Alex Lemme - "Relief"

"Relief" by Peter Ho Davies is a strange mix between horrific war stories and flashbacks and seemingly out of place sections fully about flatulence. It was interesting to see the interaction between gore and hilarity throughout the story. The initial formal setting and descriptions such as "taking a step back and dropping his arm in a flourish" also contrast starkly with vivid descriptions of the farts discussed at the event in sections such as "I'll die and my only lasting contribution to this life will be a fart in a confounded Latin class" 

Throughout the narration I couldn't help thinking about how accurately chosen the title was. The theme of relief is tied to the relief of surviving a war and the relief of farting, which provides comic relief in a story about the Zulu war. Weird but it works.

The third person narration provided insight into the objective hilarity of the flatulence stories being told as well as the war stories and their horror. Imagery such as "Wilby allowed a sweet but rather too boisterous fart to slip between his buttocks" and "thought again how really remarkably warm Private Williams's leg had felt" was in both cases used to involve the reader into the narration as well as set contrasting tones within one story.

Krista Smathers on "Orientation"

Daniel Orozco's piece, "Orientation" provides a brief, but telling description of office life through what can be interpreted as a third-person omniscient narrator.  At the beginning the narrator is clearly introducing a new employee to the workplace.  However, as the story continues, lines like, "John LaFountaine is harmless, his forays into the forbidden territory of the women's room simply a benign thrill, a faint blip on the dull flat line of his life," force readers to wonder if they are experiencing only the oral communications of the narrator.  Sentences like these, heavy with description and vocabulary not usually invoked in dialogues, lend to the opinion that readers may be reading unvoiced thoughts of either the narrator or the implied listener.  "Orientation" becomes more about the personal lives of the employees than instructional narration as it chugs along at a rhythmic, routine pace.  Everything about the writing style--repetition, didactic tone, pace--evokes normality.  However, if readers pay attention to what the words state, they conclude that the atmosphere is not as one-dimensional as it seems, as evidenced through the characterization of Anika Bloom and Kevin Howard.

Nina Godridge " Relief"

Hello everybody, it's Nina Godridge submitting an early review for this weeks readings. I don't know about you guys but I really enjoyed reading " Relief" by Peter Ho Davies. It was a funny start to the story with the line " ...too boisterous fart to slip between his buttocks." (120) Laughing hard at the imagery portrayed quite vividly. I think what made laugh the most about the entire story is how one man's fart starts a story. It literally starts with a description of a fart that then leads to another story about farts by Lieutenant Bromhead, well towards the end, but between that and then Wilby does recall the farts he was producing while on his horse. I felt so bad for the poor horse. There are all these scenes captured before hand to the initial opening scene with all the men sitting at the table eating, drinking port, and smoking cigars.
Now I am realizing that I am a child at heart, I am laughing at farts when they are completely normal bodily function. Everyone does them.
I really like the style of the perspective; the story is written in the third person so it's as if there is another entity telling the story of Wilby's fart and how it created a ripple effect at the dinner table with other men at his rank or above in this war. Also the flow of the story was excellent with the breaking spaces between past and present paragraphs. Overall, once we get to the end and have another laugh about farts in a classroom setting we end with Bromhead and his batman sipping on port and calling it a night. I just really loved the interlude between all these moments at the dinner table and looking back on past farts create this story about these heroes of war actually being human. They are heroes of war but they are like anybody else, they fart, they get embarrassed, they laugh and move on with their lives. And personally, if I wrote this story as much as " Relief" is an excellent title to tie in the story, why not call it " Sweet Relief"?

Tony's story- Vedica Bhasin

In this story, both setting and dialog collectively contribute towards characterization. The rural, village home that was the only place the character feels safe in, congested with family (“it was noisy again like it always was”) further comments on the social and economic background of the writer that allows the reader to better understand the protagonist. Simultaneously, the “highway” that connects the writer to what may be assumed as more developed areas (such as the Grants) may be symbolic of the comment being made about a central theme- racism. The helplessness and inaccessibility experienced by the writer (“I sat there besides Leon imagining what it was like before there were highways or even horses”) and the constant obstruction of his path manifests as the physical highway. The Dialog interjections, especially by the presumably minor characters provide further insights about the surroundings and the reputation of the characters, for instance, “Leon goes looking for trouble- I wish you wouldn’t hang out with him.” And “I like to beat Indians with this”. The first statement by the writers father provide a third parties perspective about the central character while the latter by the policemen makes a general comment about the theme of racism and discrimination. Additional information provided by dialog interjections helps build the potentially lost credibility of a limited first person narrative

"Tony's Story" - Leslie Marmon Silko

This is Cathy Lee.

Through the portrayal of unjustified police brutality and racism, the author delineates the systemic injustice experienced by the protagonist and his friend. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist distinguishes himself and his experiences clearly from the majority population (White Americans) by taking care to mention that Leon “[grabs his] hand and [holds] it tight like a white man” (p. 579). Subsequently, their race is what leads them to suffer at the hands of the racist policeman, who constantly refers to them as “Indian”, that is, by their race rather than their names, (p. 582, 583) and seems to relish in violence specific to their race, as expressed by his desire to “beat Indians with [his billy club]” (p. 583).

The policeman “never [says] anything” (p. 580) before he physically abuses Leon, which emphasises the injustice of the system Leon and the protagonist are forced to live under in America – he is unreasonable and his reasons for assaulting Leon go unjustified. Furthermore, the punishment hardly fits the crime; mere possession of alcohol should not warrant physical abuse. The policeman hence seems more like a bigoted bully with too much power, rather than an impartial law enforcer, from the beginning of the story. Following the incident, the protagonist’s friends consider Leon to be “lucky” (p. 580) for not suffering as many injuries as he could have. Even suffering physical abuse at the hands of an authority figure that is supposed to be impartial indicates how normalised police brutality has become, and how desensitised victims of police brutality have become.

Finally, the injustice of the system is arguably most evident, and most explicitly elucidated by the protagonist, on page 582. The protagonist fails to understand why Leon remains defiant, and why he is bent on the attainment of his rights, “because it [isn’t] “rights” that [the cop is] after” (p. 582), basic human rights that everyone in America rightfully should be entitled to, highlighting just how unjust the system is for people of their race.

"Female Trouble" - Alex Lemme

While being one of the longer stories we have read in this class, "Female Trouble" kept me interested until the very end. The aspect that struck me the most was the creation of such intricate foil characters. Daisy and Martha are described throughout the story in great detail and it is the presence of these descriptions that puts them against each other in their conflicting character traits. Daisy is described as delicate on more than one occasion in quotes such as "like a deer, pretty and skittish". An image that is carried through the story is Daisy's dandelion hair that is mentioned on the first page. On the other hand, Martha is described as maternal and strong in stark contrast with Daisy. Martha has "both feet on the ground". In the biblical sense, Martha is synonymous with "lady of the house", dominant, while "Daisy" is a more childish, delicate name.

“Tony’s Story” by Leslie Marmon Silko

Hi, this is Lucy Liang. Half a page into the story, which seemed like a happy reunion of two buddies, I was shocked by the overwhelmingly violent scene where the big cop punched Leon in the face, causing blood to bubble out of his mouth and nose, with no apparent reason other than Leon holding a bottle of wine. Combining the knowledge that they are in pueblo, a mainly Native American community, and the mentioning of tribal policemen vs. state cop, the reader is given some idea that this is a matter of ethnicity. Fear of the white man, the big cop, immediately became the focus of the story. Tony tells us that the big cop always wears black glass. This increases the fear because of the fear of the unknown, of what is behind those dark glasses. They are followed by the big cop and chased by their fear. They see him everywhere, even in Tony’s dream. There seems to be no escape, giving the reader the feeling of hopelessness. As the story goes on, Tony started referring to the big cop with a dehumanizing “it” instead of “he”. At first, I was a little confused by what it was, but it became clear that it is the cop. This shows the reader that the idea of the cop has become like a demon, a deadly spirit to Tony that explains Tony killing the cop but not feeling any fear from killing but instead, relief.