Answers to Questions on Meaning and Technique (472)
Anecdotes are always an excellent way to capture the reader’s attention. The fact that the narrator calls the woman a “victim” makes the reader want to find out what happened because we are always fascinated with people who have been victimized. Ironically, in this case, the real victim was the narrator, who was totally misjudged. Later on in the essay we find out that pedestrians, especially women are often frightened by black males whom they encounter on deserted, dark streets.
The details add believability to the scene. Since the narrator is described as tall, with a beard and billowing hair, he does cut a rather fearsome figure. Allow the females in the class to discuss how they might have reacted under similar circumstances.
Staples’ primary purpose is to get across to his readers what it is like, as a black man, to be in public places at certain times, especially at night. He wants to describe in detail the irrational fear a passerby may feel when encountering a black man. Staples is writing in order to gain understanding from the reader. He probably knows that it takes time for society to stop having irrational fears of people who are different in color or looks from them. But by describing several incidents in which he was mistaken for a criminal just because he was black, he hopes to educate the reader to be tolerant. We think he hopes that when we are confronted by a person who looks different from us, we will not immediately attribute evil motives to that person, but will judge the situation intelligently.
In the last sentence of paragraph 3 he specifically refers to “policemen, doormen, bouncers, cab drivers, and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome individuals before there is any nastiness.”
The author’s definition is how people react physically and emotionally when they are afraid. In this essay, they start walking faster; they cross the street; or they try to protect themselves with a dog when they believe they are confronting a dangerous person. You might have students discuss how they react to persons from the Middle East since the suicide bombings of 2001 and on.
Indeed, statistics and news stories are grim evidence that the streets of most large cities are not completely safe for anyone vulnerable to criminal attacks. In recent years, parents have become especially watchful of their children because so many little girls have been kidnapped and murdered, grabbed by a total stranger with homicidal compulsions. Discuss how neighborhoods can make their streets safe without profiling certain cultures or races.
Allow students to discuss this question, especially the aspect of self-esteem. Let them consider what their city, college, church, or family is doing to improve tolerance in their communities.
The conclusion is effective because it injects a bright note into an otherwise somber text. Additionally, the narrator’s ruse of whistling “bright, sunny” tunes while walking at night probably works since it is true that most night strollers would not expect a mugger to be whistling tunes from Vivaldi’s compositions.
Factors cited by most sociologists and politicians are the following: 1) poverty that leads many blacks to desperation, 2) lack of education that keeps many blacks ignorant and thus unable to achieve middle or upper class status, 3) working mothers who are unable to give their children the supervision they need to grow up in a secure environment. Other factors can be cited. See if your students can think of some.
The tone seems to reflect some anger, but mostly dismay and resignation about a situation that exists and cannot be changed dramatically any time soon. For anger, see paragraph 11; for dismay and resignation, see paragraphs 2 and 11.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Answers
War Luigi Pirandello
Answers to Quiz
d, a, d, a, a
Answers to Questions on Meaning and Technique (479) 1. All the high flown phrases about the glory of dying for one’s country lose their meaning entirely when one is confronted with the reality of losing one’s son in a war.
2. The fat man pretends that children do not belong to their parents but are destined for noble contributions to society, perhaps even to die for their nation. He waxes eloquent about the glory of sacrificing a son in the war, claiming that young men who die in a war die happily, having escaped the ugly sides of life. He even claims (paragraph 21) that he feels no unhappiness at his son’s death, that he does not even wear mourning for his son. In fact, however, he has not yet faced the death of his son, and when he suddenly realizes that his son is actually dead, he breaks into uncontrollable sobs.
3. The conflict lies in the difference between the attitudes toward war of the fat man whose son has just died and the woman whose son has just been called to service. It is also mirrored in the fat man’s professed attitude toward the war versus his secret grief over the loss of his son.
4. The woman asks him, “Then is your son really dead?” She does this to reassure herself, but this seemingly incongruous question completely destroys the fat man’s steadiness.
5. When the fat man is first introduced in paragraph 15, he is described as a “red-faced man with bloodshot eyes of the palest gray.” This detail suggests that the man is not at ease but has spent some sleepless nights.
6. Allow for open discussion.
Dooley Is a Traitor James Michie
Answers to Quiz
a, b, c, d, a
Answers to Questions on Meaning and Technique (482)
He objects to war because it requires that a man kill in cold blood. Dooley himself has been in jail for murder, but it was murder as a result of personal anger. He killed with passion and vengeance because he held a personal grudge against the man he killed. He finds it morally intolerable to kill unknown masses of people in an impersonal way and for an abstract idea.
He argues that fighting a war on behalf of one’s country is fighting for principles that are “sanctioned by God, led by the Church, against a godless, churchless nation!”
Dooley summarizes the New Testament incident where Christ chased some evil spirits out of a man and had them enter a herd of pigs, which then threw themselves over a cliff. The implied lesson is that Christ did not declare war in which entire nations kill each other off in a coldly calculated, premeditated manner.
He admits without hesitation that he’d knock the enemy's brains out. This is consistent with Dooley's view that killing for personal reasons is excusable while impersonal killing is not.
Dooley’s logic is mad logic, but Dooley makes more sense in his madness than the judge who argues by repeating set phrases and standard suppositions.
No one wins—all lose in the end because all are doomed to die eventually. But Dooley would rather be shot as a deserter and have a clear conscience than kill or be killed in a war.
Allow for open discussion.
The fact that Dooley has killed before adds authenticity and belief to his opposition to war. It also underscores his attitude toward war: that it involves cold-blooded killing rather than killing done in a state of intense passion.
The Case Against Man Isaac Asimov
Answers to Quiz
a, d, b, c, a
Answers to Questions on Meaning and Technique (501)
His argument is that we must start using birth control now. He states this point explicitly in the final paragraph. Doing so allows him to present first all the evidence he needs to convince the reader that future life is unthinkable if our population is allowed to grow unchecked.
We will reach the stage of planetary high rise with no animals but man, no plants but algae, no room for even one more person (see paragraphs 28 and 35.)
He states that just as cells out of control in the human body (cancer) can destroy a human life, so any organism growing out of control would eventually destroy the larger system of life it belongs to.
They are both intricately interrelated systems. Both are made up of nonliving as well as living portions. Loss of any part will affect the whole.
They add authority and also an element of horror as the reader follows the mathematical growth explosion.
We are not ready to send 80 million people per year to another planet. We could not engineer those worlds to sustain that many people.
