Tommy Ireland
Dr. Ellis
Understanding Literature
14 February 2013
Event Analysis Part 3
My
event that I attended was Helen Benedict’s talk on February 5th 2013
and in this paper I am comparing freedom between Helen’s talk and Edgar Allen
Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” Thomas Lynch’s “Liberty,” and John Ciardi’s
“Suburban.” Freedom found in all four of
these works gives the reader/viewer a sense of choice. By this I mean that you get to see how the
narrators or characters get to choose their own path. This is important in literature because you
get to see how the author reacts to their environment and makes decisions. You get to see what the author is thinking
and the outcome of their choice. This
will be clarified with examples later on.
The
talk given by Helen had the idea of freedom all throughout her speech,
specifically, through the women who were soldiers that were raped. This topic was extremely moving and
graphic. I had absolutely no idea that
this was occurring all throughout the world.
The way freedom connects with rape is that the women had the freedom to
speak out. Some women did actually. She told the audience how some of the women
tried to reach out and report what happened.
Most of the time the women were either not believed or the person they
were telling about the sexual assault knew the person who committed the crime
and brushed it aside. Freedom plays a
role here in two ways. The first is with
the women. They have the choice to
either not speak out or speak out about the crimes. The people they report to also can either
tell others or not tell others. It
merely ends up being a choice of whether or not to do something about it. Freedom is important here because acting on
injustices upon this is the first step in stopping horrible crimes such as
these.
“The
Cask of Amontillado” involves freedom as well.
One example in this piece is found in the very first line of the
work. “The thousand injuries of
Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I
vowed revenge.” Montresor, who is the
narrator, starts the story off vowing revenge upon Fortunato. This involves freedom because Montresor
chooses to vow revenge and later on in the story acts upon this. He has a choice to either let go whatever Fortunato
has done to him or feed into his anger and act upon it. This is important because it allows the
reader to speculate what would possibly happen if the characters decided to do
another action. Freedom for the
characters give the audience an interest in the work and makes them want to
keep reading more and more.
“Liberty” involves
freedom also. One example in this work
is found, strangely enough, in the first few lines as well. “Some nights I go out and piss on the front
lawn as a form of freedom-liberty from porcelain and plumbing and the Great
Beyond beyond the toilet and sewage works.”
This line even has the word freedom in it. The narrator talks about choosing to go
outside and urinate on his front lawn.
The narrator has a choice either to use the restroom in his house or go
outside and urinate. The narrator
chooses to go outside. These lines are
important because if the narrator did not have the freedom to go outside to
urinate, he would have never went on a tangent about how his “great-great-grandfather
bargained” to get two trees and placed them in between the house and
garden. Since the narrator had the
freedom, he went outside and got to tell a great story about some history of
his family and the trees.
Lastly, “Suburban”
involves freedom. One example in this
work is found in the second stanza. “I
thought to ask, “Have you checked the rectal grooving for a positive
I.D.?”” This involves a great deal of
freedom as well. The narrator says that
she thought about saying this. She has the
freedom to go about saying this, but ends up choosing to say “Yes Mrs.
Friar. I understand.” These lines are important because it actually
shows the words and thoughts of the narrator and what she would have said if
she chose to do so. It gives the
audience the image of what could be said and allows them to imagine the
possible outcome if it actually occurs.
Overall,
these works all included freedom.
Freedom gives the audience or readers an incentive to keep reading to
see what the characters in the story or talk will do next. I am glad I got to go to this talk and
connect it to the works.
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