Sunday, February 10, 2008
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"Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense -- the creative act."
Links of Interest
- Apocalypse Mambo
- Bukowski's "A Little Atomic Bomb"
- Desk Space
- Duotrope's Digest
- Fogged Clarity
- Hit and Run Magazine
- How a Book Gets Published (Ha Ha)
- Jacob Riis Photo Gallery
- Literary News Blog
- litmags.org
- Outside Writers Collective
- Places for Writers
- Tomorrowland
- Vonnegut on Style
- Walker Evans' Photos
- Writing Routines
9 comments:
What made me feel like I was there was Orwell's attention to details, and the way he included them. His descriptions of everything were painstakingly thorough and left little doubt in my mind what I was to be picturing while I read.
Also, when Orwell uses "we" after a while, the reader could get caught up in that and imagine themselves as part of the "we," rather than it just referring to Orwell and the rest of the procession.
Orwell achieves the "you are there" approach with his writing by describing the scenes in every aspect, sense, and perspective. He provides a detailed account of the hanging of this condemned man, and paints the scene in it's entirety by including vivid and precise descriptions of all actions, however subtle. The short, simple sentences allow the reader to understand what is happening. We can feel the perverseness in the dog's playful tenderness directed toward the condemned man, the last contact with tenderness he will ever experience. We can see the man stepping to avoid the puddle, an act that seems trivial when approaching his death, yet illustrates his humanity, a fact that the jailers choose to deny. After reading this piece, you agree with the man who says, "Well, that's all for this morning, thank God" because, through Orwell's descriptive writing, we have also felt the scene's pressure and discomfort, and do not wish to experience it further.
The "you are there" feel of "A Hanging" is most exemplified by Orwell's inclusion of all sorts of dialogue and audio description. This is most evident after the hanging as we hear the petty dialogue of the Superintendent, "Eight minutes past eight. Well, that's all for this morning, thank God" the Eurasian boy, "Do you know, sir, our friend..." and Francis: "Most disagreeable." Orwell also notes the laughing and overall happiness of everyone as well as the exclamation of a Burmese magistrate.
Orwell's attention to auditory detail is phenomenal and makes us feel like we are right in the thick of the action.
In Orwell’s “A Hanging,” he switches from “I” to “we” after he gets the emotional attachment from the reader by describing the prisoner avoiding the puddle and also his thought process about the significance of that. Using “we” gives the reader a sense of being there, especially when Orwell tells the reader, “the same thought was in all our minds: oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!” This gives the reader a “you-are-there” feeling because Orwell not only described the physical events in great detail, but also showed the reader how it felt to be there. After the execution, he switches back to “I” and writes in a more personal tone. This leaves the reader to explore their own feelings for the rest of the story, as Orwell describes the awkward situation.
Though Orwell does many things to make his readers feel like they are there, including the detailed descriptions, figurative language, and seemingly precise dialogue, I feel that the single most thing that he does to make the readers feel as if they are there is revealing his emotions. The one sentence that screamed at me, that made me feel like I was there, was when he wrote the thoughts of him and the other men about to watch the hanging, saying, "oh, kill him, quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!" In eleven words, Orwell has captured what it must be like to witness a hanging-- the desperation, impatience, etc. By not blocking out his emotions, Orwell cues his readers on exactly how to feel, making them feel like they too, are about to witness a hanging.
The way i feel that Orwell gives the " you are there" feeling is obvisouly because of his descriptions. But i feel like sometimes writers describe the parts of a scene that they feel most important , Orwell seems to describe every thing. As i began to read The hanging i noticed that this whole story was just one big description of the whole hanging scene and what led up to it and after. But then again, he doesnt use very hard to imagine descriptions, it all seems to be very basic descriptions of where people were, what they looked like exactly how it was. I dont really know how to say what i felt from the description i just feel they were very straight forward, painting a picture for us to literally visualize exaclty how it went down. You dont have to think very hard to picture what was going on because he puts descriptions in very simple words.
Realizing that I'm usually quick to talk about the beginning of the pieces we read, I'll go ahead and do it again.
In the first paragraph, we see that the narrator (Orwell) almost doubles as a camera man in that he begins in Burma, broadly, then zooms in a bit to the jail yard, then even further onto the 'condemned cells,' and even further when he talks about the contents and occupants of these 'animal cages.' It is almost like he is strafing around, using words as his camera.
This 'camera mode' sets the tone, as Orwell goes on to describe seemingly minute details that he picks up as he records the scene further.
Orwell can make a reader feel as if they are there simply just by describing the smallest of details, like the comparison of one of the prisoner's moustaches to the moustache of a "comic man on the film." His approach is almost movie-like, with different camera angles and a descriptive language that stimulates the mind to picture and even hear the scene with elegant cinematography. And It's also the switching of the "I" to the "we" that helps the feeling of being there.
In "A Hanging" the play between the dog and the prisioner was interesting - like two part of a whole. Orwell describes the prisioner in many ways as being more of a thing than a person, but cheesily tying it back into the title of the class - the prisioner's side step of the puddle is like a little rebellion.
Orwell seemed to capture the most important part of the story - the emotion that the event created. Phrases like "Indians gone gray like bad coffee," creates a clammy feeling on ones stomach, the mixture of the audience of guilt and the heat of the day and the vitality of life.
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