Assignment 3.4.Pt.1-Feedback Focus Areas

Mohammad Ashkanani

Professor: Rachael Sullivan

English 101

24 October 2011

Critical Interpretive Essay: “A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge”

by

Josh Neufeld

           

My attempt in draft form to personally interpret Josh Neufeld’s “A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge” began with the emphasis placed on my introduction.  This was because in my introduction, I attempted to make my readers understand the reasonings I felt why Neufeld’s had from the beginning of his comic, immediately engulfed the reader in a visual scenario of dire degradation on the level of a poverty stricken Third World country. 

These initial 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.

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.

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.

 

Works Cited

Neufeld, Josh. “A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge.”  First Year Composition Reader.  Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011.

New Orleans

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. 

New Orleans

Statement of Purpose:

Hurricane Katrina stands as one of the greatest failings of the government role in rescuing New Orleans residents, where they left them struggling to survive; therefore, the mismanagement of the government toward such huge disaster, made it as much worse humanitarian disaster than it could have been.

New Orleans After the Deluge

 1.      Notice and Focus:

In page 216, when the woman entered the toilet and saw the toilet full of dirt and another woman doing her needs in the middle of it.

In page 220, when the people saw the writing on the moving truck “Poland Spring” and started to follow it begging for help to get a small drop of water.

In page 223, how the writer highlighted with the guy how came to separate the two fighting men with a different color than the rest of the drawing.

In page 224, the page with empty space and one speech balloon draws an attention on the guy and his daughter by explaining her situation and making the reader guessing what will come next.

In page 225, the drawing of the father and his daughter on the whole page, their facial expression, postures and gestures, makes the reader focus on the tragedy and the reason behind the father reaction when seeing the water bottle with the other man.

The last panel in page 229 has no boarder, perhaps to show the suffering of the mother and her baby. Also, their facial expression, postures and the daughter expression which is wrote in bold, different font style and different color than the rest of the texts indicate how much they are suffering from the heat and the thirstiness.

In page 230, the drawing of the woman pointing out more than the rest of the people, in order to show the picture of their suffering.

In page 234, the picture of the people faces is interesting, how all the faces are drawn close to each other, starting from bigger focused face to far smallest one, all to show the suffering of those people.

1  2.      Patterns:

a  a)      List of repititions:

·         Buses: 7

·         Lined up: 2

·         Water: 9

·         God: 4

·         People: 5

·         Houston: 2

·         Fuckers: 2

·         Help: 3

·         Shit: 4

·         Folk: 3

b  b)      Strands:

·         Twice/second

c  c)      Organizing contrasts:

·         Yesterday/today

·         Beautiful/Sewer

I believe the repetition ‘Water’ to be the most significant for arriving at ideas about what the text communicates. It is shown in most of the speeches to express the people need and how much they are suffering and how far they are going in order to satisfy their thirst, where they are begging and fighting with each other for a small drop of it.

1 3.      Anomalies:

In my opinion, Josh Neufeld seemed to avoid the government part in the story. He didn’t clarify their point view toward the issue and the reason of their reaction behind their reaction. I believe that the missing part opens up to make room for compelling new ideas; this allows one to understand and evaluate the ideas more effectively. 

The statement of purpose for " Back To The Land "

The statement of purpose:

In “Back to the land”, Kalman encourages city residence to change the way of growing food and eating habits which will help to improve health and develop a better family relationships, which could be achieved by finding the missing part of democracy that has been lost long time ago, the democracy of healthy eating. Kalman uses her experience in visiting organic farms in California and showing how healthy, naturally and tasty the food is from these farms. Also, the placement of the edible schoolyard program in a middle school in Berkeley help Kalman’s readers understand that introducing old habits to kids make them  understand the concept of healthy food ,encourage them to  work with each other,  and be with their family  , which will eventually lead  to a better social environment.

Thesis statement for " Back To The Land "

Thesis statement:

Living  in a fast growing world lead us to tend to bad food habits and weakness the strength of family relationships, therefore, we should shift to a new modified way that consist of the beauty of the past and the need of the present.

Student's Kingdom

The earth is a place of billions of other places on it. each place have it's one goers with its own activities. Students have their place too, and it called The University. Universities is a usual place for students where they can learn, develop their skills and maybe having some fun.

Universities have many parts and the most important part is the university's library. When you first enter the library you will notice that it is a really huge and very quiet place. The color match of the walls, roof, and the floor makes you feel more comfortable, concentrate and quiet. Most of the walls there made from glass so you can see through it and you don't feel that your are separated from the world. There is a huge number of computers connected to the internet to meets your needs if you want to search the internet for some information or online books, and there is a lot of shelves filled with different text books if you need so. Study rooms are provided in the library for a group of people who are studying the same subject.

If you need a higher level of quietness you can try the second and the third floor, there are many study tables with comfortable chairs and of course huge shelves with textbooks. The lighting in the library is really perfect for studying. People who provided the library with lights, made a really good job by providing a perfect lighting color and brightness.