Response on Joseph Heller's "Catch-22"

This excerpt is very different from what I’ve read before. What struck me most on the story were the last few lines. It made me want to know how this story ends. Why did the man punch the doctor’s nose? Actually, the doctor helped them and explained to them how to have sex. So why is the man that mad with the doctor?

Actually, there are more incidents in the story that are odd. Another thing was the sequence of Saint Anthony. I had to look up who this saint was. I found that he helps people against infectious diseases especially herpes. So does the woman suffer from an infectious sexually disease? If so, why doesn’t she know who St. Anthony is? And if not, why would she wear this necklace of this saint? Besides, I’m wondering why the doctor has no practice anymore? Is it because of the rubber dolls since he narrator tells that he had to “keep (them) locked up in separate cabinets to avoid a scandal”?

So what wants the author us to tell? I think there is some critique in this excerpt. I mean the narrator calls the newly-weds a „couple of young kids”. They have been married for one year and she is still virgin, moreover, both are thinking they have had sex without even knowing what sex is. So I think society has not prepared them for their adult life and marriage, respectively. Maybe that’s the point of this story.

However, I would like to know how this story ends and will probably read the full version of Catch-22.

Response to the Woody Guthrie exerpt

This excerpt made me feel impressed by the way Woody Guthrie uses language in order to describe “the wild canyons of Wall Street” and its effect on people. Through his language he creates a vivid picture of a hectic and therefore threatening city. He repeats the word “afraid” three times in one sentence. Basically, his technique of repetition is probably meant to emphasise the threat that is caused by the very big skyscrapers that make the individual appear to be very small and meaningless. Another very important symbol is the ticker which indicates how much affected people are by today’s fast moving and hectic life which makes especially poor people suffer who are living “on the slummy edges”. This picture is even more intensified by the use of many negatively connotated words such as “deaths”, “divorces”, “lies”, and “explodes”.

The threatening first impressions of the speaker are followed by the contradicting image of a seaman. Everybody wants to escape his duties and the hectic life sometimes I guess. And the picture of a seaman illustrates that intention quite well. Being a seaman and sailing across the oceans means some kind of freedom the “canyons of the Wall Street” can not provide, they can only provide material thing.

Actually, I like the way the speaker appreciates the simple things of life. He just walks around watching people. He even begins to sing in the street while children listen to him and wants him to sing louder.I would probably never sing on the street, but I think it is sometimes important to escape the every-day life and just enjoy little things.

Response in Chapter 5: The Sound (and Look) of Sense

Response on Chapter 5: The Sound (and Look) of Sense

Thinking about rhyme and his effects is very interesting. In elementary school I had to learn many poems by heart. And as far as I can remember they always rhymed. At that time I liked rhyme since it was easier to learn I guess.

In this chapter the author states that especially in English language it is hard to find exact rhyme which is obviously the case for the words “circle” and “month”. When writing poems I have also experienced how difficult it is to find rhyming words especially as a non-native speaker.

However, I prefer poems that do not rhyme since rhyme often appears to make the poem some kind of harmonic. It could also draw the attention away from the poem’s content or make the tone change. When I wanted to create a poem that was partly about the sky the words “flying high in the sky” popped up immediately. It’s because these words can be found in many songs so that they have become overused I guess. Actually, I did not want to create any rhyme at all. The point is that many line endings do not surprise the reader or listener anymore since they occurred to our ears so many times just because they rhyme.

Basically, I think rhyme is only a good thing if the poet wants to create a poem that is really ironic. So the harmonic effect of rhyme would underline the irony intended. And this kind of contradiction would probably make the poem more provoking.

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.