Michael Lassell's poem How to watch your brother die made me feel like Lassell was sort of dictating how the reader should behave when a sibling passes away.
The diction he uses in this poem is mechanical: do this, do that, say this, say that...
It reminded me of when we wrote Shakespeare, for example, in a different style like the user's manual.
In the poem, the narrator recounts what and how it was like to loose his homosexual brother in the user's manual tone.
The neutral, dictating tone could also represent the grief of loosing a loved one: the pain is so intense that we are somewhat out of our own shoes and observe the situation from above, from a "blank" standpoint.
The fact that the author employed "you" throughout the poem was very effective in communicating emotions to the reader because the reader actually pictures him/herself in the situation of loosing a sibling and is able to feel what it must be like much more vividly.The narrator is describing a personal experience, yet he does a good job at incorporating the reader into his own emotions.
I am not sure that I noticed heterosexuality in the narrator: he was simply being nice and compassionate towards his brother's lover. The narrator is simply turning his love for his brother towards the lover.
The homosexual character, though, acts like we think homosexuals should behave: he is weak, he cries, he needs to be held, yet he is also strong in a different manner since he endures all the predjudice against homosexuals.
We picture male homosexuals as more femine, in the way that they will tear up more easily and they won't be as "strong" as men. Yet I have known a gay couple, and I can assure that these two men were nothing like that. One wouldn't have known, just by seeing them, that they were homosexuals, and it was only months after knowing them that I realized they were lovers (I was a child then, so I just thought they were friends, but I was aware of the concept of homosexuality).
We have a tendency to build a stereotypical image around them, just like in the clips that we viewed in class (especially the Modern Family one), where it presented homosexuals as women in male form.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
Journal #6
Racism has always been an ethical issue in the world, and although we would like to think it has disappeared, it is still present today. Sloan portrays racism as an issue that quietly haunts our world: she recognizes it in her own city's architecture and through the stories of her father's friend. Sloan accompanies her narrative with historical events and relates those events to her father's friend, sprinkling her text with emotions concerning racism and ultimately implying that her friend is a metaphor for the city of Los Angeles.
Sloan begins each "chapter" with a story about an artist, an architect, a riot, or an event that she has witnessed. Each of these events serves to add logic to her text: she explains how the extenxive use of glass in the city's architecture represents the division between the White, Black and Latino cultures. Through this division, she implies that the city is diseased with racism but that it manages to survive, similar to the way her father's friend has suffered from cancer several times, but is still alive. During their conversation, her friend says "I think that everything we go through is something that we were supposed to learn. And if we didn't learn it that time around, then we are given another opportunity." These two sentences refer to racism in Los Angeles, and how the city has not learned to accept other cultures and skin colors. Until the city's population learns to accept other races, Los Angeles will still be ravaged by segregation and violence.
Just like she began each chapter with recounting event, Sloan ends every chatper with a story of her father's friend. By doing so, Sloan relates the event she has just described to a single person who has experienced that event, adding credibility to her text. For example, Sloan mentions that Los Angeles is "separated by hard-drawn geagraphical lines, which kept the city color-coded". At the end of this chapter, she describes that her father's friend has survived a "life of incessant fragmentation". Her friend's fragmented life refers to the glass architecture, which is itself a metaphor for the fragmentation caused by racism.
Similarly, Sloan adds emotions to her narrative by including stories of her father's friend. These episodes help put the described historical events into context and give a sense of reality to her story. The reader doesn't just read about these events, he/she can now feel what it was like to experience them. Sloan's friend recounts the racial diversity in her family: her great grandmother was "full-blooded Cherokee; her husband was full-blooded Irish", her father was black, and her grandfather was "very much a Southern white guy". The father's friend is a mix of races: she is often mistaken for Latino, White, or Black, which relates to the fact that Los Angeles, too, is composed of many different races. Sloan also explains that her friend's body is so "busted" because "she has been walking into walls since the day she was born". These walls are the glass walls that make up Los Angeles's architecture: they are the quiet, invisible barriers of racism.
Through a logical narrative, credible historical events that relate to an individual, and emotional stories, Sloan creates a metaphor implying that her father's sick friend is a symbol for the decaying city of Los Angeles. But just like Sloan's friend, the city is given chances to learn from its mistakes and perhaps that, finally, the glass walls will succumb to liberate a united, open-minded society.
Sloan begins each "chapter" with a story about an artist, an architect, a riot, or an event that she has witnessed. Each of these events serves to add logic to her text: she explains how the extenxive use of glass in the city's architecture represents the division between the White, Black and Latino cultures. Through this division, she implies that the city is diseased with racism but that it manages to survive, similar to the way her father's friend has suffered from cancer several times, but is still alive. During their conversation, her friend says "I think that everything we go through is something that we were supposed to learn. And if we didn't learn it that time around, then we are given another opportunity." These two sentences refer to racism in Los Angeles, and how the city has not learned to accept other cultures and skin colors. Until the city's population learns to accept other races, Los Angeles will still be ravaged by segregation and violence.
Just like she began each chapter with recounting event, Sloan ends every chatper with a story of her father's friend. By doing so, Sloan relates the event she has just described to a single person who has experienced that event, adding credibility to her text. For example, Sloan mentions that Los Angeles is "separated by hard-drawn geagraphical lines, which kept the city color-coded". At the end of this chapter, she describes that her father's friend has survived a "life of incessant fragmentation". Her friend's fragmented life refers to the glass architecture, which is itself a metaphor for the fragmentation caused by racism.
Similarly, Sloan adds emotions to her narrative by including stories of her father's friend. These episodes help put the described historical events into context and give a sense of reality to her story. The reader doesn't just read about these events, he/she can now feel what it was like to experience them. Sloan's friend recounts the racial diversity in her family: her great grandmother was "full-blooded Cherokee; her husband was full-blooded Irish", her father was black, and her grandfather was "very much a Southern white guy". The father's friend is a mix of races: she is often mistaken for Latino, White, or Black, which relates to the fact that Los Angeles, too, is composed of many different races. Sloan also explains that her friend's body is so "busted" because "she has been walking into walls since the day she was born". These walls are the glass walls that make up Los Angeles's architecture: they are the quiet, invisible barriers of racism.
Through a logical narrative, credible historical events that relate to an individual, and emotional stories, Sloan creates a metaphor implying that her father's sick friend is a symbol for the decaying city of Los Angeles. But just like Sloan's friend, the city is given chances to learn from its mistakes and perhaps that, finally, the glass walls will succumb to liberate a united, open-minded society.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Journal #5
The main difference between the two texts was the way they were presented.
In our text book, Sloan's text is "neutral", meaning that it is not as appealing to the eye as the hypertext.
The hypertext, though, has much more "bling": it has pictures, links, etc.
I would say that the online version is more effective in putting the reader in context. The pictures help visualize what Sloan is talking about.
What bothered me with the hypertext, though, is that part of Sloan's story is not included, more specifically the part about her father's friend. I believe that this was one of the most important parts of her text because her father's friend is the ultimate symbol for being caught between cultures, which is basically what all of Sloan's text is about. The hypertext was not effective in portraying this aspect of her story.
Regarding the presentation of the two texts, I would say that the effectiveness depends on the reader.
In the textbook, the presentation is boring and uniteresting: usual academic style. But the fact of having an actual book, with paper, is much more appealing to the reader who has trouble reading on a computer screen. I hate reading on the computer, that is why I prefer having a book to hold and pages to turn.
Again, what I liked about the hypertext were the pictures, which really help put the reader in Sloan's shoes. I didn't find the links to be distracting, they actually helped place you in context as well because, by clicking on one, you could learn more about an artist or an event that she is describing.
Again, the effectiveness of the two texts depended on the reader. The hypertext is better for students like us, and the book might be better for the elderly. The hypertext definitly is more appealing to the eye, but the fact that it excludes an essential part of the story brings the two texts at equality.
In our text book, Sloan's text is "neutral", meaning that it is not as appealing to the eye as the hypertext.
The hypertext, though, has much more "bling": it has pictures, links, etc.
I would say that the online version is more effective in putting the reader in context. The pictures help visualize what Sloan is talking about.
What bothered me with the hypertext, though, is that part of Sloan's story is not included, more specifically the part about her father's friend. I believe that this was one of the most important parts of her text because her father's friend is the ultimate symbol for being caught between cultures, which is basically what all of Sloan's text is about. The hypertext was not effective in portraying this aspect of her story.
Regarding the presentation of the two texts, I would say that the effectiveness depends on the reader.
In the textbook, the presentation is boring and uniteresting: usual academic style. But the fact of having an actual book, with paper, is much more appealing to the reader who has trouble reading on a computer screen. I hate reading on the computer, that is why I prefer having a book to hold and pages to turn.
Again, what I liked about the hypertext were the pictures, which really help put the reader in Sloan's shoes. I didn't find the links to be distracting, they actually helped place you in context as well because, by clicking on one, you could learn more about an artist or an event that she is describing.
Again, the effectiveness of the two texts depended on the reader. The hypertext is better for students like us, and the book might be better for the elderly. The hypertext definitly is more appealing to the eye, but the fact that it excludes an essential part of the story brings the two texts at equality.
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