991094454 3
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.
