Maps to Anywhere Response #1

Typically one of the most important parts of any text is the begging. It can set the tone, setting, theme, etc, for the rest of the work. In the first chapter of Maps to Anywhere, entitled “Beacons Burning Down”, there seems to a several unrelated stories at a glance. However, upon further investigation it is clear that all of the stories have a common theme of discovering the truth. In the passage about the miracle chicken it is shown for the father to be an attorney, one who helps to decide what is considered to be truth.  In the first passage and the final, the mother of Bernard seems unable to remember certain things and events, even her own son’s name. For this reason, in the last segment of the first chapter “Chapter after Chapter”, Bernard has difficulty with writing the book for his mother as it would be too far off from the truth. In addition, Cooper seems to mock religion with the segment entitled “Herald”, where he describes religious followers in a slightly comical and unserious manner, which demonstrates his disdain for depending on faith for truth. Consequently it makes sense why the name of the chapter is called “Beacons Burning Down”, as the beacons of light illuminate the hidden truth found within the texts. This is an appropriate preface for the rest of the story as the following chapters can be viewed as Cooper grappling with struggles in life or exploring them in order to better understand himself and those around him. It is also interesting that the significance behind the title of the first chapter isn’t explicitly revealed until the second to last paragraph of that chapter. This was likely intentional to show that understanding doesn’t come immediately, as it is necessary to fully explore what is before you thoroughly until a judgment on truth can be made.

In the chapter, “The Wind did It”, Bernard and his father seem to be e odds. The father seems to have made some poor decisions in life and doesn’t seem properly educated like his son. Evidence of this could be their manners of speech—the father speaks ineloquently where Bernard does not—and Bernard seems to be more knowledgeable in general (he is an educator so that is expected), for example Bernard’s knowledge of Scribner’s Dictionary of Medical Terms is contrasted by the prehistoric medical information the father has garnered from his possible obsession with the Mayans. At the end of the chapter it becomes clear that Bernard and his father are very similar. Bernard apparently forgot to close the door shut at his father’s home before they went on the flight, which is contrary to his seeming mindfulness he exhibited at the beginning of the chapter. This door is a figurative representation of how his he and his father are quite alike. This is further supported by the segment of the chapter entitled “Pain and Pleasure”, which are seeming opposites, but in reality are quite similar. In respect to the title of the chapter, it is referencing what may have opened the door, the wind. The wind is passive and unsuspecting, just like the knowledge that Bernard received when certain doors were opened for him.

Essay Packet#1 Response

In Sunday, the narrator makes a satirical comment on the civil rights movement through the eyes of a young girl. The young girl’s life is described as plentiful. Her family lavishes in the tradition of delicious and bountiful meals. This description is at odds with her misperceived notion of the civil rights movement. She describes her family’s status as fruitful, but her family and she have unequal human rights to whites. The girl’s aunt also has a backwards conception of the racial status quo. She believes that the whites are inferior, that they need the help of the blacks in order to better themselves.

The Aunt serves as the determiner of the girl’s world view. She has sugar coated the girls world view so that she doesn’t have to confront the grim reality of racial inequality. This short story is all the more impactful due to the perspective it is presented from.  It is from the distorted worldview of a child, whose world view undermines and insults what the civil right movement stood for. The story is all the more powerful as it utilizes the false innocence of a little girl in order to demoralize the ideology of the civil rights movement.

In Mute Dancers: How to Watch a Hummingbird, the narrator describes hummingbirds with very different descriptors that one would infer from the title’s description of hummingbirds, “mute dancers”. Hummingbirds are described as energized, powerful, and even violent creatures. They are resilient, able to survive an attack by a cat with little injury. They are courageous enough to take on humans and animals much larger than them such as cats. The narrator completely turns the typical conception of hummingbirds on its head.

The text repeats twice that “a lot of hummingbirds die in their sleep” due to sleeping. Instead of dying due to physical exhaustion, they die due to sleeping. Hummingbirds are described as “sleeping giants” in a sense. They are a small and inconspicuous at a glance, but due to the narrator’s descriptions of them relative to their size, their immense energy for such a small stature and their voracity, they appear to be much “larger” in a specific context than they really are.

                                                                                                                                                                      

Fiction Packet #3 Response

In Falling Girls, the scene begins with a young girl on a sky scraper and the sun is setting. She jumps off and initially it seems the story is about suicide, but it becomes clear that the fall is metaphorical and not literal. The possible comparison to the girls jumping off buildings and committing suicide is likely a supplement to demonstrate the gravity of this situation, the situation being how women are bound to certain social constructions, which is the cause of their rapid and figurative demise.  Initially, I thought that the theme of the story was about the wasting away of youth due to a generation of youth’s obsession with excitement, represented by the girl’s journey towards the parties below and the adrenaline accompanied by jumping from a skyscraper. But, it struck me as slightly odd that the narrator was male, meaning that the protagonist was likely not modeled after himself; the short story also makes some specific comments towards woman, such as that women are more powerful than men. I attempted to find out when the story was written for a historical context, but I was unable, however the author lived from 1906-1972, which leads me to assume that the novel was written from 1930 to 1970, meaning that gender equality had not been widely established at this point. It is also relevant that the person that reached out to help the woman was a male. The male here could be interpreted as Buzatti reaching out to help the girl from her destructive fall through the means of writing this short story as a critique. The male was able to help as men, more so than woman at the time were less dependent upon social constructs, namely class level and appearance. It is all of the women who are competing against each other to get to the finish line, the party below, their destruction. The protagonist is falling much slower to the other girls who are falling for they are of a high social stature; they are more readily consumed by the societal construct of appearance. Those girls may make it to the party on the ground, but it doesn’t change the fact that all of the girls falling are trapped by social constraints. The protagonist wants to be like the girls falling fast, but she can’t and she’ll never get there due to being unable to ascend the socio-economic ladder. The girl is clearly pursuing a destructive end. She begins the story young, at the peak of her life. The events going on the terraces and balconies below are also at their peak level of excitement. As the sun sets its shape is described to change to that of a red mushroom, representative of a nuclear bomb going off which shows the destructive end of the girl’s pursuit. She will tire herself out trying to climb the ladder, but to no avail. Her descent characterized by her failure to fall quickly, her failure to live the life she wants will ultimately ruin her life (represented by her rapid aging).