Exercise on line breaks: On the Road

Suddenly I had a vision of
the Dean,
a burning shuddering frightful Angel,
palpitating toward me across
the road, approaching like a cloud, with
enormous speed pursuing me like
the Shrouded Traveler on the plain,
bearing down
on me.
I saw his huge Face over the plains with
the mad, bony purpose and
the gleaming eyes;
I
saw
his wings.

Response on "The Kool-Aid Wino "

This excerpt tells the story about a young boy, called the Kool-Aid wino, who has been born into a very poor family. He suffers a rupture that cannot be cured since his family has no money for an urgent operation. His friend gives him a nickel so that the wino can buy a package of grapes for making Kool-Aid.

The author’s use of words is extraordinary. He combines terms that do not really fit together. He calls the blankets under which the wino sleeps as “tattered revolution of old blankets” or the “diapers” of his younger brothers or sisters “in various stages of anarchy”. This is probably meant to emphasize the bad living conditions of wino’s family. The whole family is working hard on the fields nevertheless to poor to buy adequate blankets or new diapers.

Generally, the author’s language is very pictorial for example when describing the grocer’s birthmark: it looked “just like an old car parked on his head”. Moreover, when refers to a field he compares it with “a feathered pig”. This is a rather untypical way to describe landscape.

The most striking paragraph in this story is the Kool-Aid ceremony performed by the wino. In general, making Kool-Aid is nothing special. But for the boy it has a great meaning. Though he takes too much water and omits sugar, since his family can’t afford any, he is helpful. He can’t work on the fields as the rest of his family, but he can make Kool-Aid for them.

The text gives us an insight on the daily life of a poor boy and his friend. But it leaves open an important question. We don’t learn about the other boy’s background and why he’s giving money to the wino to by a package of grapes.

Response on: Vonnegut, Kurt. 1969. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York: Dell Publishing, 1991.

By picking the topic of procreation the author tries to alienate what we know about human procreation. People are used to believe there are just two sexes on earth, namely, males and females. But Kurt Vonnegut speaks of five distinct sexes- each crucial for procreation process on the planet Tralfamadore. He disproves the common idea that such creatures look different from humans. In contrasts, all their special characteristics cannot be perceived by humans since those differences are only visible in the fourth dimension. But humans only know three dimensions.

The most effective sentence is when the Tralfamadorians tell Billy that there are actually seven sexes on earth responsible for the creation of babies. This questions everything what Billy himself or we have known so far. The reader is intended to query if life is really how he or she perceives it? Is there something we don’t see? It is a good technique of the author to make the reader doubt human existence.

The last paragraph is striking, too. The Tralfamadorians try to help Billy to figure out which humans belong to which sex. They say that there could be babies only with homosexual males, but homosexual women are not needed. But this totally contradicts our idea of procreation, since there are needed both a male and a woman to create a baby.

The explanation the Tralfamadorians give him sound “gibberish” to Billy. But that’s just because Billy cannot image that there can be more than two sexes. So one can question if everything which is not visible is therefore not true?

My Cell

Come into my cell,
Make yourself at home
Feel the calming darkness
Sun will never freeze you again.

Come into my cell,
The coolness will comfort you,
There is nothing to fear inside
Just blank walls whispering their story.

I am caught in my own cell,
I have been in here for so long
All emotions are left outside the bars
Waiting patiently for my pardon.