Working Thesis:
In A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge, Neufeld uses astounding
shock of the unbelievable events to show the magnitude that Katrina had on New
Orleans people. Also, the placement of the masses crowd in yellows and oranges
help Neufeld’s readers feel the heat, suffering and pain of the people. Neufeld
shows how harsh conditions such as being lost, tired, thirsty, and exhausted
can change people, make them paranoid and push them to react in a cruel way yet
it doesn’t destroy them and instead charity and goodness can still break
through.
Even though Neufeld avoided politics in his comic, it can
easily be felt in its images, of large-scale destruction, and of outraged and
desperate citizenry who believe themselves abandoned by their government and
through its characters' expressively turn into faces, streaming with sweat and
twisted in pain to make it the worst natural disaster they have ever
experienced.
Hi Mohammad - wow great comments in this post. I can already see your interpretation in full swing here. I see this statement as the key thesis: "In A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge, Neufeld uses astounding shock of the unbelievable events to show the magnitude that Katrina had on New Orleans people." What I like about this sentence is that it's concise, it mention the author and title, and it highlights a specific strategy that (I think) is broad enough to develop in a 3-page paper. After this sentence, you then give some comments that I think could work well if you develop them into full paragraphs in your essay. For example, the color scheme is worthy of some analysis, and I could see how the depiction of heat with warm colors and squiggly lines contributes to the "shock" that readers feel and that the victims felt that day on September 1, 2005. Also your idea of "goodness breaking through" will need more development; I'd like to know what examples you can find to show readers this goodness, and then I'd be curious to know why Neufeld feels compelled to depict "goodness" in his characters.
ReplyDeleteAwesome phrasing: "streaming with sweat and twisted in pain." That description is so vivid and moving, I could see any reader being engaged even if someone had never seen the comic or even heard about Hurricane Katrina.
One last point: I think if you look at the discussion between the couple in the car on page 231, this seems to be a very political scene in the comic. The characters are listening to what is probably a "political" talk show, and they are discussing issues such as financial disparity, apparent racism, and divisions amongst people in a supposedly unified America. I think all these things sound political to me. You might think about how you could fine-tune your idea that Neufeld "avoids" or heavily veils politics in his essay, since it seems to me that he is dealing with politics (racism, stereotypes, inadequate law enforcement/government response, economic issues) directly. Perhaps your point could be clarified by saying that Neufeld chose to write his ideas in a comic rather than a polemical, long-winded essay that would make him stand on a political soap-box.