Reading Rhet

I am working on my MA in Rhetoric at GSU, and for now I will be posting some reading responses.

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Can You Pass This 1960s Louisiana Literacy Test?

They had 10 minutes to answer 30 questions. Do you think you can answer nine in three minutes?

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Branching off the DALN with Effective Literacy Narratives

Though this should be a reading response to focus on the articles, I would like to gear my discussion toward the DALN responses and the question on if the samples we collected were effective in telling their story explaining why or why not. To be honest, I’m mainly doing this because I ran out of room on my one page and wanted to continue writing on my four literacy narratives. The four narratives I picked out, I gathered from searching Young Adult literature in the search engine, or the variations of the key term like YA novels or YA. The four I picked out came in different formats: one was a stream of consciousness essay, one was a comic with several pages, and the last two were video interviews.

Of the four, I found the first piece (the essay) to be less effective at telling a compelling story when compared to the comic/video. Considering most classes require a literacy narrative in first/second year writing classes, I found it interesting that the written format that is commonly assigned, at least the one I typically see coming through the Writing Studio, was the least efficient. The content was engaging because the writer, Peter Shirts, explained that he established literacy as being able to out read his brother; which he accomplished by reading The Hobbit in third grade. Performing that act made him appear more literate in his eyes and his parent’s eyes (according to him that is).

Shirts’ need to appear “literate” shows up again in the videos by Cawp and Appel where they both discussed they wanted to read “high-brow” books. Appel started to read Jane Eyre because her friend was reading it but found that she had trouble with the language, and Cawp identified herself as an “English major snob” when it came to books and refused to read Harry Potter until she found a need for it which led her to fall in love with the story. Shirt’s discussion of his friend aversion of YA literature to “nature writings” or something that is true, and not being able to comprehend why someone would not enjoy this genre of literature is the weakest part of his narrative. Earlier in his text, which again is a stream of consciousness as shown with his sporadic examples, explains that he also found its previous reading interests to be undesirable. So, his supposed inability to understand why others would also be put off by it is weak at best.  

Analyzing my four literacy narratives as effective, ineffective, and why helped me focus on what the author is trying to do as opposed to just taking what they say/write/draw as gospel. Sure, everyone can have their ideas on literacy, but are they utilizing their form of communication effectively?  I’m about to start asking questions so I will move down to my questions section.

My list of literacy narratives:

Peter Shirts essay “Reading from Kid to Adult and Back Again.”

Connor Kilbarger comic “The Language of Paper.”

Kim Cawp casual video “Harry Potter is a Bridge.”

Erica Appel interview video “Writing Teenage Stories.”

Questions:

As we can see in my list, different people communicate differently. How can we help students learn to take control over their means of communication?

How did looking at the effectiveness of the literacy narratives affect your response to them?

What are some literacy narratives that you didn’t find compelling? Why did you not find them effective?

I found a comic book, videos, and an essay. What are other modes of communicating a literacy narrative outside of these three?

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The Writing Process with Emig and Sommers

    Emig argues academics can study the evolution of the creative process through an empirical research analysis of eight twelfth-graders’ writing process. A limitation to Emig’s argument is an issue she noted earlier: writers’ lie, which she explains with an interview between Roy Newquist, interviewer, and John Ciardi, an American poet and translator. When asked about his writing process, Ciardi explained “You’re asking for lies…An act of skill is one in which you have to do more things at one time than you have time to think about.” Emig explains further that writers focus on the challenging nature of writing than the act of writing itself, which I would lead me to believe that twelfth-graders are just as or more likely to lie about such a process. When questioned they are going to provide an answer that they feel will get them the most praise, whether it is true or not. I also found this argument limited because of the sample of students and the labels applied to their schools. Namely, the “almost all-black ghetto” school pointed to a prejudice while setting up the study which makes a reader wonder what other biases applied to this study (246). The evidence for Emig’s study stemmed from the work of previous academics along with interviews with experienced writers to show why she wants to explore the writing process. In my reading, I am having trouble figuring out why Emig has picked the age group she did. The evidence for her study to examine will be the 109 expository themes the students will write in an eight-week period (244). Emig’s keywords, for me, were: writing, process, lies, examination (read as a means to medicate a problem), and observation (to watch and record).

        In Sommers’ argument, she explains that the linear writing models that we have based off of “the five parts of discourse” do not take into account revising written work. Sommers’ based three years work on finding out the purpose of revision in the writing process for both student and experienced writers. The evidence Sommers’ produced for her argument include nine essays, three primary essays with two revisions each resulting in nine essays, by the student writers and the experienced writers, and each writer was interviewed on their revising process at the end of the third essay. Sommers’ evidence to introduce her essay used more straight forward language than Emig’s essay and her use of outside sources she utilized to prove the lack of information on the revision process. My preference of Sommers' argument over Emig's could speak to my inclination for the use of using primary resources for the main argument and secondary sources to set up the background leading to the argument. At least I do when reading articles, as to having success in writing in that format I haven't achieved that yet. Sommers’ keywords are discovery, writers, rewriting, revising, and strategies.

Connections:

A connection between Emig and Sommers essays the study of writing, Emig studying the beginning and Sommers studying the revision process. Both Emig and Sommers focus on student writers and experienced writers in their respective arguments and studies.

Questions:

Why does Emig pick out twelfth graders to study? What is important about this age group that they should be studies and not others? 

To expand upon Sommers’ explanation that “current models of the writing process have directed attention away from revision,” do you believe that academics have overlooked the process of revision? If so/if not, why? 

How is Rohman's "rewriting" and Sommers' "revision" processes different?  

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Crowley's Literacy Myth

I want to focus my response on Sharon Crowley’s essay and how she uses, what I have haphazardly dubbed, purchase language. Crowley’s essay explains why we still have Freshmen Comp after a brief stint in the 70s when the course became an elective, and she notes that this is the only required class that students face when attending college/university. Her overall argument is that this course should not be required by students; the faculty that teaches this course are taken advantaged of; and this class is only a source of money, not pure academia. Crowley’s argument explains that first/second-year writing classes have transformed into a factory trying to pump out “literate” students when the concept of literacy is abstract, and we can’t measure “good writing.” She proposes that students and professors will benefit if this type of class is electively taken.  

     Crowley’s argument is compelling because of her diction of ownership or purchase language if you will. In my reading, I counted 15 direct uses of purchase language, and if I had read more slowly, I have a feeling that I can find more. The words I picked out are, but not limited to: status, financial, cheap, taxpayers fund, property, cultural capital, curricular status, mutual property, colonized, and the like. And those words are just within the first six pages of Crowley’s essay. I find her’s more compelling as an abolitionistic (I believe that is the correct descriptive form of that word) essay in comparing it to Lounsbury, who, though is a great writer, doesn’t appeal to the heart of the problem. A problem of students taking classes they don't want or see any value in, and overworked professors who (to quote some words I’ve heard many times) “didn’t come here to teach [students] grammar.” A problem of replacing retiring faculty with temporary workers, many who are new to teaching, tasked to produce great writers like a factory hires cheap labor to put a car together.

    The imagery of cars and purchase language reminds me of, and I’m not sure if Crowley meant to do this or not, the Ford Foundation study she cites. This group gathered students reaction to the required Freshmen course, and I found it ironic that the survey that she would use also relates to cheap (or cost-effective, whichever term you would prefer) manufacturing infrastructure. Her formulaic, repetitive use of purchase language and background setting of the Ford company I found brilliant. Crowley also appeals to overworked and underfunded workers, typically TA’s or adjunct professors, who can’t complain because of their status on the totem poll. With Crowley’s essay I can see more of what Lounsbury was trying to say (with a significant reduction on the sass), and, though I thought he had valid points, Crowley’s argument was more genuine and thus more credible for me.  

Questions:

I talked to a friend of mine about idea getting rid of compulsory first/second-year writing classes and making them electives. She thought that was the worst idea in the world because she feels that she learned more in those two years in a required course than the other classes she chose to take. Her argument was that students don't take classes that are "good" for them they take classes that they believe are easy. How would Crowley respond that response? 

How do students benefit from compulsory classes? How do they benefit from elective classes? Can one be more important than the other, and why or why not? 

Who is Crowley’s audience for this essay? She mentions the retired professors and newly hired TAs, but to who is this piece prepared for?  

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Composition in Colleges: Response to Lounsbury, Conners, and Russell

Thomas R. Lounsbury, Robert J. Conners, and David R. Russell provide detailed accounts on their arguments over an issue that many students would not believe arguable.  Since there is a lot of material to cover, I’m going to jump right in with Lounsbury.  His essay, Compulsory Composition in Colleges, argues the uselessness of first-year writing classes and the current method of “producing great writers to order” is not working (Lounsbury 866). Lounsbury explains that we cannot produce great writers, especially by forcing entry college students to study a subject they don’t find interesting. Conner’s argument focused on showing the history of composition, and how Lounsbury’s argument on the uselessness of freshmen comp was not the popular opinion of the academic community (Conner 51).  Conner cited other professors who were compelled by Lounsbury’s remarks to talk to their freshmen classes; who explained, that their horizons had broadened by taking the class even though they didn’t want to at first. Conner explains that most professors have moved from repeating mechanic rules to writing to utilize that space to teach “English for life skills.”

Lounsbury is compelling in a stark way. One of his arguments, well a quotation from Francis Bacon, which reinforced Lounsbury’s previous argument, reminded me of Quintilian’s pedagogy to teach children to understand argument and logic as soon as possible (Lounsbury 880). Lounsbury main argument is that freshmen composition should be elementary practice instead of university practice. Students should already know their literacy before they arrive at college, an argument that I’ve heard a few times. Moving to Conner’s argument that teachers have moved to using first year writing to do more than repeat mechanics, is a silver lining to Lounsbury’s dark (though however funny) cloud. I appreciate Conner’s understanding that first-year composition changes as cultural changes and how it helps students learn skills they need for any part of their life. Sure, students don’t want to take this class, but they most likely need the skills from the class.

*Side note, dueling essays are the best. However since I have trampled the 400-word limit, I’ll stop here and move to questions even though Rusell's sassy illustrations of abolitionists is fantastic.*

Questions:

How does the class feel when Lounsbury calls his side of the FYW argument as “right-thinking”? 

What would the first literacy exam look like? Conner explains it lead to the first literacy crisis, so I wonder how it looked or what questions could have been on it to would have students fail so badly.

If abolitionists, as Russell describes them, had their way to remove FYW classes what are the possibilities and/or pitfalls of this teaching style? 

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Deconstruction and Construction of Literacy: Barton Chapters 2 and 5

Starting with chapter two, “Talking about Literacy,” Barton unpacks how literacy is discussed and, by taking into account our previous class, how simple yet complicated literacy can be. In his unpacking, Barton deconstructs how we explain our ideas of literacy in metaphors, how these metaphors do not transcend language barriers, how literacy is best understood in a social context, and how the metaphor we assign literacy interrelates with society. As noted in chapter two, further along in chapter five, “Literacy Embedded in Language,” Barton builds from the ground up using different terminology to explain studying literacy. In my mind, I have painted chapter two as the foundation in chapter five as the building materials to understand literacy. Barton goes on to explain that to building materials for understanding literacy can only be used to understand the social context of those materials.

Moving from overview to argument presentation in the two chapters, let me say that I found Barton’s explanation of the word “literate” stemming from the word “illiterate” compelling. Though the chapter has a round-about demeanor, Barton clearly links metaphors to how we communicate both the vague notion of and the large principle of literacy. In his self-described “constructivist” chapter five, Barton explains how we use language and literacy differently in difference situations. Our change in register from one discourse to another, typically quick and easy transitions from one to the next, shows the intertextuality of literacy within a social construct and what we deem “texts.”

I appreciate how Barton started with deconstructing the idea literacy before constructing new ideas with it. Considering how I started this class is defining literacy as “hard” and a “complex mess,”  I find it better to start with a blank slate and build from there. Moving from the metaphors we use to describe/discuss literacy to exploring how society affects how we view and interact with literacy is a long twisted highway that only makes sense once the ideas are broken down first.

Questions:

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the notion of a world of “illiterate” before “literate.” Are there more words outside of illiterate/literate or disabled/abled that illustrate the word with the prefix is the “unmarked” word? 

In what other ways can we understand literacy outside of social practices/contexts?

How are subject positions use in everyday life? Do we have current examples outside of the text to draw from?

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The regression of "invention" and hitchhikers' guides to teaching writing

For the Crowley reading, I flipped the requirements for the reading response upside down and started with the keywords which I identified as devolution, proposition, definition, and theme. Her key terms, outside of “devolution” that is, stem from her surplus of evidence from previous writers of rhetoric and composition on the concept of invention. Crowley’s evidence takes shape as overlapping quotes and selections from outside authors such as Alexander Bain, John Franklin Genung, H.N. Day, and George Champbell. Admittedly, I have never read any of these authors or have only done so in passing, so her citations and connections between “first-generation” and “second generation” thinkers in Rhetoric and Composition are very appealing. However, all of this evidence limits her argument for me. My problem is that I’m not hearing enough of her voice in her discussion. Every paragraph has an “in (insert gendered-singular-pronoun here) work (insert title here) (insert author name here)” sentence or a “so-and-so, too, includes (insert concept here).” Crowley has more evidence than her voice for my taste. Only after peeling back the evidence was I able to come up with her argument, which is invention plays a more important role in rhetoric and composition than the previous purveyors have implied (Norton 343).  Her "rant" at the end brought back the term "devolution" as opposed to "evolution" since she takes issue with how flippant rhetoricians have been with the concept causing it to revert from progression to the regression of invention.

     Shaughnessy’s essay, or opening for a self-help book for first-year writing teachers, argues that her work will help professors who are dealing with the unwanted task of teaching college students who do not appear to belong there. The evidence she provides is her coding of four thousand essays, which will provide a semi-cohesive trail/map for teachers to follow along with tips on dealing with basic writing (BW) classes (Norton 389). Her argument is limited in two ways. One, Shaughnessy doesn’t display any outside resources outside of her work, which is the exact opposite of my issue with Crowley's work. I only have Shaughnessy's word that her work is building off of others and that her work is the best. Two, though it sounds like her work is coming from a "good" place, I can’t tell if her “helpfulness” is purposefully condescending, or if she honestly believes she is helping others, but she only sounds condescending. Though I enjoy her straightforward style of writing, I feel that she is missing evidence that she didn’t makeup herself and the tone of the article can be misconstrued if she has a preference of sounding condescending or not. Shaughnessy’s keywords focus around adoption, pioneering, and basic writing, Her terms focus on working towards a common goal and taking on great challenges, but it’s this “pioneering” language that makes me weary if she is being facetious or not. I want to believe her because she addresses the concept of error; however, why would professors need a book to help teach basic writing if we don’t help them with their writing errors at some point?

Two more questions:

We should always have outside sources to support our arguments; however, when and/or how do we decide too many voices are taking over our argument? Still being new to this, I’m also tempted to drown my work with as much support as possible, but that takes away my voice from my argument. As both experienced and student writers, where do you draw the line?

How do we get past our obsession with errors?

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Time for Summer Class

For last class I defined literacy as follows:

Literacy is hard. The simple concept of literacy, the bare bones of it, is the ability to read and communicate the ideas behind text through verbal or written discourse; however, literacy can be visual, technological, and the like. Literacy is a complex mess academics tried to sort out.  

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The point of seeking the “truth” in The Truth Commissioner

While reading the vignettes “James Fenton” and “Danny,” I first noticed the use of race. The Romanian orphans and their caregivers and the African-American civil service worker Edward and his kid brother Marvin were the main standouts. The first read through shows James caring for children and Danny working within a diverse workforce; however, the case is not that simple. David Parks uses racial divisions to make his characters work through if a "truth" must be demanded and at what cost.   

In the case of James Fenton, a (somewhat forcefully) retired cop who uses his spare time to deliver necessary items to homeless children belongs to the racial majority in Ireland. His service to the orphanage, especially one that serves people different from himself, is noble. A division does not lie between him and the people he helps until Melissa tells him that Estina sells off the goods he brings and is not fit to take care of the children. By listening to Melissa's words over trusting Estina, James ends up caught trying to find out the truth in the middle of the night by Estina. The embarrassment James feels and unspoken distrust from Estina makes James wonder why he even thought to go looking for the truth in the first place. What could James have gained out of the truth? He would not have helped the children because if he had found that Estina stole the donated items, the orphanage would shut down and he would never see Florian again. By finding out that she does sell some of the items to make ends meet, James has only accomplished losing the trust of Estina. 

In Danny's vignette, he sought to tell the truth but learned through Edward and Marvin that we are better off staying out of other people's fights. To confess his sins to Father Mulryne, Danny felt a need to save the Father from criminal charges. Danny honestly does not believe that Father Mulryne molested Marvin, and he wishes to make right the situation that has arisen from the accusation. However, by getting in the middle of this mess, Danny makes an enemy of his friend Edward who now believes "Irish stick together" (224). By trying to force the truth to light, Danny's motives appear as racial profiling to Edward. When Danny sets out to confess his sins, he ends up making an enemy and his secret identity has been found out.  By trying to confess in a neat, tidy manner to establish his truth behind doors and by try to force someone else's truth out in the open, Danny's secret life will ironically be revealed to the world through the truth commission.  

Overall I gather that seeking truth will not always lead to happy endings. Someone will be hurt, someone will be angry, someone will be wrong. The question of whether or not the truth is necessary for closure will lead to debates, and we can answer that from comparing the cost to the gain. At what cost do we learn the "truth" and is it worth it? I am still wondering why Park's uses race by which to show this concept.

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David Park’s The Truth Commissioner: “Beginnings,” “Henry Stanfield,” and “Francis Gilroy”

It’s jarring how this novel is more blatant about education and class than the other novels we have read so far. Though is unmistakable that all the novels thus far exhibit a hierarchical structure, those books, outside of Making History that is, push the construct to the background whereas The Truth Commissioner keeps bringing this idea to the foreground. David Park does this through his characters Francis Gilroy and Micky and the idea of “cultured.” The OED defines a cultured person as one “improved by education and training” (“cultured”). 

Francis Gilroy is one of the men who will be called to testify about the disappearance of Connor Walshe. This job is the top civil servant who works on Children and Culture. Gilroy has a duality to his personality because he involved in the IRA and he experienced the Dirty Protest, and now he is working for the Northern Ireland government: 

"'the nonchalance of his words is designed to hide the tremor of anxiety that hits him, it does each time at this precise (security check) moment, and it is an awareness of how far they have come and the magnitude of what has been achieved” (89).

Throw the section about Gilroy it appears that he is making up for his "uncultured" self through reading books and trying to assimilate to the culture that he is now in. However, his frustrations about this change to be "cultured" in having to be careful about anyone finding out that he is “uncultured” makes him resent what he is doing. It is as though he wants to go back to when he didn't have to be a dignitary walking among regular people. It's as though he wants to be more like Mickey, the young man who works for him. Gilroy will rather wear a Marks and Spencer suit, like Beckett, then have to explain his Armani (81). 

Every time Gilroy makes a comment or does something outside of his persnickety persona, Sweeney, Gilroy's right-hand man, makes a sarcastic comment about being "cultured." Such as when Gilroy complains about the smell in the car that was Mickey's lunch from McDonald’s. How uncomfortable Gilroy feels when he realizes how far he has come in life is like an imposter syndrome playing out in a high-powered forum. 

Looking at pictures of the Dirty Protest and reading about a member of that protest living is such a fancy lifestyle there is an uncomfortable feeling, as a reader, got the character is essentially acting out of character. In the reading, it appears that Gilroy feels the same about his lifestyle as well. He still clings to a “bundle of scrap” car but he has it under surveillance as though it is the most precious thing in the world (77). Overall Gilroy is the “bundle of scrap” car that is under constant surveillance. Though he has changed his outside appearance and changed his personal status (financial/political) he still sees himself as the people in power before him saw him.

**Footnote -- The price difference between a Marks and Spencer suit in comparison to an Armani suit is $1,350 minimal.**

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Bernard MacLaverty’s Grace Notes

“Don’t forget the baby!”

While reading the second part of this novel, I looked for any compositions about childbirth. I found three: Lou Reed’s “Beginning of a Great Adventure,” Loudon Wainwright III’s “Dilated to Meet You,” and Paul Anka’s “(You're) Having My Baby.” All of them written and performed by men about gaining a child in their lives; however, none of them addressed childbirth nor do they acknowledge the woman’s perceptive of this event. Even in Wainwright’s song, a woman only provides backup vocals and repeats what the man says. In the novel, Catherine pours over kindertotenlieders because one song, in particular, keeps recurring in her mind. In part two, Catherine’s postpartum depression correlates to these “child death songs” because she does not have encouraging musical nor personal reinforcement. Instead, she has negative songs about a child’s death and a dysfunctional relationship with Dave. 

The dominant forces in Catherine’s life at this moment are male composers and Dave. People who always forget the baby, the new dominate force in Catherine’s life! Great songwriters influence Catherine’s life tremendously to the point that she wants to quit teaching to compose music herself. However, as noted by Catherine, no one has created “a piece of music to celebrate birth,” a pivotal event in her life (172). Catherine astutely states “[b]ecause the history of music was all male…[birth] was something that happened off-stage and was not worthy other manly attention” so no music exists beyond what the man experiences (172). It seems obvious that a group of men would not think to write songs about something they never experienced physically, but what happens when they are not “barred from the birthing room” (172)? In Catherine’s case, Dave reinforced this idea of male coldness when he refused to see their child in the hospital and forgot to pick up Catherine and Anna at the airport (172-173&189). Dave places money and alcohol over Catherine and Anna. Catherine’s influencers have pushed her and her child off to the side, as though their experiences only represents a minor part of life. 

In music songs about children “could be divided into lullaby or songs of infanticide” (174). One of the infanticide songs, “A weela weela wall-ya,” haunts Catherine and appears to be driving her mad (175). The lyrics of "[sticking a] penknife in the baby's head" repeats Catherine's mind with images of her harming Anna. The repetition of these thoughts and the repetitions in her daily life leads Catherine to see that her "mind was attacking itself" (199). MacLaverty draws out her emotional stop-and-go through the sentence structures that he uses on page one hundred ninety-nine. He uses short jarring sentences that sometimes a few words, one word, or sounds. The sentences reconstruct how Catherine's mind works as she tries to function day-to-day life with postpartum depression and fighting intrusive thoughts.

Catherine sees the world in a musical way and the lack of representation of childbirth from a woman's point of view has left her in a depressed state of mind that manifests as postpartum depression. Without support from neither Dave nor the musical community which she subscribes to, Catherine feels alone in her thoughts with only the image of stabbing her baby with a penknife playing over and over again in her head. This repetition, much like the cheep, cheep, cheeping sparrow outside her window, is slowly driving MacLaverty's character mad.

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Bernard MacLaverty’s Grace Notes Part One

I will go ahead and admit that I had trouble reading the first half of this novel. Throughout these first sections of the novel, an emotional murkiness follows the character, Catherine McKenna. The oppressive atmosphere is understandable since she has lost her father; however, the heaviness imposed on Catherine is more than a loss. A heavy, dark cloud has settled over her life and follows her. This section reminded me of a chapter from James Joyce’s Dubliners entitled, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” where Joyce portrays the inability of the people to break free from their political oppressors. The depression and sheer idleness of Catherine’s situation lead me to the same frustrations that I experienced while reading the idle banter of John Henchy. With the looming darkness imagery, I believe that MacLaverty captured emotional state of the people of Ireland along with the coping power of music. 

The dark imagery recurs in three specific instances: first with Catherine’s mother told her to pick between the bedside lamp or the radio, Catherine’s panic attack in the wee hours of the morning, and the overcast day following Brendan’s funeral (36, 59, and 83). The scene settings for each section with picking between light or sound, waking up in darkness, and overcast skies allows readers a peek into the depression that enshrouds Catherine. As noted in earlier texts, the depression of the characters in Northern Irish literature in essence represents the oppression of the people. 

In comparison to Joyce’s characters in “Ivy Day,” Catherine is able to find a reprieve from her childhood situations and postpartum depression through composing and surrounding herself with music. Through music she is able to find a cathartic relief from her family situation as a child, the overbearing restrictions imposed by her church, and the political upheaval that is slowly taking form around her. Using music to make sense out of senseless situations is a reminder of folk songs that were used in Ireland to teach and entertain listeners. I believe that MacLaverty uses the folk song tradition as a tool to allow emotional relief for both his character as well as the reader just as people all over the world use music for expressive purposes.

MacLaverty’s exploration of emotion, darkness, and music is an affecting piece of work. He is able to express the familial troubles that happen during a politically changing climate. Fluidly moving from darkness into a postmodern concept of happiness through music is both heartbreaking and beautiful to watch much like the political struggle of the Irish people.  

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Seamus Deane’s Reading in the Dark: Second half

For the second half of the book I really focused on these stories labeled “Mother” and “My Father.” I feel like those two stories reinforce the article that I had chosen to present today, because both create a scene of the reconnection between the narrator and his father and the split between the narrator and his mother. Though it appears that the narrator has more animosity towards his father, he reconnects with him and away that he cannot reconnect with his mother due to the fact that his mother’s secret and her silence on it has left her with shame and guilt. A shame that worsens when she sees her son’s watchful eyes on her. The narrator will not betray her trust; however, by staying loyal to his mother he inadvertently lies to his father. Despite this secret, he has a stronger relationship with his father and he does his mother by the end of the novel.

The growing rift between the narrator and his mother plays out when the boy promises to bring home ten distinctions, one per examination. He promised to bring these to her but he came up one short. Her response “you could have come first in Ireland if you had tried harder” displays a growing contempt for her child no matter how hard he tries at his studies (226). The “low-intensity warfare” between the mother and the narrator kept up until he tried to bring her recompense with a golden iris (225). After a year of shunning, surely bringing her something beautiful would liken her to her own child, but instead, she promptly destroyed the peace offering. By her crushing the flower, the narrator knew that he had bee exiled: “Now the hunting meant something new to me—now I had become the shadow” (228). The narrator became a keeper of the family secret and a ghost of what the family once was.

The decomposing relationship did not go unnoticed by the other family members. His father noticed the mother being overly controlling with their son. The disconnect between the father’s relationship with the narrator and the mother's relationship with the narrator can be seen in their response to his grades. The father, on the other hand, showed pride when his son came home with a degree from college. The father, not knowing the cost of the narrator's knowledge, could explain why he and the mother react differently to their son’s intelligence. Either way, the son sympathizes with his father who didn’t have the opportunities the son had. When he thinks about his father in this section he sees “the man behind the door, the boy weeping in the coal shed, they walked down that dusty road, the ruined rose bed, the confession in the church, his dead, betrayed brother…” (238).

Overall, the short stories that Deane wrote tell the story of a child with the lust for learning who learns that knowledge comes with a cost. For him it came with the cost of knowing a family secret, the distraction of his relationship with his mother, and lying to his father. These mounting costs became so great to him that he left for college in Belfast to handle the pressures of being his family’s secret keeper. Here he “celebrated all the anniversaries: of all the deaths, all of the betrayals—for both of them—in [his] head…” until he realized that in old age has muddied some of their memory, causing the secret to die out.

[mediamattersforamerica]

This 11-year-old understands more about the importance of representation than all of the adults at Fox News combined.

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Wow

[readingrhet-blog]

Seamus Deane’s Reading in the Dark

For this reading, I really enjoyed Part I’s story, “Katie’s Story” because it appeals to my love of horror stories. Aside from sparking my interest, and keeping me awake late into the night, this short story reminded me of the discussion of Irish Catholicism is mostly Christian wrapped paganism. The family of the narrator, who are Catholics living in Derry at the beginning of the Troubles in the 1940s, held strong to their Irish roots with the “ceilidh.” The layers Catholic life in Ireland, Irish traditions, and pagan stories keep the family together as they began to fray apart. 

The first thing I started with was finding out what a ceilidh even was. The OED ’s second definition summarized it as “a session of traditional music, storytelling, or dancing.” The scene before Katie's story were the children gathering around the hearth to hear a tale as they would normally do. The family does this because of the combination of not having any money to go out for the night and because it is within their heritage to gather around the fire. Gathering around the hearth is as important to the Irish people as gathering around the dinner table is for American’s. Communing by the fireplace is more important than sharing a meal together. Which is at odds with Deane’s story where the narrator has to work through family secrets to learn what happened to Uncle Eddie.

Speaking of the missing, dead, and later known setup as an informant against the IRA Uncle Eddie, there are other family secrets. One important secret is the disappearance of Tony McIllhenney, Katie's husband. The narrator eventually gathers enough clues to figure out that he was the true informant to the police against the IRA which led to Uncle Eddie's death. The children asked about Tony but were always meet with "never...mention that man's name in [their] house again (pp61). The parents, trying to protect their children, became a part of the force that drove them all away after their death. 

Writing out the deaths of the narrator’s parents, does make me wonder if Katie’s story  where the parent’s unexpectedly died leaving behind children was a foreshadowing of events to come. Some of the pagan elements of Katie's story were the green lights over the graves, the children changing shape and voice, and the eventual abduction of the children by strange, dead beings. This story captivated the children, and myself, until the cathedral bell began to ring. The sounds of the church help bring the children back to the reality of their lives. 

 Overall, by exploring their pagan roots, Katie gave the children a chance to explore wonder in a staunch world. These stores and home events, this ceilidh, allow the family peace until they have to return to a reality of betrayal and secrets. The direct and indirect actions that the characters take throughout this novel tear apart the family, but, for now, they can gather around the fire and tell a fantastic ghost story.

[readingrhet-blog]

Deirdre Madden’s One by One in the Darkness

Madden’s lovely novel of the three sisters, Helen, C/Kate, and Sally lives during the start of the Troubles shows the fascinating and terrifying divide within Northern Ireland. Madden’s use of Ireland’s flag colors to show this divide is unobtrusively prevalent.  Through my reading of the text, I found several uses of the green/orange color scheme which is representative of the Catholics and the Protestants (green for the original Gaelic/Catholics and orange of the Protestants who followed William of Orange). One thing I did find interesting was that the author never used the color white within the text which is meant to represent peace between the two groups. The only other color that stuck out were the yellow roses in Cate's apartment in London which I believe have the context that Cate is fighting an internal war of her identity from Northern Irish-"country"-Catholic Kate to Cate the Londoner. Her hue of yellow is partial green and orange without being one or the other. 

In all fairness, it took me until page seventy-eight to start making the color connections. It started with the women’s mother, Emily, wanted to change the skirt she was wearing when the family was going to visit Granny Kelly for Christmas. When she said she didn’t feel right in what she was wearing their father, Charlie, said, “Put on your green one then” (p78). The second green imagery that appeared was the green door of Helen’s office (p85), and the third was the tricolor made a distinct appearance at the funeral of Tony Larkin when the flag was placed over his coffin (p104). The green of the Catholic culture in Northern Ireland was like a scarlet letter which Cate fights when she say’s that wearing  a green uniform at grammar school was “like being in jail” (p132).

The character of Cate bothered me because of her change from the “too country” Kate to Cate. I’m still not clear on what made her name “country,” but I knew that it was a change in her identity as a whole and not just a trendy change. The yellow roses in Cate’s apparent (p93) and the yellow daffodils that Emily would place throughout the house after Charlie’s death (p106) are a marker of a middle ground between being Catholic and Protestant to being Northern Irish. By leaving out the white of the Irish flag in the color scheme of the book, it is as though Madden is bleeding the two groups together instead of dividing them along the metaphorical and literal. When Kate renamed herself to Cate, she was free to live in-between Ireland and England because she can appear green or orange. That is why she is able to leave Northern Ireland whereas her sisters never could. Helen and Sally are too green to leave. 

The color scheme that Madden uses in this book is complex with symbolic and cultural meanings that I have barely had scratched the surface of in this reading response. However, in a small scraping, there is a definite change from the white external peace of the tricolor flag to the yellow internal peace of the flowers. I believe that K/Cate found peace with herself outside of the whole unwed, soon-to-be-mother thing. Sally’s sense of belonging and Helen’s nightmares of their father’s death keeps them on the green side of the metaphorical peace line, whereas Cate has sought to venture out beyond what Belfast has to offer her. Maybe the yellow is Madden's way of making peace of the Troubles, without further study I will not know, but it feels correct.