pg. 52-54 Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was a brilliant persuasive speaker without even realizing it. She used the methods of ethos, logos and pathos perfectly in order to affect her audience the way she wanted to. She began with ethos, which is the ethical side of her persuasion. She started with this to prove her credibility to her audience so that they would trust what she said. Then she spent the majority of her speech on logos, the logical side of the argument. She used the Bible as an example because at that time it was the one piece of literature that connected people of all genders and colors. God could not have made man without a woman; therefore women deserved as many rights as men. Truth finished her speech with an emotional appeal to her audience, the pathos. She kindly thanked the audience for giving her their attention and respecting what she had to say.  I also thought it was very effective how she repeated the line “And ain’t I a woman?” It really drove home the point that even though she was a black woman, she could still do as many things as a man or a white woman.

M 91-95

I think this reading was really sad. It was a very real look into the the lives of the people that society looks down on. Amanda Coyne visited a federal women's prison on Mother's Day. Not only to observe the interactions of the other mothers with their loved ones but also to bring her nephew to see her sister. It is a sad reality that these mothers do not have the privilege of being a part of their children's lives. She talked to some of the other visitors. One woman had a daughter in prison there that actually did not belong there at all. She simply sat in the car while her boyfriend went into a house and stole from the owners. Yet her boyfriend confessed to the crime and put it all on her and because she didn't know anything about it she had nothing to say to defend herself. She has been through some of the worst women's prison camps in the country for a crime she technically did not even commit. It makes me sad to realize that women like that, who don't belong in jail, are there when others who deserve to spend their lives in a prison cell are still at large. I found it interesting the way that Coyne elaborately described the clothes and hairstyles of the women in the prison. It was clear that they had made the clothes themselves and that they had spent many hours in front of the mirror on the hair and makeup. When you sit in a cell all day, what better is there to do? They only see their family and children a few times out of the year so they might as well look good for them since they have the time to. I also noticed that Coyne repeated the same phrase about what family members were there as if she was putting special emphasis on the fact that there were "very few husbands" there.

I think this was a very good choice of a topic and a very interesting profile because of the sympathy and reality that it revealed.

M 79-88

The profile entitled “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing” is very well written. I really enjoyed reading it because John T. Edge did a great job with sensory details. He used a lot of those details to explain the place and the people. He spent time with the family and learned about how they came into the business of serving pickled pig lips. It was very entertaining because it is an entirely foreign concept to me. I have never heard of anyone making pig lips edible. The thought of it turns my stomach. John T. Edge went above and beyond by forcing himself to experience what he was profiling. By doing so, he could write his first hand experience of everything he felt and tasted as he chewed on pigs lips. He went through the process of how they were made and where the idea came from to turn pig’s lips into food. It was comical and repulsive at the same time. The owners pride themselves on serving the best-pickled pig lips ever. Yet Edge had to down several beers before he could force himself to eat it. I think that this is a very good profile. It kept the reader entertained and was also very informative. I hope I can decide on a topic half as interesting!

            The second reading was about pickpockets in Brooklyn. John McPhee observed everyone as a pickpocket approached, did their deed and left. I thought this profile was slightly confusing. It is a very interesting place and topic but the way he described it was hard to follow whom he was talking about and what was going on. He called people by their names and it was hard to keep track of who was who and what had happened previously and how it affected what was happening now. I think I would have enjoyed the reading more if I had understood all that happened.

M 72-78

I think the profile written by Brian Cable is really well done. His topic is very interesting and I think it is something that a lot of people wonder about. He takes you through his entire visit at the mortuary. He gives a great description of Mr. Deaver and the building where he works. It is easier to understand him and his career when you can understand the sort of person he is. It takes a special kind of person to prepare bodies for burial everyday and witness the utter despair of their family members. Mr. Deaver fits the description exactly. He views his work as buisness and does not allow himself to look any further into it. Mr. Deaver takes him through the mortuary and he observed the chapels and where the bodies were placed for viewing. I thought it was clever how Brian Cable discussed the irony of the name of the mortuary. "Goodbody" is the family name not a play on words. Then he shares some research about the family mortuary in Ripley's Believe It or Not. The owners names were "Baggit and Sackit". I enjoyed how he added that element of humor. Brian Cable also spent some time describing the significance of the deceased casket. Even then, in that setting, you could discover a person's status in life. Some caskets can reach $5,000 dollars. I think Brian Cable did a great job of profiling the mortuary and Mr. Deaver.

I really hope I can find something just as interesting to write about for my profile. I need to start thinking now about who I can interview. I would really like to do something that I am interested in!

100 Miles Per Hour, Upside Down and Sideways

This memoir by Rick Bragg is very entertaining. He introduces his car in the beginning and describes what it looks like and how it became his. He was absolutely obsessed with the car but it didn't last very long because he was reckless with it. He believed that car was made to race and so he raced it at every opportune moment. One night he sped around a curve at 100 miles per hour with the top down. The car flipped and spun into a ditch. Somehow, by some grace of God he walked away from the accident. He didn't have a seat belt on, and nothing was protecting his head from the pavement. Yet, he landed perfectly in a ditch. His only injuries were a sore neck and some scratches. Rick Bragg made the choice that day to speed and to be a reckless driver. I think one in a billion people would have survived a crash like that with as little injuries as he did. He was very lucky that day. I think the writing was great. I felt like I was watching the crash happen right in front me while I was reading it. He ends the memoir by saying that even though they fixed the car up again four months later, it was never the same. Rick Bragg believed that it was not the same car that made him the "it" guy in high school. It was not the same car that he let Patrice Curry drive. He sold it to a preacher's son who would obey the speed limit. This memoir teaches a lot about safety and decisions. Had Rick chosen to obey the traffic laws that night, he may still have that same glorious car that he loved.

I thought the second reading by Tobias Wolff was far lest interesting than the one by Rick Bragg. He wrote about a rifle that Easter Roy gave him. I still am not sure who Easter Roy is exactly. He never really said who he was; the reader was only given facts about him being stingy. He spent the entire memoir talking about the rifle and what he was tempted to do with it. He eventually set up a sniper station in the apartment and followed people outside with the rifle. One day, even that became boring to him so he pulled the trigger. He shot a squirrel outside on the telephone wire. Afterwards he claimed to be an animal lover and said he stayed away from the rifle but knew the day would come when he would take it out again and use it. I thought this entire memoir was very confusing. It was hard for me to figure out exactly how the writer felt about using the rifle to kill the squirrel. There were interesting parts to it but I think it could have been a lot better.

Readings by Brandt and Dillard

I think Jean Brandt's memoir, Calling Home, is very interesting. The memoir starts off with a very happy scene that she shared with her grandmother and siblings and it ended in a way that no one could have expected. They set out to do some last minute Christmas shopping and Jean ended up in jail. She was thirteen years old when she made the rash decision to shoplift a Snoopy pin merely because she did not want to wait in line to buy it. The police officers reacted harshly and put her behind bars. I thought it was very intriguing how she found the whole experience almost exhilarating. She had seen it happen so many times on the news and in movies and now she was the one being read her rights and placed in hand cuffs. If that doesn't earn you more cool points than a 75-cent Snoopy pin, I don't know what does! She did a great job of keeping the reader interested and wondering exactly what was going to happen next. The dialogue also played a huge role in revealing the thoughts of the main character and her relationships with the other characters.

Annie Dillard's reading was very comical. She begins the memoir by talking about playing football and baseball with the neighborhood boys. However, in the winter, throwing snowballs at cars took place of those sports. Out of all of the snowballs they threw, one man decided that he would not stand for kids throwing snowballs at his car so he got out and chased them. Most of the memoir relays the routes she took through her neighborhood in an attempt to lose the man chasing her. No matter what, this man did not give up. He kept chasing him and slowly gained ground on the exhausted children. When he finally caught them, all he had to say was "You stupid kids." The author did a great job of describing the chase and her feelings throughout it. As a seven year old she was terrified. However, looking back on it, she cannot remember a time when she has had more fun. I think the message of her memoir is that sometimes the fear of getting caught is what makes the chase so fun.

Chapter 4: pp. 116-127

This chapter gave several examples and helpful hints about writing memoirs. The best example was the memoir written at the end that explained the authors beginnings in the poultry farming industry. Although the image she created was slightly disturbing, I think that is what made it such a good memoir. It made me cringe while I read the descriptive details about the bleeding chicken. She did a very good job with details and it was also a story that was very easy follow. There were only three characters and the dialogue between them was just enough to be able to understand what kind of people they are. The wife in the story refused to eat the chicken after witnessing the process it went through to become food. I do not think that I could eat anything that I once saw alive. I am not a vegetarian by any means but seeing it alive then seeing it on my plate would be a hard thing for me to get past.

This section also spent a few paragraphs focusing on the importance of the introduction in a memoir. I think that once I can develop a solid an introduction it will be easy to get into the flow of my paper. The introduction draws the audience in and gives them an idea of what the paper is going to be about. The conclusion will be similar but will be drawing the story to a close rather than introducing one. I have started to write my paper but I am still in the process of figuring out which details are important to the story and which are not. I am excited to see how it turns out!