Welcome to the blog for Prof. John Talbird's English 220 class. The purpose of this site is two-fold: 1) to continue the conversations we start in class (or to start conversations before we get to class) and 2) to practice our writing/reading on a weekly basis in an informal forum.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Bicentennial
I was less interested in what this writing was about but more intrigued with the style. The way the author transitions from passage to passage. The final words of each passage were also the beginning words of the following passage. I couldn't find a connection between the passages. The only thing that I could see that connected them were those two or three words that ended the first passage and started the next. It is a very interesting way to connect his stories
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Hi Walton:
ReplyDeleteWe'll talk more about this in class. What did you mean that the "final words of ea. passage were also the beginning words of the following passage"? Can you give us an example?
I definitely had to read this a second or third time to understand where Dan Chiasson was going with this piece. At my first read it just seems like he jumps from story to story. Which he kind of does I suppose. He clues us in at the first stanza. His mind is wondering from story to story. They are memories of events that occurred throughout his lifetime. The way the poem just flows from story to story it almost seems as if he wants to give us the impression that he is dreaming and his mind is just jumping from event to event. But it keeps going back to this childhood memory of him a young 5 year old boy with his family at a bicentennial celebration.
ReplyDelete"I remember, later, in the standards bar; the weeping men..."
ReplyDeleteI feel like Dan Chiasson is trying to illustrate Their experience with taking the exstacy. It's intersting what he notices in this place. How there are guys who seem to be worried about a girl who may or may not be in trouble. They seem to think she is. They are worried about her. The combination of the drugs and the music in bar are having this effect on their feelings and emotions.