Compare the structure of the pieces by Davis, Orwell, and Herr. What changes do you notice? How are these changes in form related to the changing conception of imperialism and war? To the changing purpose of literary journalism?
Your response is due by noon, Sunday, March 7.
18 comments:
Davis, Orwell, and Herr all chose to write about similar subjects, but went about doing so in slightly different ways. Davis chose to cover an execution in a very narrative type of way, describing everything that happened around him to set the scene for the reader. Orwell wrote with plenty of description of the Moroccan people and living conditions, but also chose to inject himself into the story much more than Davis chose to. This stylistic choice gave “Marrakech” much more depth and insight to how Orwell viewed the situation. Herr went to the opposite extreme as Davis when covering the Vietnam War; his story was filled with nearly all first person accounts and reactions to the scenery. Where Orwell chose carefully to inject himself into the story, Herr chose carefully when to take himself out. Herr’s first hand accounts allow him to illustrate the war effectively through his own eyes.
All of the stories were written at very different times in history, Davis’ in the 1890’s, Orwell’s in the 1930’s, and Herr’s in the 1960’s. Their stylistic changes could be related to the changing conception of imperialism by the public view of acts of imperialism. As time went on, the public view toward acts of imperialism shifted to a less favorable one. The changes could also be related to the shift of literary journalism’s purpose from a descriptive news medium to a more personal narrative story telling medium.
At first glance, there don't appear to be many stark differences among the pieces by Davis, Orwell, and Herr. All three stories evoke a sense of varying sentiment toward imperalism, all the while presenting the various horrors at hand in the most unfiltered and truthful of fashions. Skimming back through the stories, however, there are some important variations to note.
For one, I hadn't noticed before how atmosphere-driven the Davis piece is. There isn't a hint of dialogue at play, the scenery is actually most masterfully-described of all, and Davis writes in a sort of slow, suspenseful, brooding fashion that's almost Hitchcockian.
Contrast that to Orwell, who does incorporate dialogue into his story (albeit very conservatively), and whose piece plays more like savvy political commentary than tension-filled, anxious material that's ripe for the movies.
Finally, there's Herr, whose piece is jam-packed with dialogue, who speaks in perhaps the most personal tone of the three authors, and whose "dispatches" seem to basically function as scattered vignettes.
The trajectory of these three stories seems to reveal a greater clarity in the journalists' thoughts on imperialism as the years go on. While expert literary journalism students can pick all of the underlying messages apart with great ease, "Dispatches" seems to more obviously display Herr's feelings about the situation at hand than does "The Death of Rodriguez" for Davis. There's less nuance and more matter-of-fact with the more recent stories.
There is something very interesting, and very telling about the chronological shift in the perception of war, imperialism, glory, or lack thereof in these three pieces. The changes in structure seem to directly reflect the attitudes of the authors toward their situation.
Davis’ piece, also the oldest of the three is worlds away from Herr’s piece, although they both covered war. Davis’s piece is an expertly, beautifully written narrative, embodying traditional literary journalism. He not only retold the story, but his characters came alive as good guys, and bad guys. The Cuban is this glorious, hero, who stands for courage, youth, patriotism, and honor, whereas Herr’s soldiers stand for none of these. These differences in literary tactics mirror the changing attitudes toward war and its purpose over time. In 1890, when Davis was commissioned to write this piece, there was still a certain level of heroine attached to war, soldiers, and martyrs. But as decades of various other bloody wars came and went, many grew to find them senseless, chaotic, and damned. This public resistance to war and imperialism is personified in Herr’s piece. Confused scared boys, dishonorable deaths, drunken captains, and hypocrisy run rampant in Herr’s picture of Vietnam. There is no honor or glory the way Rodriquez had; in fact he seemingly sees no honor at all in his war.
Orwell’s piece speaks more to the changing conception of imperialism than the other’s do. In his story no single group is spared, he tells us of Jews, women, and blacks all living invisible lives of squalor under imperial French rule.
“And really it was like watching a flock of cattle to see the long column, a mile or two miles of armed men, flowing peacefully up the road, while the great white birds drifted over them in the opposite direction, glittering like scraps of paper.”
Orwell’s piece is particularly interesting because he did not write this for anyone. Davis wrote for Hurst, Herr was a war correspondent, but Orwell- was writing and reflecting on his own free will, not trying to push any political point, simply telling what he saw. This is the change in literary journalism. For a long time literary journalism, or any journalism for that matter was often used as political propaganda tools. This piece was written by free will, but still changed and enlightened views, and that to me is a really important difference.
Orwell writes about the internal and external feelings of different living conditions and how some of the French treated the Jews in "Marrakech." Orwell and Davis talk about death in metaphors and simplicity.
All three pieces depict the poverty and struggle of those affected by wartime, especially Herr's piece from the soldier's point of view.
"Like all combat people they were incredibly superstitious and invariably self-dramatic, but it was (I knew) unbearably true that close exposure to the dead sensitized you to the force of their and made for long reservations; long. Some people were so delicate that one look was enough to wipe them away." (Herr, 497-98)
War and death is explained in a human sense, but Davis is probably the most passionate about depicting it in the utmost human way, making his vulnerable readers sympathize with the main character towards death. Orwell describes Morocco and the ghettos as they are--a place no one feels safe and clean.
Herr's account of Vietnam is more at home feeling for American readers. He truly details the many soldiers that were starting to lose their minds. The author's literary journalism is not taken lightly, with raw emotions about those suffering and by putting themselves in the situation, the reader gets a detailed eye-witness account that gets under your skin.
If I may, I'd like to suggest that under the pressure of events -- the changing nature of war -- the structure of traditional narrative collapsed and the history of that collapse can be seen in the passage of literary journalism from Davis through Orwell to Herr. In Herr the awfulness of reality (war), to the extent it can be comprehended and conveyed at all, can only be comprehended and conveyed by extinguishing the difference between the subjective and the objective, the past and the present, the Other and the I.
Though all three of these stories focus on the tragedies and horrors of war, the structures that the stories are written in lend a lot to the way readers feel about war. In the piece by Herr, i feel like i got a completely different vision of war than with Davis and Orwell, though they all focus on this kind of sadness and destruction. I think a big part of it was Herr's first person perspective.Getting into the mind of soldiers creates a completely different view for the reader. Herr doesnt sound like a correspondent or someone who is just spewing out facts and statistics. His tellings are more personal accounts. I think this tells a lot about the changing conception of war. The stories got more personal and instead of giving the reader an objective view of the situation, Herr lays all his feelings, doubts and concerns out on the table. In Davis, his opinions come out but in a more subtle way. The lack of dialogue lets Davis describe, beautifully so, the exact scene and setting.His death is honorable and beautiful. However, in Herr's piece nothing is honorable, nothing is beautiful. At this time in history, war was no longer seen as something that a country needed to do. People no longer had the same opinions on what was honorable. This overwhelming feeling is seen a lot in Herr's piece in comparison to Davis'. I feel as if Orwell's story is right in the middle of those two, which makes sense because it is in the middle history-wise. In Marrakech, Orwell presents his feelings pretty strongly. His presence in the story make the piece different from both Herr's and Davis'.However, his feelings dont override his descriptions. I just find it really interesting how these three different pieces, from different times, can basically chronologically describes peoples feelings about war at the time.
The overall structure of all three pieces is very different from one another. Davis writes his story as a report on the insurrection of Cuba. His subject is a Cuban man being put the death. This is written with an outsider’s perspective without any narrative. Davis depicts emotion through his writing by building up the audience’s view of the Cuban. This type of literary journalism is a bit different because although there is a story being told and it does run though smoothly, there is no narrative. No one is talking besides Davis. For the most part, he keeps himself out of this story, unlike the other two writers.
This structure is much different than Orwell because this political essay is a compilation of vignettes that do not have transitions into one another. This is an overall description of different types of people. This type of literary journalism is different because these are multiple stories being told to depict the living conditions and social conditions. The purpose of this is to show the readers that despite the bigger picture of a recent war, people who have been affected by this tragedy help give a human feel to that period of time. Orwell, unlike Davis, did inject himself into the story, but still kept himself far enough out of it.
The structure of Herr’s piece is also very different because it was a first person account of the Vietnam War. This story tells the horror that was going on and hits home very hard. The harsh reality depicted gives people a different perspective of the war. They get the inside details instead of just an overview. This literary journalism piece had a retrospective structure, telling stories throughout. This type of writing had evolved from older war stories. Instead of giving you someone else’s story or multiple people’s stories, Herr is accounting his own story. The idea of injecting himself so fully into this story shows the evolution of literary journalism over a 70-year span.
I have to agree with many of the opinions before. All three pieces were about war and the suffering that is caused by wartime, but they all have different ways of conveying that message.
I think that Herr's piece was a lot more personal, because it speaks about himself and what he saw, and you can tell that it's from his perspective. The first person style lets the readers know that we are seeing things from his eyes. In Davis' piece, the execution is covered kind of classically, the way we expect it to be covered. Davis makes sure the scene is set, and the events unfold slowly, which almost is the driving force of the action, the fact that nothing happens quickly. It's suspenseful. Orwell's almost seems like the intermediary between the two pieces. Where Davis removes himself, only giving his opinion through hints, Orwell inserts himself. The entire story isn't focused on Orwell's thoughts or feelings the way that Herr's story is told completely from his point of view.
Though they all employ different techniques, I feel that, like Dan says, it may have to do with the time they were writing in. Maybe the differences in style (besides the trademark differences of each author - they all have their own, strong trademarks) that some of the differences have to do with the differences in their subject matter, and the time they were writing. There are differences in every war, so there should be differences in the wartime coverage
In “The Death of Rodriguez” Davis takes a descriptive approach to describing a scene that is representative of a larger issue of imperialism. Davis evokes sympathy for Rodriguez by simply describing his body language and his self control in comparison to other characters. By doing this he makes Rodriguez look brave. Davis does not use dialogue at all in this piece, but instead he sets the scene visually creating an atmosphere by using the sun, the soil, the ringing church bells, and the untouched grass. His descriptions are slow paced, but this only builds the tension needed to accurately portray the scene.
Orwell’s “Marrakech” is more of a direct critique of imperialism. It starts right in the action with a corpse passing a restaurant table. There are really no transitions in this piece. “The Death of Rodriguez seems story-like compared to Orwell’s snapshots of description. Orwell spares no details; he is very straight forward about imperialism. Orwell is reflective with questions and his syntax and verb choice convey a brutal honesty in his accounts.
Herr’s “Dispatches” is similar to “Marrakech” in that it is not a linear piece. It is written in fragments like Orwell’s snapshots that display the Vietnam War. Herr uses a lot of senses in his accounts. He uses hearing music and touch to convey internal feeling. Herr is really right in the action. He is not detached at all, but actually quite afraid and it comes through in his writing. His clips and flashbacks of conversations and military jargon are random and disorienting at times, but this just adds to the portrayal of the frenzy of war.
These different accounts display a shift in literary journalism from a more detached reporting to a reporting style filled with feeling and reaction.
Davis, Orwell, and Herr wrote about similar subjects, but during different eras. Davis' piece was a narrative describing one person during one event as a way to look at the war as a whole. He described a man being hung for his resistance in a courageous manner. Through his narrative, the reader got the full experience of the hanging and a glimpse into what war time was like through that one experience. Orwell wrote a descriptive piece that gives the reader a broader overview of what war time was like there. His descriptions are striking, particularly the beginning where it opens up as a corpse being brought past and the cloud of flies that were there following it briefly. His writing style is also more fragmented and jumping from one scene to another, unlike Davis, but similar to Herr. Herr's writing is more loose, kind of like talking. That tone is one of the things that makes his descriptions more real; it's more liek the reader is there talking to him and seeing what is going on rather than reader it. It makes it much more personal and moving, like the reader can really identify with what he is trying to say. It seems like as the concept of war and imperialism wages on, it begins to have more of an effect on people. Instead of writing a narrative describing one snippet of the war, people are writing descriptive pieces of everything they're seeing. It made literary journalism become a way to really get people to see a broad spectrum of what was actually going on. Narratives became whole scenes of prolonged periods of war.
The structure of the three pieces by Davis, Orwell, and Herr are very different in style.
Davis wrote "The Death of Rodriguez,"descriptively by using light and details that made you sympathize for Rodriguez. Davis was seemingly detached from the subject and was not a main feature of the story. He was there watching but the story was not about him, it was about the Cuban soldier.
Whereas Orwell began to place himself and his thoughts into the story. The narrative became more about his journey than what the event but he still added in the news aspects. He also doesn't use any transitions or dialog and it begins to look more fragmented.
Herr also uses a very fragmented form of writing also but he is more extreme. The story focuses on Herr's feelings and experience at war rather than the news aspect of the piece his memories kind of blended to give you the emotional aspect rather than the chronological aspect.
The changing views towards imperialism and war allowed for changes in literary journalism because the news aspect of war was less important. As the public became more displeased with the notion of war the stories became more subjective and less detached so it is about the writers experience and feelings more than the event.
I'm glad to see that Herr was involved with Apocalypse Now. His story reads like that movie's Redux version. It's real in a way that Orwell and Davis aren't. --And that's not to say that Orwell and Davis were not real, or that there are flaws with their pieces... I mean to say that Herr's story feels gritty. I can taste the sweat from the jungle.
I think it's because Vietnam was so messy. The culture of war in the Davis and Orwell stories was different. There was more of a logical order to things in the older imperialism age. There was death all around, but not like Vietnam. Vietnam was more than just a war, more than just deaths, more than just imperialism, and more than just dying. I think the structure of Herr's piece reflects that.
Davis choose to make the Cuban man his main attraction or subject in his piece and relys on the attitues of the times about war on both sides: dignity, honor, sorrow and loss. Orwell uses imagery to describle the surroundings, the people and their everyday life in Marrakech in realtion to how they respond to the state of war and their own survival, similiar to Gelhorn. And Herr really gives you the raw,emotional, dirty and to use Josh's word, the gritty side of war and it's effects on the psyche of the citizen as well as the soilder. And as you said (Howie), or what I gathered from it, these differences in writing syles have progressed with the times and the intensified gore that each war brought. A honor and courage style much like Davis, in my opinion, may not have worked as well for the subject Herr captured so precisely.
Davis' piece, Orwell's piece and Herr's piece have three different structures.
For Davis' piece, scenery and emotion play major roles in the story. Emotion and scenery set the readers into sympathizing with what's going on.
Davis also keeps himself out of the piece more than the other two authors. This type of literary journalism is a unique because there is no narrative.
This is very different from Orwell's approach because Orwell used dialogue in his piece. His piece was also more political.
There was an overall description of people from different backgrounds. Unlike Davis, Orwell does insert himself into the story.
The structure of Herr’s piece is also very different because it was told in first-person. It may be a little more impactful because it was a specific account of the Vietnam War rather than a general story. He bluntly gave the readers the details probably because they might not have expected it.
I think that is a great technique to literary journalism or journalism in general. Being able to write something in a way that people don't expect it. It reminds me of certain movies that the story plot can be predicted before it happens. I don't want to write predictable stories.
War is so intense, so painful and so real that it is difficult to put down on paper something to truly portray the sentiments of that time. Davis, Orwell and Herr are able uncover specific events and details that expose human life and suffering during times of war. These three stories are the same in the way that they offer the reader a glance into the true events of wartime, but are different in their methods of execution.
Davis truly establishes an atmosphere for his reader by delving into extensive details about the landscape, and Rodriguez’s mannerisms which show his bravery and self-control. The lack of dialog in this piece allows for Davis to envelop his reader more into the details of this day. “As the officer gave the first command he straightened himself as far as the cords would allow, and held up his head and fixed his eyes immovably on the morning light, which had just begun to show above the hills.” Within this sentence, Davis merely describes the how Rodriguez stands up straight, but with his word choice, the reader can see the pride and strength he exudes during the last moments of his life. Although this piece was written for Hearst’s paper, Davis stayed true to his own style and made this piece a strong example of literary journalism. The events he describes come alive. The reader is able to pick up on every detail of the day, even down to the cigarette which stays lit after the glow in Rodriguez is lost forever.
When Orwell wrote, “The Spike” in the 1930’s, he spoke a lot more about the changing world of imperialism than the Davis or Herr. Orwell touched on the fact that every group, women, blacks and Jews were all living under the rule of the imperialistic French. This piece was written in short descriptive blocks of writing which don’t really have any connection to each other. Orwell wrote more of a character study of each of the different types of people -- and when placed together -- Orwell wanted his reader to see that every person was affected by war one way or another. Orwell wrote this piece as more of a personal response to what he experienced, and he did not originally cover this for any publication. In the end, it was published by Eric Blair in Adelphi magazine. Because this piece wasn’t originally meant for the public eye, it gave a more personal view on the war at hand -- different than the literary journalism of the past.
When Herr wrote his story for Esquire magazine, he personally watched the devastation of a beautiful city, and it changed the way he viewed the purpose of conventional journalism. He felt the journalist style had to change to adapt to the special circumstances of the times. “Conventional journalism could no more rule this war than conventional firepower could win it.” Herr had no limits when he wrote this piece; he wanted to write in whatever style would become the most affective to shock his readers to the realities of war. It was at this time that the concept of how people viewed war began to change. Herr wasn’t scared to lay all of his feelings right in front of the reader. I think that the first person narrative style that he used allowed me as the reader to feel more personally attached to his beliefs on these issues. I felt like I was walking next to Hurr through everything he went through. I could feel his uneasiness throughout it all. “I never belonged there. Maybe it really was what its people had always called it, Beyond; and at the very least it was serious, I gave up things to it I probably never got back.” From Davis’s story, which was written in the 1890’s, to Herr’s story from the 1960’s, you can see the strong progression that literature journalism has made.
Post a Comment