|
|
Post by Mr. Thomas on Feb 12, 2014 12:34:50 GMT -5
Keep going slowly, take notes, and think about the attitudes and beliefs of the Modernists.
|
|
|
|
Post by emmanuelluna on Feb 12, 2014 18:47:33 GMT -5
Emmanuel Luna
Mr. Thomas
English 11
2/12/14
E. The line where the narrator says, “the mayor granted us a blessed immunity. We were ordered to save the city” (141). This line stood out to me because it shows the modernist style of writing being used because just before these lines he was describing how they were treated as causes of the fever and were even treated as pariahs. Like he said before, “How the knife was plunged in our hearts, then cruelly twisted” (141). The fact that they came right after each other created this contrast that is an example of modernism and their style of writing.
B. The quote, “The dead are legion, the living a froth on dark, layered depths. But you are neither, and less than both” (143). This quote demonstrates another modernist way of thinking, which is a distorted one filled with despair and hopelessness. This quote is talking about a person who was sentenced to jail and was in a state of despair far worse than those suffering through the fever. This distortion of life where everything is despair and dread is characteristic of a modernist style of writing.
D. The quote where the narrator is describing the parts of the brain on page 146 is also a modernist technique because they were obsessed with the human psyche and mind. Since the brain is where all thought originates from it would make sense that they describe the brain in the depth that they did on these pages. This interest of the human mind and trying to understand it was part of what defined modernism and it makes sense that it would be present in the reading.
|
|
|
|
Post by georgebaroudos on Feb 12, 2014 19:28:54 GMT -5
George Baroudos
Mr. Thomas
English 11
12 February 2014
A – This overwhelming theme of death took up most of the reading. I feel like death is an inescapable part of life that we all face. When death comes, hard times come after. But after those hard times easier times come about. The author maybe hinting that through all of these bad times, good times will also come. I hope for the sake of the people that good times come. I have felt death and I have felt the aftermath and that pain never goes away. But I can say that eventually we catch a break and we are all blessed to survive the passing of someone close to us.
D – “Answering no questions. Revealing nothing of his state of mind” (149). This reminds me of the authors themselves. They are searching incredibly hard to answer questions that they really cannot be answered. These answers come without searching. Sometimes good things happen to those who wait. These authors I think searched way to hard. They dug deeper then they should have. If they waited in moderation I think they would have saw better results.
I – This reading saw a great transition in tone further validating the modernist style. In the previous reading there are signs of hope and a will to survive. These pages shift drastically. With the overwhelming sense of death comes hopelessness. They are sent to save the city, but I do not see the passion. They are becoming more hopeless as the results truly become visible. It takes certain time for the severity of any situation to actually sink in. When bad times hit it takes time to really access the full severity of it. We cannot blame the narrator, it is natural reaction.
|
|
|
|
Post by johnmarano on Feb 12, 2014 21:55:06 GMT -5
C. I did have some questions again. I really didn't understand who Mr. Carey was. I mean it says he published something but what was the point of throwing him into play? Does he have any importance? Also, what is the metaphor that the narrator is trying to make when he reveals that the doctors believed they fiend the secret of the fever? Did they literally cut up these bodies and studied them or is this some type of metaphor that I am missing?
D. As I continued to read, a quote that really grabbed my attention was "the small strength I was able to muster each morning was sorely tired the moment my eyes and ears opened upon the suffering of my people, the reality that gave me the lie to the fiction of our immunity" (141). I feel this quote jumped out at me and grabbed my attention because we just finished talking about realism and this reminded me of realism. The guy is basically saying that he was badly pulling through these rough times and on top of this he was watching his people feel great pain. This reminded me of realism because it doesn't sugar coat anything. It definitely gives off a sense of like this is really happening and it happens in life. He is also explaining how his struggles were incessant, from the minute he woke up till the second he rested.
I. I would like to point out that George made such a strong point and I totally agree with his perspective on answer A. George and I had similar interpretations of what the author meant by including death and the hard times that come after. As I was reading, I also got a strange feeling that it wasn't suppose to be seen in a negative tone. I feel like the author is jut being completely real, but he does imply that the bad times bring good times. Through the rain, there will be sun. Although this whole passage is seaming gruesome-like, I feel its so convey something different will happen, something positive. Great job George.
|
|
|
|
Post by bourdonm15 on Feb 12, 2014 22:07:28 GMT -5
Matthew Bourdon
Mr. Thomas
English 11
2/12/14
B. I found it interesting how the author talks all about how African-Americans at this time were mistreated and blamed for the Yellow Fever. “We were proclaimed carriers of the fever and treated as pariahs, but when it became expedient to command our services to nurse the sick and bury the dead, the previous allegations were no longer mentioned.” (Page 141) A very important point is raised in this sentence about the hypocrisy towards the African-Americans at this time period. It says that they were treated as outcasts but when people needed services from them, nothing was mentioned. This shows a hypocrital society and how clearly the fever is not the only problem here.
F. I really liked how the constant use of stream of consciousness was not really evident in the last portion of the story. He was just explaining how Dr. Rush was trying to find the reason behind the fever and we don’t get a different view every single paragraph. “Rush hoped to prove his remedy, his analysis of the cause and course of the fever correct. Attacked on all sides by his medical brethren for purging and bleeding patients already in a drastically weakened state, Rush lashed back at his detractors, wrote pamphlets” (Page 148).
I. I agree with George’s comment on how the overall theme of death took up most of the reading. There wasn’t a positive point in the reading as we see the subject of the fever being the main topic of the story.
|
|
|
|
Post by Sgarlato on Feb 12, 2014 23:14:23 GMT -5
Stephen Sgarlato
Mr. Thomas
English 11
2/12/14
A. This reading really takes on the modernist attitude of how the story can drastically change or how the narrator is unclear when telling it. The death in this reading is overwhelming and it takes on a hopeful attitude then takes on a hopeless attitude. It is very like the modernist writers at the time.
I. I would like to respond to John Marano’s question about when the doctor said they fiend the secret of the fever. I believe it is trying to say that they either found the origin to the fever or they found the cure to it. Because, basically when you find the origin or secret of something you find out everything about it.
C. I don’t understand the purpose of describing the brain. Like was it just to show the modernist technique of their obsession with human psyche. It made sense because of the techniques used just like the modernist technique of the confusing narration. I believe that it was written for that technical reason but I am still not sure and is very confusing.
|
|
|
|
Post by danokeefe15 on Feb 13, 2014 0:27:50 GMT -5
Danny O’Keefe
Mr. Thomas
English 11
2/13/14
C. What I don’t like and is confusing about the story is how the story jumps from one thing to another so quickly, I feel like it transitions into new things to quickly and can make it more unclear and confusing. The amount of detail put into the writing can also be annoying and sometimes confusing because certain words would throw me off and I would begin to think they are describing something different or that I never knew in the first place.
B. an important part of this reading is the idea of death and what this sickness can do. No matter what the story begins to speak about whether its good or bad it always ends up leading into death and the goodness in it and how all bad things are let go and that death is better than being alive.
E. I actually am starting to enjoy this reading because things are beginning to clear up for me and I’m starting to understand it better. I like how dark it is and in someways how truthful it can be at times and that they don’t take any explanations or anything like that lightly.
|
|
|
|
Post by frankclarke on Feb 13, 2014 5:57:46 GMT -5
Frank Clarke
Mr. Thomas
English 11
12 February 2014
E. On page 140, there’s a great quote; “I was only a listener, a witness learning his story, a story buried so deeply he couldn’t recall it, but dreamed pieces, a conversation with himself, a reverie with the power to sink us both into it’s unreality.” Wow. This quote is related to the one I pointed out in class yesterday, it has such a negative/depressing theme to it. It also has some great vibes reigning from it, saying that we will never know our dreams, we will never who we truly are or who we truly want to be, we will only see/know pieces of it. And again the very next paragraph is “Despair was in the heart…” Without even looking at context this is a lot more open about the negativity in this portion.
D. “Water Street becomes what it’s named, rises round his ankles, soaks his boots, threatens to drag him down.” Obviously, there is some sort of flooding going on, and it “threatens to drag him down”, so I guess we can conclude that these floods may be severe. He then talks about how the first people to land on this island continued to move inward like “ants”. Ants doing things in a very systematic way, and the way we moved about the island was pretty dang messed up…
I. Georgie and a few other of my classmates were hitting the nail right on the head, the overall theme of these pages was death/ destruction. Obviously a form of modernism because they are fascinated with the unknown, and one could argue that death and destruction brings about the unknown.
|
|
|
|
Post by eointunney on Feb 13, 2014 21:43:16 GMT -5
Eoin Tunney
English 11
D. Throughout this reading there were several scenes that caught my attention, specifically because they were so detailed. For example, there was one full page describing the different sizes of body parts in an infected person and a another scene when he said they were carrying a woman out of her house, where she fell off the carriage and burst open. I find it amazing how John Edgar Wideman can write so detailed; he must really know a lot about the human body, specifically the brain.
A. In the beginning of this reading, I believe Richard Allen is talking about all of the problems this disease has caused. Allen talks about how all of the white citizens begin to use other races as scapegoats for this disease. First they use the African-Americans, but then start believing that they are immune to the fever; which switches the blame to the European immigrants. Just like any problem in society, the dominant race always finds a way to blame a minor race.
C. The one thing that has really confused me about this story is the switching of characters. I never really know when what characters are speaking, and I always mix up the two. I feel like this is the only problem with the story, but other than that the story is extremely interesting.
|
|
|
|
Post by scanley73 on Feb 13, 2014 21:59:56 GMT -5
C. The thing that confuses me about this whole story is just that. I don’t understand this story in general. It seems like a collection of just pain and misery and i don’t know why someone would write that. I mean if the person is depressed why write some story like this that only can make things worse. In fact, the thing that confuses me more then why someone would write this is why someone would buy something like this. The whole time reading this all I never felt like i was enjoying myself and the fact that it has reached a point where it is known enough for us to read it in high school baffles me.
I. I agree with what Frank says about the bodies at the end. There is no reason for him to have to put things like the weight of the bodies at the end. Could it be to add just another layer of bizarreness to this already creepy story?
A. The scene at the end with all the bodies reminded me of something from an X-Men comic. The island of Genosha which had been a safe haven for mutants was completely wiped out one day an bodies lay across the entire island. Although the other aspects of he stories are completely different that scene reminds me of it because I remember a page where Cyclops is literally standing on piles of skeletons. There really wasn’t any other connection other than it was a mass of people being wiped out
|
|
|
|
Post by johnrice on Feb 13, 2014 22:28:31 GMT -5
John Rice
Mr. Thomas
English 11
D. "Despair was in my heart. The fiction of our immunity has been exposed for the vicious lie it was, a not so subtle device for wrestling us from out homes, our loved ones, the afflicted among us, and sending us to aid strangers." This shows the immense amount of descriptive language that is present in modernist work. It is an over load of description and at times it can seem overbearing but it does, and has helped me paint a more vivid picture of the actions going on in this story.
I. I agree with what George said about the shift in tone for these pages in the reading. The first pages have an actually positive tone in which people are first discovering this fever but the descriptions are not in panic or with negative connotation. In these pages the prospect of death is depicted as a stronger possibility in the writing that the author gives.
A. I would like to point out the fact that in 1793 slavery was still in existence, and although this story takes place in Philadelphia, where slavery was not practiced, african americans were not treated right. This also hindered their ability to escape the fever, because they had low social standing. As well as color, economic stature was very important in escaping this plague. THis showed the ever present segregation in the world back then. This segregation could be paralleled to today. Economic standing still hinders people in out world today.
|
|
