Morris Markey's literary journalism piece, "Drift," belongs to a genre referred to as "the procedural." To your mind, what characteristics of the piece make it an example of the genre? How does this help with or determine the structure/organization of the piece?
The piece has a noir-ish atmosphere. What is the connection of that atmosphere to the point or theme of the piece?
Remember, we're practicing good writing here, not just literary analysis. Your comments should be crisp and clear. Avoid generalizations, tortured syntax, and muddy language.
Your response is due by four p.m., Sunday, Feb. 6.
20 comments:
“Drift” is dramatic. It’s sort of like a TV sitcom about a morgue, and the people that work with the morgue who have to deal with societies rejected few. And in today’s episode nobody wants to claim poor “John Doe.”
When I read the story it seemed to have a sort of dark mood, it made me feel sad. The settings seem like they are places cursed by death, discouraging and depressing all those who are around them. From the morgue to ferry 48,277 is being passed down the line only to be dumped under ground and covered by dirt. But it’s more than that. There is a message here.
I really enjoyed how this story was set up. I felt like he did a good job with giving details about every little “scene.” It is procedural because he goes through every step, leaving no stone unturned. And come on, everybody wants to know what happens after you die, right? It flowed well and really showed some of the real life scenarios that people deal with: a police officer dealing with a woman searching for closure and hoping to find her missing son, the people chit-chatting about writing to the commissioner about new ramps while moving the rotting remains, and figuring out how to bury this man. It just shows that part of life is death. And to most of these people it’s just another day on the job.
The atmosphere is created by the natural feeling of sadness for our unidentified friend. But what gives it the noir-ish feeling is that all the characters are tough and gritty, and deal with this shitty job that would be too hard for many people to deal with.
I began to think that Markey was trying to tell the story that is never told. Without this beautiful portrayal of tragedy, this man’s death would have gone completely unnoticed. He was a pale white version of himself, toe-tagged with some grotesque number associated with death that the workers had become numb to. This man killed himself, and no one cared; except one reporter who I presume felt moved and saddened after spending so much time with this dead man. It came across to me as a testament to death, and the strength of the people that are strong enough to surround themselves with it.
In loose terms, the procedural genre relies on displaying a problem, investigating it, and solving it all in one specific amount of time. The best example of this sort of genre in the media world is “Law & Order” where the case is always presented in the beginning, investigated throughout the episode, and solved (or closed) by the conclusion. Morris Markey presents this sort of genre with “Drift;” he immediately presents the problem in the first sentence with Detective O’Keefe and his assignment at the Morgue. The search of the identification of Number 48, 227 would be the more specific problem to the piece and from there the investigation/realization that the body cannot be identified.
Markey offers a journey type of piece here – starting at the Morgue and going place to place until he ends at Police Headquarters. Also many of the conversations that O’Keefe fit into the procedural genre, like interviewing the superintendent and finding out about the woman from Indianapolis who thought the body was “her Willie.”
I would completely agree by saying that the piece has a noir-ish atmosphere. You can almost read it like everything is in black-and-white and the detective is in a suit, very suspicious and skeptical of what’s going. Very movie-like. I think this sort of atmosphere is perfect for the piece, bringing almost an eerie feeling to everything that is going on and really creating a setting. It enhances the theme of the piece because it adds to the mystery of the whole idea – unidentified bodies buried in a plot with “motionless companions.” Also, the fact that some people later claim the bodies and they are then moved to private cemeteries is not only quite disturbing but adds to the mystery of it all.
I see “Drift” as procedural because it both shows an up-close and wide view of a procedure that takes place every day in our society; yet few people know of its existence. In our world, everything becomes procedure. It spans from the largest procedures, such as an assembly line at a Ford factory, or the way we brush our teeth (from molars to the front, personally.) But it’s rare that we notice or take any time to think about the frequent absurdity about the way we do things. In “Drift,” Markey illuminates a procedure on a grand scale, the dumping of thousands of bodies, that few people probably knew about at the time. By giving the details such as the number of bodies there, he gives you an idea of the vastness of this procedure. But he also describes the plight of a specific body, which humanizes the story for the reader. We feel empathy for this lost person, who seemingly has no place to go, and is dumped in a pit with thousands of others like him.
Any time you open a piece with the details of a dead body, it’s going to almost automatically be set into that “noir-ish atmosphere.” It fits with the theme of the piece, because it shows how cold we can be in our procedures. It often seems the more procedure it becomes, the less it effects us on a human level. The employees who deal with thousands of dead bodies every week are, by this point, hardly effected by one lost corpse.
To be honest, I had to look up what the "procedural" genre was, but once I found the definition I knew that I had seen examples of it a million times before. "Drift" is definitely an example of the genre; the story begins with two detective type characters trying to determine Number 48,227's actual identity and why he committed suicide. Reading the story, I pictured a crime-drama on television, where you as presented with a mystery and follow the characters as they try to solve it. The twist in "Drift", however, is that the mystery at hand is bigger than figuring out why one person took his own life; Number 48,227 seems to serve as a microcosm for the urban individual during the Depression where people feel insignificant and helpless, and once they're dead the City strips them of whatever wealth they had leftover. I think structuring the story in this way is effective because it juxtaposes the procedure in solving the reasons for Number 48,227's suicide with the pointlessness of his actual death.
The noir-ish style of the writing creates a very dark, somewhat impersonal atmosphere in "Drift". Like I said before, the sequence of the story reminded me of an episode of 'Law and Order' in the way it treats this mystery of Number 48,227's death in such a technical, professional way. From the initial discovery of death, to transferring his status to the Medical Examiner's Office, to his burial (ending with his number engraved on his tombstone, not even his name) signifies the hum-drum quality of this specific case. We get the feeling of the the casualness of the whole process, which illuminates the theme of insignificance. The last line resonates powerfully, as we learnt hat in the end the only beneficiary from Number 48,227's death is the City itself, which in desperate need of money, and gains the leftover money. Overall, "Drift" is a great example of how style of atmosphere can illuminate the thematic elements in a story, as well as showing an accurate glimpse of the City life during the 1930s. A fun read, too.
“Drift” is part of the procedural genre because of it’s subject matter, and storyline. The story is essentially about taking care of a dead body within the government system,and the specific processes necessary, with a close up view of what happens from the morgue to burial.4 Markey starts with the person working in the morgue, Sergeant O’Keefe, who receives the “Release for Burial” for “Number 48,227.” Markey then follows Number 48,227 through the steps from that moment until burial. He also includes the exposition, the details behind the scene: the beginning when the body is found “....in a Tenth Avenue rooming house,” and the efforts and failure of trying to identify him. The subject determined the plot line from Morgue, to boat, to burial site. It also somewhat dictated where Markey could include the background; he chose to include those details of what Number 48,227 looked like, had in his possession, and may have been (the woman though he was her “Willie boy”) towards the beginning of the story, humanizing him before the burial. If he had done so after, it may have worked but would not have been as effective.
I think that the noir-ish atmosphere and the theme feed off one another. Right away “the Morgue” and the introduction of Number 48,227 and his Release for Burial create that dark, grim atmosphere. Markey gives a face to Number 48,227, he gives a sense of life to the man, and this humanization of him heightens the emotion in the article; it creates catharsis in the piece. Markey’s detail during the process of burial really created that sense of pity. He talks about going through “Hell Gate” and the “ancient engines chanted a dirge in monotone” and the flag is at half-mast. The sense of mourning is apparent, and continues as they arrive at “Hart’s Island,” and begin the routine burial. The characters that Markey encounters continue to treat Number 48,227 just the same as every other John Doe, and even the priest only briefly presides over the grave, giving a service undistinguishable from the other Catholics in Potter’s Field. However, Markey’s attitude towards the subject is different from the stoicism of those characters, and without the noir atmosphere, his driving point of humanity in death wouldn’t have been as strong and vice versa.
Well, it's a process. Technically, anything could be regarded as a "procedural" as long as it digs into the process of doing things. Crime happens to be really, really interesting, so the most prominent form of "procedural" stories are "crime procedural." "Drift" works because he follows the boring, tedious process of the action without making it horrendously BORING AND TEDIOUS. There's a lot of paperwork that goes on in "Drift," but Markey's details about the paperwork speak to a greater theme. That's how great procedurals work.
(I think I'm already starting to see a trend in the readings in this class, and how they focus on little things/events so intently that the details speak to a greater aspect of human nature. But that's just a hunch.)
Anyway, there's that great moment when some clerk finds out that 48,227 was wearing a scapular when he was found. And then there's this exchange about Catholicism and suicide that's really about Catholicism, faith, doubt, innocence, and doing the right thing. Which, as far as I know, is what Catholicism is all about.
But why should they bother? Who cares where they bury him? He's just John Doe 48,227. They care because who else is going to? It's sort of the antithesis to "Man Falls, Crowd Gathers." The big city does have those who care, and sometimes, sometimes, it's those actually employed to do so. "Drift" doesn't have to try hard to be noir, or noir-ish, or anything. It simply is due to its "hard-boiled" characters dealing with the overbearing loneliness that isn't even theirs, but in the end, really is.
I feel that Morris Markey’s “Drift” was written as an expose of the goings-on at the city Morgue. He wanted to write a story that revealed the procedures, and used Number 48,227 as his main character. I agree that the story has a noir-like tone. The opening scene reminded me of the old movies that started with a voiceover explaining why the protagonist was in a certain place. I think that the purpose of this writing style was to create a sense of mystery. As readers, we are supposed to wonder who Number 48,227 is, and if the woman from Indianapolis will ever find Willie. Many of these films were mysteries, so it’s an appropriate method of creating suspense. There’s also an element of tragedy in many classic films, which we find in the story as well. It’s sad to think of how many people that are “unidentified dead who carry no name into eternity.”
This easily fits into the procedural genre because it goes step-by-step into the identification process of dead bodies. Markey reveals that someone must come identify the body (not that it was ever a secret), and what happens if that identification is impossible. There are many other things going on in the story, but the main focus appears to be the way the Morgue handles cases.
So I thought about it for a little while, and I've come to realize that there are two, maybe more, procedures we are learning about in Morris Markey's "Drift." One is the structured "process of disposal" the city has established for unidentified dead bodies. The other is the kind of emotional process a viewer goes through while trying to put an name to a hollow face. Or maybe it could be described as "what people, within the social process and on the outside of it, do when a human dies and no one knows who he is." Some people, like the superintendent, just deal with it. He sends the dead body to be buried, because that's what he does every day in these types of situations. He's not jaded, though. He's not insensitive to the fact that this boy's death has caused others--a mother trying to find her "Willie,"--sorrow. It's like even the death of a stranger to the world can still bring the same kind of grief that any other passing would.
The connection of a noir-ish atmosphere to the theme of this piece is like the connection of a magnet to a refrigerator -- it's kind of unavoidable. He's presenting the truth of this situation, which is dark and real and cynical of the way the city conducts itself. Maybe it's not outwardly so, but you are certainly left with a sense that something more should be done to find out who this young guy is. Maybe it's because of the way he and the others dead are described. They're not dead bodies, they're "motionless companions." Gives you a feeling that they still have souls, living.
There's one passage though, where I can just see the black and white video footage. The passage about his trip up the east river after leaving the city hospital. He's looking out of the window and noticing the shimmer on the oil-infested river, the patches of grass between the steel buildings. You get the sense that after seeing so many dead, the writer is clinging to anything with a presence of life or nature. The always beautiful buildings, he says, are benign. Then he is welcomed to Hell.
I know very little about the procedural genre. When I look the term up I keep finding sentences that read, “a sequence of technical detail.” Keeping this in mind, wouldn’t each paragraph of the piece be a good example of the genre? Each paragraph has a series detail that helps to give the reader a clearer picture of Number 48,227, the Morgue, or the time period the piece takes place in. Markey focuses on the surface details, which I would also associate with the procedural genre. It gives concrete facts to allude to a more important truth about a character. An example of this is found on page 94, when Number 48,227 is describes as having “hands not accustomed to manual work.” The sentence itself is short, but it tells the reader a lot. From this description alone we can determine that he (Number 48,227) wasn’t employed in hard labor, meaning he may have been of a higher social class.
Superficial details like these can help to shed light on characters in a more natural way. Instead of having a page or chapter dedicated to describing a person, the author gives little, but important, facts, that help shape the character. It also helps to keep the pace of the story going. In the paragraphs that don’t deal with Number 48,227, Markey gives at least one detail which allows him to smoothly connect back to the character in the following paragraph.
The theme of “Drift” seems to be detachment. The noir atmosphere appears adds to the idea that this depressing scene is “all in a days’ work,” for those at the Mortuary department. As readers, we feel sad for this unclaimed person, but Markey appears to be shedding light on the disconnect between the workers and the people they bury. He accomplishes this by not giving the readers any descriptions of feelings, or regret from the characters in the story. The piece itself speaks to the detachment of those who work at the Mortuary department.
“Drift” begins by setting the scene and introducing the reader to the problem of the story, which is the first step of the procedural. The “problem” of the story is the unidentified dead body known only as Number 48,227. The next step of the procedural is to investigate the problem and solve it. Markey does this by taking the reader through a journey in the investigation process. The procedural method reminds me of shows like CSI and Forensic Files where the focus of the storyline is immediately presented at the start of the show and then it is investigated and solved all within the time period of one episode. In literature, the procedural helps determine the structure/organization of the piece because the reader knows the problem being presented to them at the start will be solved by the end of the story. Every detail throughout the story is brought back to the problem which was presented in the first few paragraphs. The reader learns about the problem throughout the story and expects the ending to provide a conclusion to why the problem happened. In this case, the reader finds out that the body is still unidentified in the end. I found the ending to be interesting because I was curious about what would happen to the money left behind by Number 48,227. It was a minor detail in the story that made for a good ending because it shows the next step in the process of the investigation therefore it also follows the procedural.
The noir-ish atmosphere is definitely derived from the subject which is the unidentified dead body. The tone of the piece is serious and slightly dark as it goes into detail about this process in the morgue.
"Drift" is an example of the procedural genre because of Markey's attention to the sequential technical details of the burials at Potter's Field, namely a burial of one who is unidentified. Markey takes us, chronologically, from the Morgue all the way to the City Treasury absorbing the unidentified man's money, after he is buried and Riverside has returned from ushering the dead. The procedural genre keeps events in the order they happen, making following a story simpler. After reading the story through once I figured that Markey had strayed from the procedure of the burial to give the reader details about 48,227. Looking back, I realized that he stayed in the procedural genre by telling us the information on the "Release for Burial" slip. The procedural resembles a time line.
The superintendent has the cynical view the noir genre embodies. He The circumstances of the room 48,227 was found dead in also exudes the sleazy atmosphere film noir is known for. The bleak details of this death mirror the bleak genre of noir. I can completely see these events happening in a black-and-white film, and of course it's raining.
Noir has a very dark intensity. I love when the line when then ship is passing through Hell Gate. Markey writes, "Deep in the hold, the ancient engines chanted a dirge in monotone." Perhaps this is the dirge for those who were not Catholic, who did not get a blessing as they were lowered into the ground.
Like Pete, I had to at first explore what the true meaning of a procedural text was, after my exploration via google I put together my own understanding of it. I agree that "Drift" is a true example of “the procedural” genre. The keys words in this cocktail of definitions were technical details, heightened narrative interest, and facts. “Drift” has all of these.
The organization of the piece which is in a way “solving a mystery” is shaped by these characteristics. The writer takes the reader on a detailed and exciting journey to find the truth of a situation. Although this story doesn't solve the mystery of who number 48,227 is, it solves the mystery of what happens to all these unidentified bodies and why in a bigger sense. I’m not sure if I’m familiar with other procedural stories but in the case of “Drift” I think that it was a very effective structure. I was entertained and enlightened.
I would have to agree with the past statement of “The connection of a noir-ish atmosphere to the theme of this piece is like the connection of a magnet to a refrigerator -- it's kind of unavoidable.” At the end of the piece when the burial aspect of the unidentified bodies is revealed there is really no way to go around the theme of the corrupted, erie, sad times that people were living in. The bodies that are being spoken about are life less in many ways. The mystery of the dead that will never be solved.
This piece left me feeling skeptical yet informed about the times.
The entire journalistic piece created by Morris Markey is an example of this man executing his job to the true to the direction that was given to him by his boss: “roam the city and write down what you see”. As Morris traveled the city searching for topics of interest, he encountered Number 48,227 allowing him to becoming a witness to the perpetual process the city must go through to bury unidentifiable corpses. The progression of the plot can also attest to the notion considering this genre to be procedural, we begin the story in the morgue and only begin to move throughout the plot as the workers complete the prerequisite stages to burying unidentifiable people. Slowly after these seemingly tedious tasks are accomplished does Markey begin to reveal the final resting place of Number 48,227.
The procedural genre seems to be a genre where the stories follow a sequence of events and this only makes sense due to the fact that with procedure comes process. The fact that the unidentifiable body is referred to as Number 48,227 also gives the whole atmosphere of the story a procedural process. The nor-ish atmosphere created in the story could be because the context of the story evolves death and the end of a forsaken human life.
"Drift" by Morris Markey is classified as a procedural piece because the progression of the story is very clear cut. Markey starts off by explaining the process for trying to identify, and bury bodies in New York City in 1931. The story tehn details the amount of bodies that come through the morgue, and where they go. The next step in the story brings us to the boats that float down the East River, through Hells Gate, and into Hart's Island where the bodies are finally laid to rest. Another obvious reason this can be classified as a procedural is because you learn almost nothing about Sergeant O'Keefe or any other character, besides their job description. Many procedural novels, shows and movies lack character progression and instead focus on strictly " business."
When I was reading the piece I imagined this was all occuring late at night, until the author said " the green lawns between the prisons and the hospitals on Welfare Island were bright in sunshine," which is the last image I would imagine when reading this. The term film noir is usally applied to a film about some sort of death, and a police officers role in it. The mood he created is perfect for the story, because thinking about a man being buried without any recognition from the outside world, is a eerie, unpleasant thought.
I will admit that I am very unfamiliar with the concept of a "procedural genre" although it is self-explanatory, now having heard it. If a procedural story is meant to take a reader on a journey, from scene to scene, then Markey has accomplished doing this in "Drift".
The reader is instantly dropped into the core of the story, where a detective is expected to identify a nameless soul, Number 48,227. (I have immediately encountered the noir-like vibe of this story. Nothing is creepier than knowing there is close to 50,000 faceless corpses.) As the body is transitioned from the morgue to the deep burial trenches, we are still faced with the prime conflict. Though the story progresses, no vital information is ever discovered about this man's identity (with the exceptions of his "fortunate" decision in becoming a Roman Catholic and reserving a seat for eternity, in comfort). I perceive a procedural story to eventually come to a conclusion, and if we are to compare the procedural story to a CSI or Law & Order episode, then why has there been no "solution" or "conclusion", if you will?
This brings the story to the noir reference. There is a certain gloom and drama that lingers in these short pages that remind me of old noir-films, where the scene is always mysterious and dark and questions go unanswered. I felt odd towards the casualty of tossing unidentified corpses around like sacks of potatoes, like it was just another day in the world. But-as in many noir stories-death IS just another thing and another day in the world.
I believe that "Drift" fits into "the procedural" genre because of it's descriptive clauses and the tale-like structure. Although the piece does have crime theme involved, I feel that the piece is really a journey story. It is structured like a journey, as the other stories we had read were. But this piece is not about the journey of the author but about the journey of the nameless corpse to his final resting place.
"Drift" has a very noir feel because of it's dark plot. The man being buried is identified only as number 48,227. No one knows his identity and the description Markey gives of the man is so ordinary that it adds to anonymity of the man. The dark way in which the settings are described adds to the noir mood of the piece. For example when Markey describes the other "unclaimed" bodies in the room, he does it without sympathy. Especially in he following paragraph when he describes the ways in which they might have died. He puts apart the Roman Catholics which he repeatedly does throughout the piece. I believe that this a way of drawing a line between the dark and the light, the pitted and the forgotten(and perhaps even heaven and hell.) This is why Markey includes the part about where number 48,227 belongs. Although they believe he committed suicide, the morticians main dilemma in the piece is not identifying the man but placing him where he belongs. Does he deserve to go to heaven or hell?
First and foremost, an acknowledgement of my late response to this post, and a congratulations to my fellow classmates who had the wherewithal to answer on time. Apologies.
Ahem. "Drift" by Mr. Morris Markey was a very interesting read, and it is not wrong to classify it as a procedural piece. I found the piece to be quite engaging, and so much like a script or story that i forgot it was news. (which is a good thing) Not that news is bad, but the essence of "story" was so well weaved in, I forgot that this was actually a piece about two officers solving an investigation.
Because the piece is "procedural" the structure is pretty cut and dried, but it thankfully was able to avoid seeming too contrived. (rhyme) The piece was given a large enough play pen that, though the cage walls were present in the overall flow of the story, it had more than enough room to move around within, and it's barriers were forgotten.
I thought of Shutter Island immediately. Two detectives, on an island, solving a mystery. Minus the Boston accent, crazy wife, and Leonardo Dicaprio, it was almost kind-of like the same thing. Noir it is.
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