Critical Analyses

Spittler

Critical Analysis #1

"The Lion in Winter," from The Norton Sampler

Junger

1. Sebastian Junger’s essay, “The Lion in Winter” is a first and third person narration of war hero Ahmad Shah Massoud’s courageous strategy to overtake the Taliban. The essay begins in third person, observing Massoud and his bodyguards attempting to get as close the Taliban as possible to understand their position. By describing Massoud bravely scoping out the enemy on his own and not sending a less important solider to do it, Junger establishes a theme of bravery and selflessness that carries through to the first person part of the narrative. Here, Junger reports on his five week visit to the front lines in Afganistan with famous Iranian photographer Reza Daghati, who is there to record the war in images. They explain the complexity of injuries caused from buried mines, where even in near death situations, the men don’t understand what’s happened to them. This leads to the end of the narrative, where Junger learns from Reza that you must face war head on, or you have no business being there.

2. Junger easily reaches a wide audience of most American citizens, to whom the Taliban is an enemy of their country. Despite being a third person narrative at the beginning, the reader feels as if they are there, experiencing the horrors and violence in Afghanistan. When it switches to the first person perspective, the reader feels as if he is Junger himself. The tone of the narrative is serious, but not heavy. Junger could have chosen to depict more of the violence and death of the war, but instead chose to remove those aspects in favor of survivable injuries. This is shown when the injured men are described as “didn’t seem to be in pain,” and when “…[they] would be flown out by helicopter the next day…”

3.

a) The imagery helps connect any reader in the world to the Middle East through the Islamic custom Ramadan. “…a new Ramadan moon hung delicately in the sunset…”

b) The descriptions of injuries demonstrate how serious the conflict is by representing it in a single person. “It takes several minutes to understand that the sack of bones and blood and shredded cloth that you’re looking at used to be a man’s leg.”

c) The serious tone is set when Massoud defends his soldiers by taking responsibility for them, “I don’t care. These are my children, your children.” This shows the importance of every soldier in the conflict.

d) Reza is characterized as somber and pained when he hisses to Junger “This is the war. This is what war means,” while photographing the wounded.

e) Rich imagery is used to describe Massoud’s movement towards the Taliban “...then turned down toward the river and plowed through the braiding channels, muddy water up to their door handles.”

               

4.  Junger makes the essay easy to connect with due to his use of vivid imagery. Even though I personally have no real life connections to war or armed conflicts, I still felt as if I was there in Afghanistan interacting with Massoud and Junger. I liked the essay, it brought forth emotions of sympathy for the wounded, and made me wish I was there helping Massoud defeat the Taliban. Junger does a fantastic job of holding the reader the last, and most important sentence, where he finally exposes what the essay is about: looking straight in the face of war. “You have to look straight at all of it or you have no business being here at all.”

Spittler

Critical Analysis #2

"Back of the Bus," from The Norton Sampler

Mebane

1.  “Back of the Bus” by Mary Mebane, chronicles Mebane’s experience one Saturday morning on a segregated bus in South Carolina during the 1940s. She watches terrified as a rift between a black patron and a white patron over a seat turns into an almost arrest and an older woman begins to scream about the rights of “niggers” in the segregated southern United States. The thesis talks about how segregation laws completely fixed blacks at the bottom of society, and how the laws were intended to last forever. Mebane, born in 1933, was part of the last generation of African Americans to be fully segregated in the South, so she is very qualified to write this piece on the encounters between races on the segregated bus.

2. The intended audience is people who have not personally experienced segregation in their lives, either because of race or because of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Her purpose is to show those of us who have never experienced segregation how it affected every aspect of life. The tone is reflective, and is best exhibited by her closing statement on page 78: “The people who devised this system thought that it was going to last forever.”

3.

·    ·      “We were going on our big weekly adventure, all the way across town,” page 75. This analogy shows how Mebane and her sister’s idea of an adventure is simply going on a bus across town, showing they don’t have many opportunities for real adventures.

·      “She was a stringy little black woman,” page 76. This imagery describes a very thin, older woman whom Mebane is uncertain of her age, since she likely drinks or smokes, and this can make a person appear older.

·      “And the knot of hate and fear didn’t come into my stomach,” page 73. This imagery (more sensory, since you can’t see stomach “knots”) describes how Mebane is feeling by explaining how she physically feels as a result. Many of us know how stomach knots feel, so we’re able to empathize.

·      “Most of the mowers were glad that it was finally getting warm enough to go outside,” page 73. This personification shows how the weather is getting warmer, so it’s warm enough to mow. This is done without really telling what time of year it is right out: it’s interpreted.

·      “It was no-man’s-land,” page 74. Mebane is describing a section of the bus seating that isn’t solely black or white seating, but is open to either if needed by using this comparison. She compares it to the no-man’s-land of WWI because it’s an area where people are, but no one really belongs. 

4. The main connection I can make to this essay is my personal knowledge of Rosa Parks and her refusal to move for a white patron, resulting in arrest. In fact, when I saw the title of this piece, I though it was about her story, or a similar occurrence! Upon reading it, I learned it was about her observance of a similar event to Parks, but is different in the way the story is told. It’s not a story about heroism in the face of adversity, but simply the retelling of a stressful moment on a city bus. I didn’t like the essay because the narrator isn’t involved in the tension; she’s just a bystander. She does a good job of retelling the story, but doesn’t make it very engaging for the reader. I had a hard time connecting to the essay because I haven’t faced segregation in my life, it being 2013 in the United States. The only part that really clicked with me was where she describes practicing her fingerings for music, because I’m a musician who has to practice fingerings. I wonder what instrument she plays.

Spittler

Critical Analysis #3

“If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” from The Norton Sampler

Geeta Kothari

1. “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” by Geeta Kothari is a definition essay explaining her choices in food because of her Indian culture and heritage. She chronicles the difficulties she has finding food both at home in the United States, where food is primarily meat and fat based, and in India, where food is often unsafe to eat due to pathogens and unsanitary conditions. The thesis explains how she feels cheated by her parents because they don’t understand everything about life in the United States, especially about food. Kothari is Indian-American, and has a mixture of food-related cultures due to her Indian parents but American upbringing.

2. The intended audience is your general American citizen who may not understand what it’s like to have such particular eating habits due their culture. Kothari’s purpose is to explain to the average person what it’s like to be multicultural and not necessarily understand the correct food customs of either culture. The tone is reflective and sincere, and it best shown by her opening statement on page 269: “The first time my mother and I open a can of tuna, I am nine years old.”

3.  

·      “The first time my mother and I open a can of tuna, I am nine years old,” page 269. This flashback shows how Kothari has very vivid, detailed memories of her struggles with food due to her multicultural background.

·      I worry about a lifetime purgatory in Indian restaurants where I will complain that all the food looks and tastes the same because they’ve used the same masala,” page 273. This statement is ironic in the essay because right before this she explains how she is neither Indian nor American, but then begins to prove how she is Indian after all because the food in American Indian restaurants is not up to her cultural standards.

·      “…The tuna in those sandwiches doesn’t look like this, pink and shiny, like an internal organ,” page 269. This simile shows the large difference between canned tuna, which appears to be an organ, and tuna salad, which Kothari and her mother don’t know about.

“The taste of orange lingers in my mouth, and I remember my lips touching the cold glass of the Fanta bottle,” page 271. This shows the tone of the essay, how it’s reflective on several of her very specific past experiences.

·      “…Holding her face away from the can while peering into it like a half blind bird,” page 270. This simile shows how her mother’s disgust at the canned tuna caused her to look at it skeptically.

4.  I was able to make a few connections with this essay. While not being multi-cultural, I am (mostly) vegetarian, which makes finding food just about anywhere fairly difficult. As well, my mother, who is also vegetarian, and I have had difficulty understanding most of the quintessential “American” foods, and find it difficult to prepare them for family members on holidays or get-togethers. I enjoyed this essay because I was able to connect with it and it was very engaging, because Kothari makes you wonder about her culture and why it’s such a large part of her food-related life. She is very active in the essay trying to understand herself and her food choices. 

Spittler

Critical Analysis #4

“Reply to the US Government” from The Norton Sampler

Chief Seattle

1. “Reply to the US Government” by Chief Seattle is a persuasive essay intended to remind the US government that no matter if they bought the Native American’s land, they would always be reminded of the Native American’s presence. Seattle explains how his dead still love that land that gave them life and their experiences there, so they never truly leave, but the White Chief’s (the President’s) dead leave their land forever. The thesis explains how the Red man has declining populations while the White man’s population is ever growing and spreading, and the Red Man appreciates that the White Chief is willing to allow them to live comfortably, since he really doesn’t have to at all. Chief Seattle was the leader of several Native American tribes he united in the current Seattle, Washington area. His reply is a response to the Unites States Government requesting to purchase two million acres from his people.

2. The intended audience is the United States Government, who had requested to buy Native American land. The purpose is to remind the government that this was, and will always be, in a way, Native American land. This is because their dead never truly leave their native land, and will always return in spirit form. The tone is reminiscent of a time when the White Man wasn’t a treat to the Red Man. This is best shown by his statements on page 352-353: “This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country…”

3.

·      “My words are like the stars that never change,” page 352. This simile shows how respected Chief Seattle is, because his word has as much meaning as the stars, which are solid and remain, despite any conditions or circumstances.

·      “Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return,” page 353. This simile explains how the Native American population is decreasing, and isn’t likely to return, like a receding tide.

·      “Day and night cannot dwell together,” page 354. This imagery/metaphor is used to compare the differences between the Native Americans (Red Man) and the people of the United States (White Man). It shows how the two groups of people are so removed from one another that they cannot possibly co-exist together, and must live apart, like the day and night.

·      “Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea,” page 354. This simile (there are a lot of similes in this piece…) describes the movement of people, how they follow another without too much thought, as the waves in the ocean follow one another mindlessly.

·      “He gave you laws but He had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament,” page 354. This simile demonstrates how the Native Americans have no reason to believe in God because he has done nothing for them, even when their population was as large as the number of stars in the sky. Firmament, by the way, is the sky God created to separate the living from the underworld, which is ironic that Seattle would choose this word, since he isn’t Christian.

4. I had a hard time making personal connections with this essay, since I am not Native American. I didn’t have ancestors that were displaced by the White Man. I was able to make some text-to-text connections, having read about Trail of Tears in the past. This instance was much less violent than that Trail of Tears because the government was willing to purchase Native American land instead of simply throwing them off their land and out of their homes. I enjoyed this essay, even though it was slightly upsetting, because it shows how Chief Seattle reminded the United States that even if they owned the Native’s land, it would never truly be theirs, because they had not loved and cherished it for generations. I wish Seattle had not been under such pressure to sell his tribe’s land, for if he had refused, the Unites States would have likely acquired it under other methods.

Spittler

Critical Analysis #5

“Body Imperfect” from The Norton Sampler

Davis

1. Debi Davis’s essay, “Body Imperfect” is a comparison and contrast essay describing her personal experience of being a double amputee at the age of 29. The purpose of the essay is to describe the differences she experiences from interacting with both children and adult’s reactions to her physical state. The essay describes how adults avoid speaking openly about her amputation, but children are not afraid to walk right up and ask what happened. She wraps up the essay by explaining how having an “imperfect” body doesn’t mean her quality of life or happiness has decreased.

2. Davis is able to reach a wide audience by describing how people interact around the disabled, something all of us have had to do. By reading her descriptions of their actions, many people realize they are guilty of acting the same way towards those with amputations or disabilities and gain more respect for her for openly confronting the issue. The way she blatantly shows how people act by not sugarcoating the issue shows that she is passionate about this problem that directly affects her, and that people need to learn to be more accepting and less judgmental.

3.

·      “…a war hero anticipating a ticker-tape reception,” page 209. This analogy compares Davis’s first outing as a double amputee to a war hero, she expects the same reception because she has just gone through a serious change in life and considers herself a winner.

·      “…walking far around me as if I were contagious,” page 210. This analogy compares her physical state to a communicable disease, and she feels that people are treating her like she could “infect” them with amputation.

·      “Jubilant to be free of confinement, I rolled through the shopping mall in my wheelchair…” page 209. This imagery shows how happy she is to be free of the hospital, and helps the reader picture how she looks without her legs (since she’s in a wheelchair.)

·      “Like bruised fruit on a produce stand, I existed, but was bypassed for a healthier looking specimen,” page 210. This simile compares her legless body to an imperfect piece of fruit, showing how she feels being physically imperfect makes her worth less in society.

·      “Bless you!” page 210. This statement by an elderly woman to Davis is ironic because Davis clearly doesn’t need blessing, for she’s very well off on her own.

4. By describing her feelings towards the treatment she receives due to her amputee status, Davis interests the reader into learning more about her lifestyle that isn’t familiar to most people. I really enjoyed this essay because it made me think about my behavior towards people who aren’t physically  “normal”. I try not to stare, but sometimes you’re just overwhelmed with curiosity about they live that way that you can’t help it. I definitely fall into the “child” category of reactions towards the disabled by asking questions and being curious, instead of avoiding eye contact and walking away.