In her book, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, Alice Goffman provides a detailed account of the six years she spent living in and observing a poor, predominantly African American neighborhood in Philadelphia. This community, which she refers to as “6th Street,” directly experienced the immediate effects of mass incarceration in the United States. Thus, that reality caused 6th Street residents to shape their actions, socialization, customs and norms to avoid the police while simultaneously maintaining behaviors––that would otherwise be considered criminal––to survive in a rough and unforgiving environment. To further explore and to try to understand the conditions 6th Street inhabitants faced, Goffman conducted ethnographical research
A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard, was published in 2012 from Simon and Schuster and is nonfiction. Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped when she was eleven years old and held prisoner in a backyard for eighteen years. Later Jaycee has kids with the stranger who kidnapped her and learns more about her intern self. In this book, Jaycee, Phillip and Nancy are the main characters.
We often encourage people to actively pursue their happiness while also wanting to discourage them to escape from reality. However, avoiding your issues is also a way of pursuing happiness, even though this route will prove to be temporary. In the literary piece, “Horses of the Night” by Margaret Laurence, the author describes the story of a boy named Chris, who, due to his financial conditions, is forced to move from his home in Shallow Creek to dwell in Manawaka, in order to attend high school. Chris’ character is used to demonstrate the idea that individuals may escape from the miserable aspects of their lives in order to stay happy. Through the course of this work, you witness the changes Chris undergoes, through the eyes of his six-year-old cousin Vanessa, which ultimately lead to his downfall.
In 1973, Clifford Geertz- an American anthropologist- authored The Interpretation of Cultures, in which he defines culture as a context that behaviors and processes can be described from. His work, particularly this one, has come to be fundamental in the anthropological field, especially for symbolic anthropology-study of the role of symbols in a society- and an understanding of “thick description”-human behavior described such that it has meaning to an outsider of the community it originated. Alice Goffman is an American sociologist and ethnographer widely-known for her work, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (2015). In this work, she relays how for her undergraduate and doctoral research project, she immersed herself in a predominately African-American community of Philadelphia as a white, privileged woman. Goffman goes on the explain how the frequent policing and incarceration of young, black men from this neighborhood affects the entire community and even affected Goffman herself.
Loss of Innocence In John Updike’s “A&P” and Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” the two authors illustrate difficult initiations teenagers face while they realize the harshness of society around them. Updike’s “A&P” explores the inner thoughts of a teenage boy, Sammy, who makes the tough decision to quit his job at the local A&P and realizes the bitterness of the world. Similarly, Bambara’s “The Lesson” explores the inner thoughts of a teenage girl, Sylvia, who realizes the value of money and clash of social classes through a field trip to a toy store. Although the protagonists are a part of different societies, they share similarities in character development through parallel epiphanies.
Tone Dillard’s tone in the book develops from appreciative, to confused and dejected, and finally to reflective. This development of tone is appropriate for subject, audience, and argument/theme, and it also helps achieve the purpose. The tones in part I and II, especially in part II, resonate with the audiences. Indeed, it is not impossible to comprehend that many people have once wondered the meaning of the lives of moth, who unreservedly fly into the excruciating and deadly fire without any apparent purpose and contribution to the environment surrounding the fire, which makes it a question whether they are heroes who make the fire burn longer or pathetic creatures that lose their lives without being appreciated.
Textual Analysis In the readings "An American Childhood" by Annie Dillard and "Always Running" by Luis Rodriguez, the authors and their essays are very similar, but at the same time different in their own respective ways. Both authors use an array of verbs to string sentences together as well as to keep the narrative moving. Both these authors create a fast-paced chase like sequence of sentences and verbs to keep their essays interesting as well as getting their perspective and points across. In Annie Dillard 's "An American Childhood" the author begins the story letting us readers get an understanding of the main character describing her almost as a tomboy, "Boys welcomed me at baseball, too, for I had, through enthusiastic practice, what was weirdly known as a boy 's arm.
Book Review: On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City Jaleesa Reed University of Georgia Book Review: On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City is a fascinating ethnography that seeks to expose and unpack the everyday lives of African American men living in Philadelphia. The author, Alice Goffman, examines the lives of these men who are “on the run” not only from the laws that seek to restrict their lives, but also from their own identities that have become synonymous with outstanding warrants, prison time, and running. Like ethnographers before her, Goffman immerses herself in the lives of her informants. Her study reveals the oppressive nature of neoliberal America and urges
Annie Dillard made this essay not only to entertain you with her usage of analogies, but to persuade you to work hard be humble. In the text Dillard says, "It's hard work doing something with your life." Even in the first sentence Dillard explains that attempting to be successful is hard work.
A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard has been greatly recognized by the media, such as the New York Times and many news channels. It’s an incredible memoir of 11 year old Jaycee Gugard being kidnapped and having survived 18 years of captivity. She talks things like having to be locked away in a soundproof room that was in the backyard to having to give birth out in the open with the help of Nancy and Phil, her kidnappers. By the end of the book, she talks about her life now that she is free, adjusting to this new way of living and simply getting used to having a normal life. It starts to get very graphic mostly in the beginning of her book when Phil first kidnapped Jaycee and Jaycee starts talking about the many times she was raped and specifically
The tone is the element that brings the entire plot together, driving home the theme of the story by forcing the reader to digest the aspects of the story it amplifies. The voice of the story is overwhelmingly sympathetic in favor of Blanche, causing the audience to have pity on her even in times when they theoretically should not. When Blanche arrives at her sister’s residence, she comes across pretty distraught and nervous, seeming wracked by some horror or another, even saying outright that she couldn’t be alone because she wasn't very well while "her voice drops and her look is frightened” (Williams 17). Right off the bat, the audience is bound to feel sorry for her and even worried for her well-being, a sense of distress and even embarrassment sweeping over the audience just by the state that she entered the stage with and the overwhelming anxiety and pain that seems to swarm
To a developing mind, communication and understanding are first grasped literally. In the case of children, figurative speech is more difficult to comprehend due to its abstract nature. This is explicated in the short story “Salvation” by Langston Hughes. Langston goes through a dilemma during salvation, defined in the sense of Theology as “the deliverance from sin and its consequences,” (“salvation, n”) when his aunt apprises him of Jesus coming down in the form of bright light for his liberation. His literal interpretation of his aunt’s metaphoric language led to a host of emotions and confusion on his path to redemption.
“The Chase” is about an adult chasing some kids, but Annie Dillard makes the story transition from throwing snowballs to “wanting the glory to last forever” and how the excitement of life at one moment can affect someone in the future to show that the excitement of life will always be there even when one is no longer a kid. The story starts with a group of friends, imagining how a game of football goes and continues with the encounter of a stranger. From throwing snowballs at his car to him chasing them till they couldn’t run anymore. The whole experience will change the way she looks at adults. “We all spread out banged together some regular snowballs, took aim, and, when the Buick drew near, fired.
Figurative language can be a compelling factor in literary works ranging from romantic poetry to political speeches. It forces the reader, or listener, to visualize and understand what the author is trying to say. Jonathan Edwards utilized this writing technique in his powerful sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Edwards used imagery, metaphors, and personification to express his differentiating attitudes towards both sinners and God which consisted of complete disgust in regards to the former and unwavering respect for the latter. Jonathan Edwards relied more on the composition of his writing rather than the execution of it which is why figurative language is found so often in this sermon.
Euripides, a famous writer of tragedies in Ancient Greece, stated, “Nothing has more strength than dire necessity” (“Euripides”). Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize recipient, shares this theme in her non-fiction narrative “Living Like Weasels.” Through the production of non-fiction narrative essays, paintings, poetry, and books, she influences her audiences to think about life and the environment. In fact, she appreciates nature and its splendor. In “Living Like Weasels,” she contrasts the behavior of humans and animals while evaluating the meaning of life, and she establishes that living by necessity leads to a more fulfilling journey than striving to achieve the American Dream.
