IRB Intro: "Four Seasons in Rome"

                Written by Anthony Doerr, a New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner, Four Seasons in Rome describes Doerr’s personal experience living in Rome for a year. After winning the Rome Prize for his earlier works, Doerr is given an opportunity to live in Rome for a Year with his wife and newborn twins. There, he falls in love with the city, its history, and its people. He and his wife raise their babies in a warm culture; learning unique parenting tips from the affectionate locals. This story seems very interesting to me, since I have always wanted to go to Rome and have family from there. 

TOW #16: "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (part 2)

                As one of the most well-known and influential autobiographies in American history, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou has greatly impacted readers for decades. It presents a vivid first person account on what it was like to grow up as a black female in the South and California during the 1930s and 40s. Through countless moves to different states, living with one relative and then another, and struggling to find a place that really fits her, Maya feels very insecure during her unstable childhood. This story speaks especially to young adults who are trying to find themselves like Angelou did, and who can relate to her awkwardness and insecurity. Angelou’s story is powerful and direct as a result of her choice in diction. She uses simple and blunt language to tell her life like what it was, allowing readers to easily connect to her experiences. When Maya transfers to yet another new school, she says “In the school itself I was disappointed to find that I was not the most brilliant or even nearly the most brilliant student. The white kids had better vocabularies than I and, what was more appalling, less fear in the classrooms. They never hesitated to hold up their  hands in response to a teacher’s question; even when they were wrong they were wrong aggressively, while I had to be certain about all my facts before I dared to call attention to myself” (Angelou 216). Without sugar coating it, Angelou verbalizes all the things teenagers feel deep inside but never want anyone to know about. She fearlessly and simply states her insecurities, leading her readers to connect to and admire her for her candidness. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a book that stands out from others because of the unique style used. Angelou very effectively educated the nation on the challenges she faced and overcame, and let millions of young adults know they could do the same. 

TOW #15: “The Tyranny of the Clock”

“The Tyranny of the Clock”, by George Woodcock, is a very fascinating piece about clocks and how they have effected society over time. As a political writer with many of his works leaning towards anarchist ideas, Woodcock argues in his article that the invention of the clock towards the end of the middle ages has caused much of the human race to be controlled by time. The modern world moves so fast that many people do not have enough time to enjoy themselves, relax, or experience new things. Instead, working adults and even students must give up their time, and subsequently, their freedom, to make a living. Woodcock first includes a great deal of logos in his piece, informing his audience of how the clock has evolved through ancient times, Medieval, Victorian, until it has gained complete control over the lives of many today. His use of metaphors and allusions allow his audience to think about something so common in their lives – watching the clock – in a different way. Woodcock connects the invention of the clock to the ancient Chinese invention of gunpowder in saying “The ancient Chinese, for example, invented gunpowder, which was developed by the military experts of the West and eventually led to the Chinese civilization itself being destroyed by the high explosives of modern warfare. Similarly, the supreme achievement of the ingenuity of the craftsmen in the medieval cities of Europe was the invention of the mechanical clock, which, with its revolutionary alteration of the concept of time, materially assisted the growth of exploiting capitalism and the destruction of medieval culture”. This presents an interesting idea that something humans invented will lead to their own demise. Clocks control our society and lives in ways we often don’t notice, but the truth is that they dictate much of our lives. George Woodcock did a very good job in his article of reminding his audience that human lives were not always controlled by the tick of machine and that, by resigning out lives to keeping to a strict schedule, we are denying ourselves complete freedom. 

TOW #14: On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning

                In his thoughtful short essay, “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning”, Haruki Murakami captures what it is like to inexplicably fall in love with someone. His creative fiction and nonfiction works have won Murakami many awards in Japan, where his books are best sellers, and all over the world through translated versions of his books. While walking down a street in Tokyo one day in 1981, a woman walking by catches Murakami’s eye for seemingly no particular reason, and he cannot explain specifically why he is drawn to her since she is not outwardly especially beautiful. Yet he knows instantly once he sees her that this stranger is the “100% perfect girl” for him and panics because he wants to talk to her before she gets lost in the crowd. He thinks about what to say to her, but cannot come up with something in time. After she is gone, though, he thinks of a speech he wishes he could have told her before she was lost to him forever. Murakami uses vivid language to describe his experience and artfully expand an intense moment with beautiful details. He uses metaphors such as “Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart” to put into words all the possibilities he was feeling in that fleeting moment. He then narrates his thought process, saying, “How can I approach her? What should I say? “Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?” Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.” In order to emphasis the massive internal conflict and pressure he was feeling to reach out to the woman. The use of rhetorical questions, humor, and reasoning included in his thoughts makes the essay feel very authentic. The audience feels like they are inside of his head, allowing them to understand this rather abnormal and abstract experience that most of them probably have never had. Overall, this was a very deep and romantic piece attempting to explain why people sometimes feel inexpiable connections to strangers.  

TOW #13: "The More You Connect, the Less You Connect"

"The More You Connect, the Less You Connect" by the Huffington Post

Included in a Huffington post article entitled “Is Your Phone Seeing a Lot More of You than Your Child?” this picture speaks volumes about how technology is effecting families poorly. While the father is looking at his phone, he is being completely blocked off from his child on the other side. To many young parents, this is a message that needs to be listened to because they are not aware of the effects some of their actions have on their children. Smartphones and other portable screens can be taken anywhere so a person is constantly connected, something that young adults have gotten used to over the past decade or so. But now that this generation is beginning to have families to take care of, they need to change their habits in order to be good parents. This picture employs hyperbole in making the phone much larger than it really is. By exaggerating the size, it can be more clearly seen how phones create a physical barrier between a user and those around them. The hyperbole and symbol of the phone acting as a wall captures how much technology separates people even if they are sitting right next to each other. Other details included in the picture also illustrate how big the problem is. The child’s side of the table is a bit darker because the back side of the phone blocks some of the light, leaving him alone in a small space. The father’s expression is a happy one, showing that he is completely ignorant of the fact that he is blocking out his own son and fails to notice how being on his phone is a problem. The placement of the phone, at the center of the picture, helps draw an invisible line down the middle to emphasize how separate the two family members are. The creator of this image did an amazing job summing up the negative effects of technology in a single image. By using eye catching symbolism, this photo sends a message that is hard to forget and may make some parents rethink the way they act around their children. 

TOW #12: IRB "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" (part 1)

Maya Angelou, in her famous book "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings", tells the story of her childhood full of hardships. Her and her brother, Bailey, are sent from their parents in California when Maya was just three years old. She grows up in Stamps, Arkansas with Bailey, her grandmother, whom she eventually calls “Mama”, and her physically disabled uncle. Maya spends much of her childhood working in her grandmother’s general store. Out of nowhere when Maya is around eight years old, her and Bailey are suddenly visited by their father who takes them to St. Louis to live with their mother. There, Maya is molested and raped by her mother’s boyfriends and returns to Stamps after she refuses to talk to anyone in St. Louis except Bailey. Published in 1970, Angelou’s story explains the hardships of African American’s earlier in the century. Adults who are uninformed about the kind of lives some African Americans had to lead during the times of segregation would benefit most from this book, which puts the everyday lives of these oppressed people into perspective. When talking about being sent to town by her grandmother for an errand, Maya remembers “There was joy going to town with money in our pockets and time on our hands. But the pleasure fled when we reached the white part of town… we had to cross the pond and adventure the railroad tracks. We were explorers walking without weapon into man-eating animals’ territory” (Angelou 25). Her inclusion of vivid imagery describing her journey and use of metaphor to compare white people to “man-eating animals” conveys to the reader how separated races were during segregation, and the fear that African Americans felt for whites. This kind of language ad description is continued throughout the book that outlines Angelou’s life. By telling her own story, Angelou tells the stories of countless other African Americans living in the segregated South. She is able to reach her audience and instill profound understanding within them, not only telling what happened but explaining indirectly what kind of effect it had on her. 

TOW #11: "Night"

                In his short essay “Night”, Tony Judt reveals great insights into his life as a person who suffers from ALS. The disease has slowly taken away feeling in his limbs until Judt became a quadriplegic, unable to move almost everything but his head. This has affected every part of Judt’s life, even parts that most of us would not even think of because we take so many of our daily activities for granted. In sharing how Judt spends his time and copes with his immobility, Judt speaks to those who have never had that kind of experience and cannot possibly understand what having such a disease is like. Many people have loved ones who suffer for illnesses like ALS. They see their family or friends suffering and slowly losing control over their body, and do not understand what to do or how to help. In order to explain to the general population what he and others experience, Judt mainly uses anecdotes. He talks about his night habits, saying “am then covered, my hands placed outside the blanket to afford me the illusion of mobility but wrapped nonetheless since—like the rest of me—they now suffer from a permanent sensation of cold. I am offered a final scratch on any of a dozen itchy spots from hairline to toe; the Bi-Pap breathing device in my nose is adjusted to a necessarily uncomfortable level of tightness to ensure that it does not slip in the night; my glasses are removed…and there I lie: trussed, myopic, and motionless like a modern-day mummy, alone in my corporeal prison, accompanied for the rest of the night only by my thoughts”. This short description reveals volumes about his like, also including vivid metaphors and imagery to display how truly uncomfortable and unnatural it is for those who suffer from ALS to withstand daily tasks. Even simple things, like shifting positions in the middle of the night, are impossible for people like Judt. He is forced to endure being uncomfortable for hours on end with being able to do anything about it, making his audience realize how much they take normal mobility for granted.