes a Wendy Walker-Moffat, woman who had worked the Bin Vinai camp “that if they let a shaman work in the medical center he could only give out herbs, and not perform any actual work with the spirits” that the Hmong believed were so important to appease for their health (307). During this conversation the Hmong minister was asked “Now you never go to a shaman, do you?” (Fadiman 307). Being a Christian convert, and knowing that it was a sin to lie he, he first admitted that he did. But when the western staff of the hospital seemed to become unnerved by this answer, the minister retracted, saying “No, no, no, I’ve never been”, and tried to make it seem as if he misspoke restating “I’ve just heard that other people go” (Fadiman 307). What the doctors and nurses failed to realize in all honesty, Fadiman quotes Walker-Moffat, that “no Hmong is ever fully converted.” (307). The reason for this Walker-Moffat is quoted by Fadiman as saying, some of the westerners who staffed the medical camps “were there to provide medical aid, but they were also there – though not overtly – to convert people” and one “part of becoming converted was believing in Western medicine” (Fadiman 306).

            There’s a strong authorial presence even if the “I” is mainly a guide, rather than a key character.” (13). Fadiman relates her essay through the various characters of her essay, the Hmong, and the western medical workers letting them relate the story without making it known whether or not she ever set foot inside one of these camps or only pieced together her essay from those who did. Fadiman through her essay though, lets us feel as if we are truly there, witnessing events as these people did, and experiencing both sides of opposing cultures.

            “Rather than just tell what happened”, literary journalists “show characters and scene” in order to take the reader to the “deeper levels” that give the true meaning to the “facts” (Perl and Schwartz 14). The difference, according to Perl and Schwarz, separates “straight journalism, the apparent subject (what happened), from literary journalism, or the  real subject (what the events mean)” (13). Fadiman writes about Dwight Conquergood who was hired to improve the participation of the Hmong in the medical camps. His first challenge Fadiman writes “came after an outbreak of rabies among the camp dogs prompted a mass dog-vaccination campaign by the medical staff, during which the Ban Vinai inhabitants failed to bring in a single dog to be inoculated” (308). Asked to design a new campaign he came up with the idea for what he called “Rabies Parade, a procession led by three important characters from Hmong folktales – a tiger, a chicken, and a dab” or jungle spirit “– dressed in homemade costumes” (308). “The cast, like its audience”, Fadiman states “was one hundred percent Hmong (308).

“As the parade snaked through the camp, the tiger danced and played the qeej, the dab sang and banged a drum, and the chicken (chosen for this crucial role because of its traditional powers of augury)” or divination, explained the cause “of rabies through a bullhorn” (Fadiman 308). “The next morning”, Fadiman states “the vaccination stations were so besieged by dogs – dogs carried in their owner’s arms, dogs dragged on rope leashes, dogs rolled in on two-wheeled push carts – that the health workers could hardly inoculate them fast enough” (308). “Conquergood’s next production”, Fadiman states, was “a sanitation campaign in which a parade of children led by Mother Clean (a huge, insanely grinning figure on a bamboo frame) and the Garbage Troll (dressed in ragged clothes plastered with trash) sang songs about latrine use and refuse disposal, was equally well received” (308).

            When literary journalism is working well, Perl and Schwartz state, “readers not only enter our worlds, but they reenter their own worlds in new ways (14).

Fadiman summarizes the problem of the cultural misunderstanding which held back the promise of the camp by quoting Conquergood. “In his opinion”, Fadiman states “the physicians and nurses at Ban Vinai failed to win the cooperation of the camp inhabitants because they considered the relationship one-sided, with the Westerners holding all the knowledge” (308). “As long as they persisted in this view, Conquergood believed that what the medical establishment was offering would continue to be rejected, since the Hmong would view it not as a gift but as a form of coercion” (Fadiman 309).

Works Cited:

Fadiman, Anne., “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. Eds. Sondra Perl, Mimi Schwartz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 304-309. 2006. Print.

Joseph, thank you for your detailed analysis of Fadiman’s essay, clearly explaining how “Do Doctors Eat Brains?” meets the criteria for literary journalism as defined in the course textbook. I like how you offer plenty of specific facts, examples, reasons, quotes and explanations to support your general assertions, and how well you organize the overall details by stating the textbook’s definitions and then demonstrating that these definitions are surely manifested in Fadiman’s work. Please note that there likely was some misunderstanding of the literary journalism writing assignment option, as the assignment is to write an original piece of literary journalism rather than to analyze a literary journalism essay. Nevertheless, your diligent effort processing/developing this analysis from beginning to end is quite evident. Grade for Essay 3 is B.  84%.