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Post by Mr. Thomas on Feb 11, 2014 11:12:09 GMT -5
Take your time, read carefully, and LOOK UP REFERENCES YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND.
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djmat
New Member
Posts: 39 
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Post by djmat on Feb 11, 2014 21:59:27 GMT -5
Osman Mat
Mr. Thomas
English 11
2/11/14
E. Wow as the beginning of the story just a lot more then I was expecting. The author starts off by talking about women stripping off their clothes in the middle of November but that it drastically changes to the depressing spread of yellow fever. The story has come to a depressing start. Also a lot of what has been said so far is unexplained like who he and she are. It seems like the story is jumping around a lot so it is a bit hard to follow what is supposed to be happening in the story. At one point they are talking about he killing she and yellow fever and then different kinda of body of waters.
C. I am very confused at the moment. Who is he and why would he kill she? How old is the narrator because he makes it seem like he has been around for a long time and is he actually talking about yellow fever because at one point he talks about everyone having fever somewhere in their hearts. Reading the these first few pages was a giant headache because i feel like i missing a huge part of the story that is important but it is just not there.
B. Some of this information just does not seem to relevant because of the way the story is laying its self out but i am hoping as we read on it makes everything a bit clearer. Right now it is like a puzzle that is missing a lot of pieces and i am just waiting for them to be found.
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Post by johnrice on Feb 11, 2014 22:43:27 GMT -5
John Rice
English 11
Mr. Thomas
2.11.14
E. I had a few reactions to this story. To be completely honest the story attracted me straight from the beginning. There was a curse in the first line, and a women was stripped of her clothes. Then all of a sudden it seemed like a drastic change had taken place. The yellow fever was introduced. I loved the way the author introduced the yellow fever. On page 130 it goes on to say, " ...straddles him, and settles down to do her work. She enters him and draws his blood up into her stomach..." That entire paragraph is pretty descriptive and the first time i read it, I thought the author was talking about two humans which freaked me out.
A. There was one paragraph in particular that caught my attention while reading. It was a paragraph that could be closely related the the modern world, and is on the subject of death. THe author gives what seemed to be the different stages of a human coping with the reality of death. THe paragraph starts with "...Fear Ruled..." and went to the end of that section. It was very interesting to look at the different ways people cope with the reality of death. It talks about how some people lose touch with reality and start going crazy and die in convulsions while others die peacefully like falling asleep.
D. I particularly enjoyed a very short line. It was four words on page 133 stating, "Nothing is an accident". I may be taking this out of the context that it was meant to be understood in but I really do believe that nothing is an accident. Our world is too complex for there to just be accidents or coincidence.
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Post by bourdonm15 on Feb 11, 2014 23:31:21 GMT -5
Matthew Bourdon
Mr. Thomas
English 11
2/11/14
B. Right away in the beginning we see that the author, John Edgar Wideman, switches points of view and narration of scenes very quickly. Right at the start he is using a metaphor between the trees and naked women stripping to within the next few lines he starts talking about the fever. The description and detail of the effects of the fever on the city are marvelous in the way it is presented. “Busy streets deserted, commerce halted, members of families shunning one another, the sick abandoned to suffer alone. Fear ruled.” (Page 129) This description showed really how bad it was in the summer of ’93.
C. I am confused as to who is the author referring to in the second paragraph on page 130. He keeps saying “she” and “her”. “She enters him and draws his blood up into her belly. When she’s full, she pauses, dreamy, heavy. He could kill her then; she wouldn’t care. But he doesn’t. Listens to the whine of her wings lifting till the whimper is lost in the roar and crash of waves, creaking wood, prisoners groaning.” (Page 130) This lines are very creepy! Who is he talking about in these lines? I have a feeling that it cannot be the fever he is referring to because he says “he could kill her”, and the fever cannot be killed.
I. I agree with Osman (D.J.)’s comment on how the story was in the beginning. I felt that after I read the story the beginning especially, my mind was boggled and perplexed. This story is just like an enigma, and I honestly had a hard time understanding the story as a whole and the meaning behind it.
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Post by Sgarlato on Feb 11, 2014 23:51:15 GMT -5
Stephen Sgarlato
Mr. Thomas
English 11
12/11/14
I. I would like to add on to Osman’s comment about how the story starts off so depressing about the yellow fever. Like yeah the beginning was extremely depressing but I feel like it should be considering the topic. It starts describing how everyone got the yellow fever and the spread of it. I didn’t have a hard time understanding it but it just seemed like an odd plot.
A. This story can relate to the plague or basically any other viral flu or disease that has taken a toll on our history. It is a great comparison to how it used to be before much technology, well at least not today’s technology. It kind of shows the terror that went on and how basically nothing could be done to prevent diseases or viruses.
C. I don’t understand the beginning that much, I understood the plot and why the events happened the way they did but the beginning was confusing. The beginning was of stripper or some girl getting her clothes taken off of her. It was strange because there was no reason it had to be in the story like that. I at least did not read anything that correlated with the rest of the story but maybe they did mention something.
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Post by 1adams12 on Feb 12, 2014 0:18:07 GMT -5
Michael Adams
Mr. Thomas
Fever Pages 127-139
I. I personally did not mind the beginning of this article simply because the first thing that was brought to my mind was the women might be part of the polar bear club. Later on as I continued to read, I thought that this is a really sad way to start the article, talking about yellow fever and dengue. I am in agreement with Osman that so far the reading is very complicated and confusing, and hard to understand what the context is about.
C. I was really confused when the article said "Curled in the black hold of the ship he wonders why his life on solid green earth had to end, why the gods had chosen this new habitation for him, floating, chained to other captives, no air, no light, the wooden walls shuddering, battered, as if some madman is determined to destroy even this last pitiful refuse where he skids in foul puddles of waste, bumping other bodies, skinning himself on splintery beams and planks, always moving, shaken and spilled like palm nuts in the diviner's fist, and Esu casts his fate, constant motion, tethered to an iron ring. In the darkness he can't see her, barely sees her light touch on his fevered skin" (Page 130). Is the he that is referred to a lot in this quote, Esu himself? Is the her that is referred in this quote a lot, the ship and the light is the white mast? Could Esu be on a sailing ship in the middle of night?
A. Reading the fact about the mosquito "is a vector (an organism that carries pathogens from one host to another) of yellow fever and dengue. This reminds me of how much mosquitoes love me in the summer when they are in abundance. There could be a hundred people in a room and 200 mosquitoes and all of the mosquitoes used to come and attack me and no one else when I was little, around the age of 10. It was so annoying, because as I found out later on, mosquitoes do carry the disease that can kill you or make you really sick.
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Post by johnmarano on Feb 12, 2014 0:27:02 GMT -5
John Marano
English 11
Feb 12 2014
D. Although I barely understood what I was reading, mainly because I was losing track of all the different perspectives, there were some quotes that stood out to me. “ An awful void opening around him, preparing itself to hold explosions of bile, vomit, gushing bowels, ooze, sludge, seepage” (135). I believed this jumped out at me because it reveals how miserable things were for him. In that same paragraph, he mentions how the cities were growing to old to even function anymore basically. I really feel like this quote is explaining how everything comes to an end. When he says an awful void opened around him, I can only wonder how he was feeling. I believe that this quote really displays the entire theme of the story. This quote is revealing emptiness and misery just like the entire story.
C. I was completely confused with this story. I wasn’t sure what the actual meaning of the “fever” was in this case. Was the fever actually evilness inside the people and are they able to escape it? But than again I want to say that the meaning of the story was struggles and depressions of the character. I was confused when I tried to find a definite answer to the significance behind this story so far.
I. I would like to point out that Matt Bourdon really does a great job depicting how the narrations changes quickly in the beginning of the story. The narrator goes from normal to crazy. He goes from positive to negative. I was confused on why he even wanted to start out with the trees and the naked woman. Why didn’t he just go right into the story? He brings the fever up so quickly, why not just start with it?
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Post by eointunney on Feb 12, 2014 11:11:22 GMT -5
Eoin Tunney
Mr. Thomas
English 11
2/12/14
E. This story started off extremely weird. In the beginning the narrator starts talking about naked women on the side of the street, which I presume are about to die because they are out in the cold. The story starts out extremely depressing and carries that mood throughout the story. While reading, there was a sense of creepiness in every paragraph, which wasn’t every enjoyable. Just like Mr. Thomas said in class, this story is definitely not something we have read before.
I. I really liked Matt Bourdon’s comment where he said talked about how detailed the narrator was when he spoke about the city. The narrator said that the streets were once full of life and always busy, but now everyone is either dead or have left the city. I felt like the reader did a great job helping me visualize the actual story. This story reminds me of something you would see in a movie about the Apocalypse.
D. Just like I said before this story really seems like something you would see in a movie about the Apocalypse or a show like The Walking Dead. On page 133 the narrator says, “Two, three, four corpses being hauled to Potter’s Field, trailed by the unmistakable wake of decaying flesh.” This line is extremely graphic and is definitely not a line you would see in a regular story. I guess the narrator is going through a really hard time in his life because I don’t remember learning of a terrible disease in the late 19th century like this one.
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Post by georgebaroudos on Feb 12, 2014 19:29:53 GMT -5
George Baroudos
Mr. Thomas
English 11
12 February 2014
A – Although the atrocities seen by the narrators in Fever are surreal, I was able to make a connection that was not as severe as this one. Whole towns were wiped out and people were left dead due to this array of fevers. My own neighborhood dealt with a similar experience after Hurricane Sandy. Although the whole town was not wiped out, it became a ghost town. After I was able to move back into my house I lived in a ghost town. The busy streets were no longer busy, there were no more busy streets. We lived in isolation considering how few families were actually home. It was not an easy period because we feared the worst. Although it was not as bad as these fevers, I think I can relate.
D – “We are our own ancestors and our children, neighbors and strangers to ourselves” (pg. 132). I believe this statement holds truth. Often times we are so scared to embrace who we really are we are strangers in our own skin. It is difficult accepting who we truly are because we never know who we fully are. We go through our whole life not knowing our true self. We just live on trying to be the best person we are. But, in a time of distress we start to show our true colors. So during a period of hardship, we come the closest to figuring out who we truly are as people.
I – Modernism is known for the varying narrators who all view a similar situation different. We witness the slave’s point of view that is a board a slave ship. We witness the doctor who cannot find a cure. We witness the man who knows his way through the town. With all of these viewpoints we piece together the vivid imagery left by each narrator. The description of the coffins hitting the ground gave me chills. When they mention the children left wandering it truly broke my heart. These authors are able to make us feel like we are experiencing these events as well. The narrator’s feelings are expressed in such a way that we truly feel for him. But in the same sense it is difficult to get close to the character because we are not given enough background. I truly believe I will have a love-hate relationship with modernism.
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Post by matthewchan on Feb 12, 2014 20:24:51 GMT -5
Matthew Chan
Mr. Thomas
English 11
12 February 2014
C. What is the point of this story? This part of Fever was very confusing to me. First of all, many people were speaking during this part which was very confusing. I had Dr. Rush and Allen confused at the end because I thought it was Dr. Rush talking the entire time. Only once did it mention Allen which was at the end of the story. The language was also confusing as well. It was hard to understand the meaning behind Fever and what it was trying to portray to us.
D. I enjoyed the line on p.130 “If she returns tomorrow and carries away another drop of him, and the next day and the next, a drop each day, enough days, he’ll be gone. Shrink to nothing, slip out of this iron noose and disappear.” The “she” represents the mosquito who comes everyday and draws the blood from everyone. The mosquito can be an example of death. The spirit of death is the one that hurts people and takes their life away a little bit everyday by taking out their blood.
E. I really enjoy what Allen is doing in this part of the story. He is helping people and guiding them through their hard and harsh times. He is also taking care of those who are sick and doesn’t worry about it at all. Allen can be a replica of Jesus because Jesus helped and were with those who were sick and ill. He didn’t care if they were sick. He was with them the whole way preaching the Good News and looking out for all the people.
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