Refective Essay

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Reflective Essay

I decided to form my interpretive and rational course of writing in my essay reflecting Josh Neufeld’s “A.D. New Orleans after the Deluge,” to focus in my essay an in-depth analysis of the catastrophic magnitude of human shock and suffering that occurred in the face of the unbelievably lack of needed response provided to actual American citizens.  It was hard for me to admit and therefore, try to convey in my writing that the vast majority of these victims subjected to the vilest and horrendous condition were literally all poor African-Americans.  Unfortunately, this indeed was the reality in true life when Hurricane Katrina did in actuality occur in 2005, causing massive destruction and death. 

Accordingly, Neufeld made no attempt to hide or conveniently camouflage this fact of the preponderance of a double standard or racial and economic divide in his illustrated cartoon characterizations depicted.  In fact, Neufeld made no mention in his cartoon of Hurricane Katrina, but instead on every page just provided the reader with the date being Thursday, September 1, 2005.  As a result, the reason for these unfortunate peoples’ plight in Neufeld’s comic book presentation was not the actual storm, but the callous and cruel neglect provided to them by their own government and law enforcement authorities, who were all white and instead of helping the black masses simply kept them contained in almost visual amusement, when two police officers in their car depicted by Neufeld announced to the beleaguered and dismayed victims, “the busses are on their way, get yourselves lined up” (Neufeld 219).

Therefore, I found great difficulty in equating this preponderance of neglect in the light of so much suffering and the proclivity of senseless violence sporadically occurring between individual victims for whatever type morsel of survival one could obtain from another.  As a result, my difficulty in writing this essay was to provide a balance and rational viewpoint in light of the obvious imbalance and irrationality expressed in the sordid scenes of filth, disregard for the suffering of human beings and their total despair expressed when one of Neufeld’s main characters proclaimed of the total lack of help they were receiving, “We got people dying’ here, and they roll by with their goddamn guns pointed in our faces” (Neufeld 226).  It would appear that Neufeld’s “A.D. New Orleans after the Deluge,” clearly expressed racial and economic undertones of social injustice in America.  Worst is the fact that this was not fictional cartoon but what actually took place for far too many weeks in New Orleans. 

As a result, I experienced great difficulty in presenting a written interpretation of Neufeld’s A.D. New Orleans after the Deluge,” that would be provide a justifiable balance of reasoning in my personal interpretations and focuses of attention.  All I could do was to the best of my ability, attempt to make my readers understand the reasonings and justifications of why I personally believed Neufeld’s had from the beginning of his comic-like article, immediately engulf the reader in a visual scenario of dire degradation on the level of a poverty stricken Third World country. 

I went on to attempt to critically interpret Neufeld’s main message conveyed through his comic by means of interjecting and adding where I felt appropriate and associative, in-text citations voiced by Neufeld’s main characters, in which he seemed to give more voice to than the many other voiceless but nonetheless, memorable tragic character victims.  It was a number of these verbal expressions of emotions ranging from intense anger to desperateness that cemented in worded definition the seemingly unexplainable human horror that Neufeld terrifyingly depicted in equally frightening accuracy of detail.

These shocking depictions quickly gave way by page 218 to an even more alarming larger pictorial portrayal of mass hysteria. This mass hysteria was visually on a level that was extremely frightening even for a comic.  It was here that I did my best to express to the reader as clearly as I could explain my controlling purpose in all of this unbelievably happening to Americans in America. 

I felt this was one of the main factors that mattered to Neufeld, as I was also greatly incensed by it as well, and I did my best to respond to what I felt mattered most in Neufeld’s argument visually and verbally expressed in this most both shocking and heartbreaking comic.  My ensuing concerns will remain in my trying to provide in my final essay a well-rounded and writing that will be in balance with my Neufeld’s objectives in alignment to my personal interpretations and focuses of attention.

Hence I tried to comprehensively integrate Neufeld’s visual depictions, limited worded dialogue to define his purpose, context, medium and intended audience.  Although it has dawned on me after reading and writing about this assigned-subject comic, that Neufeld really needed no verbal wording in this comic whatsoever.  For it was Neufeld’s pure mastery of cartoon illustration that made abundantly clear the depth of grave seriousness of human suffering depicted in it.  This I feel was this comic’s true message that Neufeld was successful in visually conveying to the reader to bring about greater attention and resolution that this type of needless tragedy should never happen again and possibly a greater realization, that we are our brother’s keeper.

   The factors of importance and attention for me in undertaking the writing my essay focusing on Tom Junod’s “The Falling Man” was first its surreal affinity to fate but in further pondering upon it now since I wrote my essay, I find that it clearly proves that as the old adage that ‘truth is stranger than fiction.  As a result, I tied the factor of fate to this riveting article written by Junod. For example, the hauntingly mesmerizing photograph of the falling man.  It’s seemingly unreal and thus retouched and/or photographically fabricated enhanced appearance clearly becomes unforgettable when it is realized that this was but a single frame within the fall of a man that took his life horribly.  Interestingly enough, this fall in reality had to have taken on many positions of this man’s’ body as it turned over and over in many detailed positions before smashing helplessly to the ground.  Yet this one most eerie frame isolated is profound in its visually capturing the release of an individual struggle to survive and acceptance of meeting his death seemingly, unafraid and almost composed.

For me, this unforgettable photograph clearly encapsulated the last terrifying moments of not only the predestined fate of this lone individual but the tragically fated of the lives of not only the masses of victims who were forced to jump from New York’s Twin Towers to their deaths, but the hundreds of eye witnesses who were mesmerized in frozen stark horror watching individuals after individuals plunge to their death, as well as seeing these skyscrapers explode and collapse knowing they had friends and family members inside dying in the holocaust of explosion and fire.

     In this article, Junod appeared to me to exhibit a most profound literary acuteness in his most unique style of separating each of his sections of writing like individual vignette-like short essays unto themselves.  Each of these vignettes depicted visual descriptions emanating from differing adjacent nearby locations to where this tragedy was taking place.  Junod compounded to his in-depth analysis of this tragedy by added the verbal accounts provided by varying individual eyewitness’ personal evaluations of what they personally viewed and experienced in horror to utter disbelief. 

In accordance, I strived to relay in my essay a credible display of interpretive reflection that defined my sense of these factor of disbelief to a very real horror going on in reality that tragically took place on that day.  In so doing, I found difficult in trying to decide in which direction and manner I should personally define the gripping horrors expressed in the horrific testimonies of the eyewitnesses.  My difficulty lay in accomplishing in my essay my independent reflective personal feelings and viewpoints, while also being aligned in correct interpretation with some assemblance of definable association to what was expressively described by Junod when he wrote such poignant reflections exceptionally encompassing this tragedy in concise conveyance when he wrote, “The resistance to the image - - to the images - - started early, started immediately, started on the ground.  A mother whispering to her distraught child a consoling lie: “Maybe they’re just birds, honey” (Junod 72). 

          In closing, I can only say that my personal cognitive tasks to decipher what I was reading in these two most profound writings, took my ability to first – reflectively, then constructively, critically and strategically think, in order to correctly sense what I had to do to complete my assigned task at hand in writing my essays relating to them.  My writings about the assigned readings took my ability to reflectively, constructively, critically and strategically use my critical thinking in deciphering in critical thinking of what I was reading, and then how I was going to constructively organize my writing in subsequently deciding upon what I was going to specifically write about in relationships to them.  All of this didn’t happen like an unexplained and thoughtless chain-reaction of events, but from my deliberate and methodical process of reflective, critical and strategic thinking, just as it must have did for authors such as Josh Neufeld and Tom Junod whose writings are within academia and who therefore, had to utilize their abilities of critical thinking to successfully orchestrate the insightful conveyances of knowledge through their astute literary works.  Thus, I have truly learned to understand that the reading and writing skills that went into my two subject-essays would have been impossible without the inclusion of the process of my maintained controlling purpose of reflective, critical and strategic thinking and reflective interpretation skills. 

 

Works Cited

Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” First Year Composition Reader.  Boston,

MA: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011.

Neufeld, Josh. “A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge.”  First Year Composition

          Reader.  Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011.