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 4 p.m., Sunday, March 27.
3 comments:
Herr’s writing in Dispatches is driven by characters. I think that as literary journalism and war correspondence both evolve it is now possible to focus on characters that can tell a story that hasn’t been told yet. His story uses more quotes than Davis, and Orwell combined. He is taking a micro approach looking at how the war personally impacts the people involved, rather than how the war impacts governments and international relations.
The amount of time reporters spend digging up gritty details, and regurgitating first hand accounts is key in making this work.
Herr isn’t trying to persuade people into believing what he believes, although it is obvious. The collections of stories Herr wrote allowed him to insert his sense of humor into his writing.
I also think that Herr avoids glorifying the war. He is not ramping up the desperado like looks of Adolfo Rodriguez; in fact he was almost doing the opposite. To me it seemed like he was trying to bring the characters down to Earth. At the beginning of the first story, Herr talks about a man who should be considered a hero, who feels like he can’t belong in the world any longer. Herr talks the crews and gives them a voice, and like great journalism, allows the people to tell their own story.
Herr didn’t focus on heroics. He didn’t try and romanticize the war. He wrote about travelling in a helicopter full of corpses, and wanting to get sick. But that’s the truth. War is hell. There’s no reason to glorify it. History has taught us the true consequence of war. People are educated, and in America, living comfortably. But the truth is that while we are sitting, eating dinner in front of our televisions, there are people starving to death, or fighting for their lives.
I think that obviously as time has passed, writing has evolved. Herr likes to use more conversational prose to get his readers on board. He starts off his second story asking the reader to identify him right off the bat. “You know how it is, you want to look and you don’t want to look,” then moving into memories of looking at magazines as a kid.
Overall I think people today don’t have the same infatuation with the beauty of war. They know lives are being lost, and sometime’s the media can make them feel like the wars aren’t worth it. With massive public protests against the war in Vietnam, people were taking what they heard with a grain of salt. So Herr tried to show the opposition from the people fighting the war; the people that risk their lives for our freedoms, over greed and imperialism, two qualities that can completely diffuse public support, and in this case did.
Herr’s piece doesn’t stick very long with one event or character, which helps to show how fast things happen during war- there is really no time to get attached to people or things because you’re always on the move. Herr also uses these long sentences within Dispatches, which seem to illustrate how fast his mind is going (examples: pg 500 and 501). You really get a sense that a lot of going on all at once, and Herr is trying to get everything out in one breath. It’s a nice contrast against the title of section I, Breathing In, and the Marine he meets in the end who was “breathing in and breathing out, some kind of choice all by itself.”(502)
In Dispatches, we get to see the chaos of war. In Marrakech you see how war/imperialism affects civilians. The piece centers around uncovering how people come invisible to one another, and each snapshot in the story helps to illustrate this or explain it. It also shows how men are able to rule over other men, which is by treating/seeing them as less than human.
Gellhorn’s, Third Winter, seems like a hybrid of Dispatches and Marrakech. She’s talking about war on both a large and small scale. She gives you the bombing and the civilians starving, but she also gives the problem a face by including the sections with the Hernandez family and the children in the hospital.
Davis’s piece differs from the rest by focusing on one individual and a single event. As discussed in class, he Europeanizes Rodriguez so readers identify with him more. But also, by making a martyr out of him, he is able to make readers sympathize and admire him. Although David does refer to himself within the piece, he seems more like a side character in what is going on.
I think all these pieces show that there are many ways to approach one topic. With literary journalism you can arrange the facts in a particular way that will have more impact on the reader. It can expose things from angles that hard news doesn’t shed light on; bringing awareness to things that otherwise would be overlooked. It’s more personal, and I think the more personal something is, the more likely people will relate or sympathize with it.
Hi - wow - these totally slipped my mind. Will fill out a full response soon but off the top of my head, I'd say there is at least one common thread between these three pieces--not structurally, but in their purpose. All three attempt to bring the emotion of war in to the homes of people who've never seen war. Their writing serves as a trustworthy account because they write as if they are as normal and unsuspecting as their readers. It seems though that Herr has to be more transcending of pop culture--he has to give people a reason to read when they can just turn on the TV and watch or look at pictures. He has to try harder, and he does that by making his essay WAY more personal that Orwell or Davis's. He has to write in a way that is masterfully descriptive and emotional yet casual and conversational at the same time. Now that I think about it, it seems that the writer becomes more a part of the story from Davis to Orwell to Herr. Maybe that's because description and relaying of facts isn't what's needed anymore. We already have too many mediums that do that for us already. What we need is someone to let us know what it smells like, what the mood is, how the air tastes, etc.
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