“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” Write Up by Elissa Parker Alexander

Summary

“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin features an ambivalent narrator shining the spotlight on a fairy-tale like town during its summer festival. The narrator describes the feeling of happiness and peace surrounding the town. Omelas does not have a supreme ruler, war, or harmful technology. It is revealed that in order for Omelas to maintain its prosperity and way of life, a child must suffer. This child can never know kindness or care, or Omelas will fall apart. When told about the child’s existence, most people are upset at first, but come to terms with it. The suffering of the child is a part of the reason why life in Omelas is so prosperous. But the people cannot stand to live with this truth, leave the town with purpose.

Chronic Tension – The narrator having the knowledge about Omelas,

Acute Tension – The arrival of the Summer Festival

What makes the story compelling or interesting to read?

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is compelling because the entire narrative seems too good to be true. The reader is waiting for the dark side of Omelas to show itself, while the narrator is seemingly trying to sell the reader on its perfection. The narrator takes their time, allowing the reader to create the town of Omelas in their mind, to tailor it to their image of the “perfect town.” Once this image is built in the reader’s head, the narrator tears it apart. The raw, human suffering of this child in exchange for the well-being of the town, adds a new sickening layer to the phrase: “kill one to save many.”

Structure & Characterization in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is told in quite a peculiar way. All of the story is narrated. Despite characters actively being a part of the scenes, they are not the ones telling the story. actually taking place; everything is told rather than shown. Rather than of being supplemented with active characters or a resident’s perspective, the story takes on the form of a fable, or a tale passed down through generations about a society long gone. This unique structure allows the story to be viewed objectively, almost as if it could have taken place in our own world. A large portion of the story is dedicated to describing the summer festival, specifically the wonderful festivities. The narrator speculates on some aspects of the town’s existence, but the details about the festival are vivid and specific.

Most of the processions have reached the Green Fields by now. A marvelous smell of cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners. The faces of small children are amiably sticky; in the benign gray beard of a man a couple of crumbs of rich pastry are entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their horses and are beginning to group around the starting line of the course. An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, is passing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men wear her flowers in their shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd alone, playing on a wooden flute.

For the most part, the recounting of the festival are the only concrete details we receive. The usual narrative has been destroyed in order to provide this lively portrayal of the Summer Festival and the people participating. Blocks of text are dedicated to describing the lush landscape, the happy children, the sunny weather. This style of formatting places setting and character at the forefront of the story by zeroing in on it as part of the narration, which negates the “need” for active scenes. Le Guin’s ability to supplement dialogue and scene with focused narration sets The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas apart from other pieces of short fiction. Although nothing really “happens” the reader’s view of the town of Omelas changes they make their way through the story. The description manages to capture the townspeople, the town, and create powerful imagery all at once, without coming off as abrasive or overly ambitious. Furthermore, despite its reasonable amounts of description, the story is not oversaturated with figurative language. Le Guin intertwines simplistic terms and provoking vocabulary in order to bring images to the readers mind in a way that is both subtle and memorable.

Even without including them in the scenes, Le Guin injects a certain life into the piece with the voice of the narrator. Somehow this sardonic, joking character carves its way into the narrative. Throughout this seemingly cut and dry description of this picturesque town, the reader is constantly encouraged to look deeper and to speculate about what could make this town so perfect. This narrator even directly interacts with the reader; the narrative is almost conversational at times.

O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all.

The narrator implores the reader to create their own image of the perfect town, quickly establishing a rapport between the two. Although the narrator is typically a more passive presence, this narrator’s ability to adapt and be a part of a story that they are not technically in, it makes the narrative even more intriguing. Along with allowing the reader to build their own Omelas, the narrator is also quick to introduce doubts about Omelas’ true prosperity.

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No?

This is the first question posed toward the reader that the narrator actually assumes has been answered. In this one question, it is clear that the narrator has been navigating towards this point for a while, dropping subtle hints that Omelas is not as it seems. Apparently their job is done now, as the narrator has “confirmed” that the reader shares their pessimistic opinion. The element of choice and imagination is suddenly whisked away as the reader is forced to face the saddening truth of Omelas, whether they picked up on it earlier or not. This act of rebellion, the break from the previous “think what you will” narrative, finishes off the narrator’s personal intervention. This intersection of narration and character provides both food for thought and a captivating element to the life within stories.

What can you find to imitate or use in your own writing?

Something I can take away to put into my own writing is how Le Guin crafts an intricate setting and scenario through narration, relimating a more traditional narrative voice by combining the narrator’s opinions with the story they are telling. Le Guin also manages to create a feeling of dread by juxtaposing life in Omelas with sudden questions that leave the reader contemplating what they previously read.

Writing Exercise

Write a story with a setting that is mostly left up to the whim of the reader. Describe the population of the town, but leave all of the physical attributes up to the readers. If you would like, introduce a sort of twist that will change the readers’ perception of the world they created. Maybe include a first person narrator who does not actually interact with the story.

Discussion Questions

1. The story of Omelas told to the reader, not shown. How would the story be different if it was shown from the perspective of a resident of Omelas as they go through the summer festival, rather than a distant narrator?
2. A lot of the information about Omelas is left open-ended. How would the narrative change if we knew everything about Omelas’ society?

“Skin” Write Up by Christopher Gee

Summary

In “Skin”, by Roald Dahl, an old beggar named Drioli is walking down the street, when he sees a painting outside an art gallery. He recalls a memory in which the painter, Soutine, had visited with Drioli before World War 1 and inked a back tattoo of Drioli’s wife on Drioli after Drioli came home with several bottles of wine. The tattoo is beautiful, and was first painted on Drioli’s back before being tattooed. Drioli then reflects on his wife’s death during WW2, and how after a series of failed business ventures, he has become an old beggar on the streets of Paris. This, his beggary and age, is the chronic tension of the story.

We are then returned from Drioli’s memories to the present, where Drioli enters the art gallery. He’s astonished that his past friend’s paintings are now in what he describes as “the finest shop in Paris!”(1). While marveling at the warmth and luxury within the art gallery, he feels a hand upon his shoulder. The owner of the art gallery is attempting to kick our protagonist out. Drioli resists the gallery owner and breaks free, yelling “I’ll show you! I’ll show you! I’ll show you!”(4). He undresses his top half while running down the art gallery, and the room falls silent in awe of his tattoo’s beauty. Suddenly, out of the silence, the art gallery owner comes from the crowd and offers two hundred thousand francs for the tattoo, which is roughly thirty thousand and eight hundred dollars in USD. This is where the acute tension is introduced, Drioli’s tattoo and the crowd/owner’s desire for it.  Drioli is confused as to how he could possibly sell it, and someone in the crowd tells Drioli that his tattoo is worth at least twenty times more than the price offered by the art gallery owner. In response to Drioli’s confusion about how he can sell it, the gallery owner responds by asking Drioli about his health and age, examining Drioli “like a farmer examining an old horse.”(5) Drioli backs up into a stranger, who offers to allow Drioli to sunbathe at his hotel and live there as a walking piece of art for the rest of his life. Drioli agrees to this offer after some deliberation, and goes with the stranger. The author then reveals that the hotel the stranger talked about did not exist, and that Drioli’s tattoo showed up for sale “nicely framed and heavily varnished” a few weeks after Drioli left the art gallery. Drioli’s fate is left unknown, but it is implied that he was murdered and skinned for his tattoo by the stranger.

What is intriguing about Roald Dahl’s Skin?

What makes the story particularly intriguing is its emphasis on an unique style of characterization, and Roald Dahl’s conflict building. We are always wondering what happens next to the main character through Roald Dahl’s simplistic yet precise inclusion of details and story elements. Roald Dahl does not skim over the story or tell it in a monotone way, but he is extremely mindful of the details he shares and how he describes characters. Additionally, Roald Dahl continuously advances the plot with help from the changing settings he writes and the pressure that is put upon Drioli by his age. 

Roald Dahl’s unique characterization and reduction of characters

Roald Dahl, the author, uniquely characterizes the characters in this story with changing and reducing labels. They help make the characters distinct from one another and helps make their intentions, back story, and current role in the story easily digestible. An extremely important part of writing a short story is its delivery of information, and the mindfulness with which you select what details to include. The author is no longer afforded pages upon pages of space to describe his characters, so Roald Dahl takes an approach of apt reduction. We see this throughout the story as he alternates between labels for different characters. Our first introduction to this is on page one, where the author specifically uses the label of “old man” to stress Drioli’s age when needed. 

Roald Dahl names Drioli, writing “The old man who was called Drioli shuffled1 painfully along the sidewalk of the Rue de Rivoli. He was cold and miserable.”(1), but he continues to call Drioli the old man later, writing “The old man pressed his face closer to the window”(1) when Drioli is observing the art gallery. This is because after this line, the author writes about how long ago it was that Drioli knew the boy.

He could remember the boy – yes, quite clearly he could remember him. But when? The rest of it was not so easy to recollect. It was so long ago. How long? Twenty – no, more like thirty years, wasn’t it? Wait a minute. Yes — it was the year before the war, the first war, 1913. That was it. And this Soutine, this ugly little boy whom he had liked – almost loved – for no reason at all that he could think of, except that he could paint. (1)

While not necessary, the reminder of Drioli’s age by calling him the “old man” helps the reader stay engaged and interested in Drioli’s character. Additionally, Roald Dahl’s use of a label for this previously named character helps to keep Drioli almost foreign, intriguing the reader with the idea that they don’t necessarily fully know Drioli yet. 

We see this distinctive characterization present throughout the entire story. The craft technique is applied to Soutine, Drioli’s wife, the art gallery stranger, the art gallery owner, and as previously mentioned, Drioli. Soutine, a named character from the beginning, is simply called “the boy” in Drioli’s memory, only finally being returned to the name of Soutine after Drioli reflects on his finished tattoo.

 It was a startling sight. The whole of his back was a blaze of colour – gold and green and blue and black and red. The tattoo was applied so heavily it looked almost like an impasto. The portrait was quite alive; it contained so much characteristic of Soutine’s other works. “It’s tremendous!” “I rather like it myself.” The boy stood back, examining it critically. (3) 

The moniker of “the boy” and sometimes even the descriptor “little” is used to give us a special insight into Drioli’s view of Soutine, letting us know Drioli thinks of him as more of a child or a young friend than a respected artist. But, Soutine is still used when the boy is being regarded as an artist, as we see in the passage above where he is referred to as Soutine when the tattoo is compared to Soutine’s other art.

Lastly, the art gallery owner is introduced as “the man in a black suit” when he first confronts Drioli in his art gallery, then he is referred to as the “the gallery owner” when Drioli is allowed to stay because of his tattoo, and then he becomes “the dealer” after he makes an offer to buy Drioli’s tattoo. Each new label for the owner is used to indicate how the man’s role has changed with each new line of dialogue. The use of these labels for the character helps provide quick, accurate, and in-depth characterization as the story progresses and the owner’s intent is revealed to the reader.

What you can imitate in your own writing

I can imitate Roald Dahl’s use of characterization, providing more attention to and focusing more on how I describe characters, label them, and my use of their names. Additionally, something Roald Dahl does in the story is use time to put an overarching pressure on Drioli and to explain Drioli’s predicament, i.e. why he’d even consider selling away his life to be a walking piece of art. I could imitate this by providing overarching plot elements to my stories that help give the protagonist’s action a realistic authenticity/believability and provide a deeper chronic tension.

Writing Exercise

Write a short, 3,000 word or less, story about a main character that depends upon the recallment of a previous memory. Explore how you can fit information into this word limit, how you write when under a word constraint, and how you can play upon the reader’s subconscious to help them understand the characters and plot.

Discussion Questions

1. The author relies heavily upon his labeling and the reduction of characters to their basic characterization. How might the story have been different if the characters were referred to by name, and not by their current role in the story? (Examples include the art gallery owner being called “the dealer” after he makes an offer, Drioli being called an old man when his age becomes relevant, etc.)

2. Drioli’s memory of Soutine in the beginning of the story is an important piece of context to the story, but the story could be summarized and left unexplored. How would the story change if the author hadn’t written Drioli recalling his tattoo’s origin in detail, such as the inclusion of his wife, the wine, and later his failed business ventures?

“The Horla” Write Up by Sonya Azencott

“The Horla” by Guy de Maupassant

Summary: The main character, a man who lives in a large house near Rouans where he is perfectly happy waves to a Brazilian ship passing down the Seine while appreciating the morning. The next day, he wakes up feeling ill, and the medicine prescribed to him does nothing. After taking a couple days away to the shore, where he hears a story from a monk about mysterious man-headed goats and is struck by the monk’s belief in unseen creatures, the man feels better, but his servants have been feeling ill. He becomes ill again and sees a creature standing on his chest who steals the life from his lips at night, and the man questions his sanity. The creature begins to drink the man’s water and milk that he leaves out at night, causing the man incomparable distress. He goes to Paris though, and is completely convinced that nothing is wrong again. On Bastille Day, he thinks about how foolish all of the people celebrating are because they do not think for themselves. The next day, he attends a sort of salon where his cousin is mesmerized/hypnotized by a doctor into asking him for five thousand dollars, and the spell only breaks when the doctor remesmers her. The experience disturbs him greatly. When he returns home, he is again struck by the creature and becomes incredibly distressed by the fact of his subjugation to the mysterious creature. He learns that the creature is the Horla, which came from Brazil, and plots to kill it, trapping it in the house and burning it down, but traps the servants inside as well, killing them. He becomes convinced that the Horla wasn’t killed in the fire, and becomes convinced that the only way to get out of his subjugation is to kill himself.

Chronic and Acute Tension: The acute tension of “The Horla” is the appearance of the main character’s sudden illness, which is the first indication of the Horla’s presence. There is no real chronic tension in the story; the main character is perfectly happy with his life in his home, and we learn practically nothing about his past. His perfect happiness could even be called the chronic tension, as it is what changes by the end of the narrative arc. His freedom, his happiness, his independence of spirit and pleasure with the world, all disappears by the end of the story.

A Note on the Title, Maupassant, and the Fantastique:

The title, “Le Horla,” is a made up word, but its origin has been speculated upon greatly. The theory that I subscribe to goes as follows: “Horla” is a mix of the word “hors” and “là”— “hors” meaning “outside” or “not here” or “out,” and “là” meaning “here. It’s an oxymoron that highlights the duality and not-quite-there-ness of the Horla. The subtitle in English, “Modern Ghosts,” does not exist in French.

“Le Horla” was written as Maupassant himself experienced his first bouts of hallucinations, brought on by syphilis, which would kill him five years after the publication of the short story, as the editor’s note mentioned. He wrote three versions of the story, this one being the most famous and longest one, and generally considered the “real” or “finished” version.

“Le Horla” is probably one of the most famous fantastique short stories, and Maupassant is one of the most prolific authors in the genre (though it is a bit less of a genre and more of a stacking genre, usually paired with horror or science fiction but not always). Wikipedia.fr has an excellent definition of fantastique that the english-language Wikipedia does not, as well as a very good article about the stories in the genre and the distinction between it and other genres, including magical realism. It also includes the sub-categories of fantastique that emerged in different countries, like the absurdist Russian fantastique exemplified by Gogol’s “The Nose.” Here I translate, loosely, the definition proposed by Tzvetan Todorov and paraphrased on Wikipedia:

The “fantastique” is between the strange, or a realism pushed all the way to its limits, where one can adopt a rational explanation, and the merveilleux (fantasy/fairy tale/magical), where the supernatural elements are considered normal: the “fantastique” is this in-between, the moment where the mind still hesitates between a rational and an irrational explanation. Todorov adds to this the condition that the “fantastique” must be situated in a realist universe or context: the background must be perceived as natural and normal to be able to introduce the elements of the supernatural, so it is the hesitation that leads to the “fantastique.”

Hopefully this definition helps put the short story into its proper context.

Characterization and Narrative Arc in “The Horla”:

“The Horla, or Modern Ghosts” by Guy de Maupassant is an interesting study in characterization because it doesn’t have any solid chronic tension or backstory for the main character; he has very few elements of his personality defined. The character is instead defined by his outlook on life and his ideals, which are directly challenged by the presence of the Horla. The main character is introduced as completely satisfied in life, basking in the cool air and sunshine outside his home. When he first gets sick, he is still optimistic, flipping his characterization of the situation day by day. When he goes to Paris, even after the Horla has drunk his water and milk multiple times, he convinces himself that it had been absolutely nothing, saying:

I returned along the boulevards to my hotel in excellent spirits. Amid the jostling of the crowd I thought, not without irony, of my terrors and surmises of the previous week, because I believed, yes, I believed, that an invisible being lived beneath my roof. […] Instead of concluding with these simple words: “I do not understand because the cause escapes me,” we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers.

Through this, we see just how fickle the mind of the main character is: he will be completely convinced of his own madness in the one breath and immediately change course in the other. This is the real beginning of the more direct characterization of the main character as the reader observes how he will stop at nothing to convince himself that nothing is wrong. We learn his reasoning soon after. Speaking of the Parisians celebrating Bastille Day, the narrator says, “The populace is an imbecile flock of sheep, now steadily patient, and now in ferocious revolt. Say to it: ‘Amuse yourself,’ and it amuses itself.” This, combined with the next scene, where the narrator is thoroughly disturbed by the feat of hypnotism accomplished by the doctor, are where Maupassant establishes the core of his character: the narrator is fiercely independent and values freedom—of thought, of motion, of emotion—over all else. To be subservient, to obey even the whims or emotions of the community or of others, is to be an “imbecile… sheep.” He thinks himself above those who are not so independent—this superiority complex is his defining identity in the story.

The Horla, as a creature, is created to diametrically oppose this independence-superiority complex of the main character, and thus fuels the narrative arc. Later, when the main character returns from Paris, the Horla grows more and more powerful until:

I am no longer anything in myself, nothing except an enslaved and terrified spectator of all the things which I do. I wish to go out; I cannot. He does not wish to, and so I remain, trembling and distracted in the armchair in which he keeps me sitting.

This is one of the key moments in the arc of the narrative because it fulfills the main character’s worst nightmare: to lose his independence. Earlier in the narrative, he was afraid that madness had done the same thing, taking control away from his thoughts, but he was able to console himself of his independence and convince himself that he wasn’t mad, allowing him to continue functioning. With the Horla being in complete control of him, the narrator’s thoughts become completely obsessed with his desperation and distress; even his thoughts are no longer free. He has become what he despises, what he fears most, and that is the cause of the distress, more so than just the fact that a creature is inhabiting his house and making him ill. By establishing the character of the narrator as fundamentally tied to his independence, Maupassant makes his fate more tragic and his actions more logical. The narrator is so obsessed with trying to escape from the Horla that he burns down his house with the servants in it, having completely forgotten about them. There was no space for other people in his mind, completely occupied with the Horla and the narrator’s sense of loss of control.  His preoccupation and thoughts are purely centered around his own well-being; a similar almost selfishness was displayed near the beginning of the story as well, when he hears that Jean, his coachman, has been having nightmares in his stead, and he is only worried about potentially getting the nightmares again himself.

However, the Horla has infected his thoughts so deeply that, even most likely freed from the creature in the fire, the narrator is unable to pull himself away from thoughts of the creature’s control over him. Because this state of being  is so diametrically opposed to his character, the narrator sees his only choice as death, since he sees the freedom of non-existence as better than a life of control. In this, the narrative arc satisfies the character arc; the narrator, who begins happy and free with a feeling of superiority for his independence of thought, ends up obsessed, distraught, half-mad,  and under the control of the Horla.

What to imitate in your own writing: Maupassant keeps the mystery of how the illness, or the Horla, first appeared for a very long time in the story, only revealing that it came from the inoffensive Brazilian ship on page 10 of 12. This keeps the intrigue of the story intact for long enough for the reader to get invested in the actual creature and the narrator’s dilemma—for the first ball rolling to be replaced with the second, more dynamic ball of the Horla’s torment itself. As well as that, the scene with the monk at Mont Saint Michel has its payoff come quite late. One could imitate this story structure of a sudden inciting incident with no clear cause as a way to have a “gotta” without the use of a pressing chronic tension, or include scenes that firstly break out of the narrative and have a deeper, more thematic meaning, which is revealed later in the story.

Writing Exercise based on “Le Horla”: Write a story with a main character who has no backstory or chronic tension but is driven by a singular moral or philosophical belief. How do you create tension and a satisfying narrative arc? How do you demonstrate personality without the use of flashbacks or memory?

Discussion Questions:

1.  The scene at Mont Saint Michel is the first departure from the main setting, and marks a quite sudden turn in the story away from the illness. How does the scene work with the pacing of the story? Is the interruption worth the payoff, and why or why not?
2. The first version of  “Le Horla” was called “Lettres d’un Fou” or “Letters of a Madman,” and was written in a series of fake letters back and forth. The second version was written with the main character recounting his tale to a doctor as part of a larger collection of stories structured in this way. How does the epistolary/journal format of the story further its narrative/themes and characterization? Would it have worked better in a different format?

On Emo by Mikey Harper

NOTHING FEELS GOOD: PUNK ROCK, TEENAGERS, AND EMO 

Nothing Feels Good (Andy Greenwald, 2003) starts strong in the introduction and preface by not only highlighting one of the core “emo” experiences, but also pulling apart exactly what “emo” even is.

The preface details the author’s first Dashboard Confessional concert, and the newness of the “emo” youth surrounding him. He notes in particular the kindness and consideration of the kids, which he isn’t used to at shows: “I’ve never seen such well-behaved teenagers in a rock club. […] But these kids weren’t high. They were polite. This wasn’t normal to me yet.” He also notes how this new wave of “emo kids” is changing the game: “The kids here are different. Shockingly, bizarrely so. The kids, it appears, are alright. […] Here to watch their version of punk ascend triumphantly and not notice the differences.” He also briefly touches on how emo was mending the youth post-9/11 (the concert in question was in November 2001), and glosses over the clothing trends among them (many of which are coming back in today’s popular fashion). Concerts, clothes, and human experiences – these things make emo, emo. Or so we think. In the introduction, Greenwald begins unpacking what emo truly means.

And, even though defining emo has always been an impossible feat, I agree with what he concludes: “The truth is, the thread that connects the D.C. hardcore bands of the ‘80s with the lovelorn, clean-cut pop-rockers of the ‘00s doesn’t lie in the music at all: it’s in the fans. Emo isn’t a genre – it’s far too messy and contentious for that. What the term does signify is a particular relationship between a fan and a band. […] Emo is a specific sort of teenage longing, a romantic and ultimately self-centered need to understand the bigness of the world in relation to you. It takes its cues from the world-changing slap of community-oriented punk, the heart-swollen pomp of power ballads, and the gee-whiz nostalgia of guitar pop.

Emo is as specific as adolescence and lasts about as long. In short, everyone has their own emo. It’s too contentious, too stylistically and generationally diverse to be a genre, too far-reaching to be a subculture. Emo is an essential element of being a teenager. It is the sound of self-making.” Greenwald does an amazing job with not only imagery, but the tone and voice that it takes for me to stay interested in something that can sound as pretentious as this. But I won’t lie, when the introduction began its attempt at defining emo, I braced myself.

Defining the term “emo” is like dating someone you met on Twitter: slightly embarrassing and bound to go wrong. It just can’t be done right. Someone will always find a hole in your argument, and they’ll be more than ready to say something like, “but how do you know they’re not catfishing you?” Or, in this case, “‘Real Emo’ only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90’s Screamo scene. What is known as “Midwest Emo” is nothing but Alternative Rock with questionable real emo influence.” And yes, that is only part of a real post that was ripped from Reddit (how surprising) and passed around the online alternative scene. However, by the end of the chapter, I was pleasantly surprised with how impressed and satisfied I was with Greenwald’s exploration of emo’s definition. He used personal experiences to back up his points, but he didn’t only stop there: he used sources from different age groups to find an insight on what “emo” truly means. By doing this, he took advantage of the greatest gap in emo’s definition and discourse: age. In music writing, especially in a piece like this, it is important to find the gaps in your argument (whether that’s age, label, genre, etc.) and fill them in accordingly so that no point is left untouched. Music spans broadly, and there will always be at least one separating factor in a fanbase: in emo, it is most definitely age. Greenwald recognizes this, and while he does continuously recognize that “emo” is a teenage-dominated sound and experience, he goes back to older fans and inquires about “emo” based on what it was to them as teenagers. This is necessary, because those who experienced first-wave emo (pioneered by the likes of Jawbreaker, Rites of Spring, Cap’n Jazz, and Hüsker Dü) will have opinions that stray further from those who experienced the music closer to the time of this book’s publication: third-wave emo. Third-wave emo (rose at the end of the ‘90s, lasted through the 2000s) was arguably the largest and most successful breakout of “emo”, and many people will say that this era is what commercialized, confused, and blurred the lines of “emo”. This was led by bands like Hawthorne Heights, Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, Jimmy Eat World, From First to Last, The Used, Say Anything, Death Cab for Cutie, Paramore, Mayday Parade, Yellowcard, and many, many more. Chances are, every single person in this room has heard of at least one of those, even if you don’t care at all about anything I’ve said about emo and/or have no idea what any of it means or why it matters (which is understandable). Or, at the very least, you would know a few of their songs if they came on the radio, even if you don’t know the band itself. This further proves the point that the emergence of third-wave emo was a groundbreaking, successful time for the scene.

With this in mind, he asks four questions: What is emo? When did you first hear the term? What is an example of an emo band? Have you ever encountered a band that actually referred to themselves as emo? This last question is especially important, because, as Greenwald states: “Being an emo band is kinda like being in the KGB – everyone knows who they are, but no one admits anything and no one likes talking about it in public.” The question here is: why? Well, he utilizes popular examples and experiences perfectly here to explain why. He lists 3 reasons, but his most successful point (and longest backup explanation) falls under reason 2: Heard any good grunge bands lately? Think about the “grunge” era. Chances are, you thought of loose jeans, flannel shirts, and Kurt Cobain. That’s the problem: Grunge died because it killed itself in the flush of fame and appearance. Most people remember grunge more for its loose clothing and greasy hair than its stylistic experimentation and music. It’s sad, but it’s true: “The last time there was a media buzzword thrown at bands, many of them didn’t survive the impact.” All this to say: that clicked because Greenwald used a popular example, and then explained why it was relevant. In music writing, seen best here, it is easy to look like you’re making loose claims based on your own opinion without justifiable examples and sources. Greenwald uses these well, and often. I believe this is what made me trust him wholeheartedly with his definition of “emo”: it wasn’t about him. 

Music is personal, but music writing can’t be so personal that it sounds like a diary entry. This will often tune out every reader that doesn’t agree with you – and in the case of emo, that will probably be everybody. After all, Greenwald says it best: “Not only can no one agree on what it means, there is not now, nor has there ever been, a single major band that admits to being emo. Not one. That’s pretty impressive. And contentious. And ridiculous. Good thing too – because so is emo.” 

Discussion Questions: 

Greenwald states: “As long as there are feelings, teenagers will claim that they had them first. And as long as there are teenagers, music will get labeled emo.” What about the younger demographic makes the term “emo” so appealing in relation to their personal lives, and why do teenagers think that they had these feelings first (hence the whole nobody understands me emo cliché)? 

What do you think has caused the resurgence of emo fashion trends? Why do you think this has caused an uproar in pre-pandemic emo fans? Perhaps it has something to do with the quote above?

Slides:

“To Build A Fire” Write Up by Caroline Anthony

To Build a Fire by Jack London follows the story of a man slowly freezing to death in the Yukon as he heads towards a camp called Henderson Creek with a wolf-dog. He starts out confident that he is going to make it, but after first falling through ice and dunking his leg into freezing water, then later losing all his matches and having a fire fail, then finally succumbing to panic and running for a final stretch, the man collapses in the snow, finally resigning the idea that he should have at least had a human companion as he had been told, and falls into a deep, comfortable sleep from which he would never awaken. The wolf-dog, feeling something was off this whole time, runs back to the camp from whence they came in search of warmth.

Acute tension – The man continuously makes misjudgments and mistakes that eventually result in his death.

Chronic tension – The man is overconfident and bold to the point that he embarks on this journey with no one but himself and the dog, despite being warned against it. And, it is very cold in the Yukon.

2.) What makes the story compelling or interesting to read?

A key part of how intriguing this story is is the meld between point-of-view and character arc. How does the POV of the wolf inform how the reader perceives the man? And, with this, how does the character of the man intrigue the reader? 

The Dog and its Instinct

We are introduced to the wolf-dog’s POV about three pages into the story, and the first thing we know about it is that it is worried about the great cold, and that it knew that this was no time for traveling. Before this moment, the reader is not necessarily aware of the full scale of how cold it is, and because of the man’s confidence, there is not much specific emphasis placed on it yet. Thus, when we are introduced blatantly with the sentiment that the cold is bad and that they should not be out here, the reader is put on edge, and thus pulled in.

Later in the story, the dog’s behavior reflects the man’s in a very unique way. As it is described on page 13 as the man tries to trick the dog into coming toward him so he can kill it and find warmth in its body: “The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head […] He spoke to the dog, calling it to him. But in his voice was a strange note of fear that frightened the animal. It had never known the man to speak in such a tone before. Something was wrong and it sensed danger. It flattened its ears at the sound of the man’s voice; its uneasy movements and the liftings of its feet became more noticeable. But it would not come to the man.” Throughout the story there has been a certain dichotomy between the man and the wolf; the man is logical, and the wolf relies on its instincts. At the moment described above, however, the idea put into the man’s head is “wild,” and we are left with a moment of the two on an unusual even playing field. This subversion of the relationship between the man and the dog intellectually coupled with a now solid enmity between the two (where before had been a sort of mutual understanding; man means fire, dog means companion) creates a feeling of narrative arc in a unique way that is fascinating for the reader to watch play out.

Additionally, the dog has no character arc; the story ends with its suspicions from the very beginning being confirmed, thus complementing and directly contrasting the man’s 360 turnaround.

The Man and his Calm

In this story especially, the continuous mistakes of the man coupled with his stubborn tread onward despite quite literally everything going wrong adds to a feeling of eeriness, and in turn, leads the reader in more, as if they can’t quite believe that he is still sticking to a calm mindset, repeating himself like a broken record. And then, later when moments of true panic begin to push through, the reader both emphasizes with the feelings and is further intrigued by his character arc; that is, his change from being a headstrong man with no fear of death, to a man a victim to his own hubris shivering on the ground.

It is the slow descent into his “just desserts” that draws the reader in. As stated above, the dog notes from the very beginning that the two should not be traveling. The man initially contradicts that; on page 9 he assures himself: “The man had been very serious when he said that no man should travel alone in that country after 50 below zero. Well, here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself.” Then, after the first match falls into the snow: “The old man on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in a moment of controlled despair that followed. After 50 below zero, a man should travel with a companion.” This is already an admission that he was wrong, a far cry from the character we were presented with at the beginning. Then, as he falls into a cold-induced coma, “[h]is mind went from this to the thought of the old man of Sulphur Creek. He could see him quite clearly, warm and comfortable, and smoking a pipe. ‘You were right, old fellow. You were right,’ he murmured to the old man of Sulphur Creek.” This change in character is naturally interesting, and coupled with the circumstances under which this arc took place, the reader is once again pulled way into the story.

3.) What can you find to imitate or use in your own writing? 

Other than the use of character, I also admire London’s ability to stoke uneasiness with his pacing and word choice; instead of the man being outright afraid and taken aback at how cold it is, it is simply repeated—either by the narrator, within the man’s mind, or by the dog—that “It is quite cold.” London gives solid numbers, which immediately relate to the reader as we are given a metric and now are fully aware of exactly how cold it is. The descriptions of the harshness and blandness of the environment are almost as relentless as the cold itself, and I find this mirroring to be very effective in immersing the reader into the story in a way that would complement my own writing.

4.) Come up with a writing exercise inspired by your discussion of the story’s craft element(s) that your presentation focuses on.

Write a story in which there are two characters, where one of whose point-of-view is considered strange/different, at least of intellect (i.e. an adult and a child, or, as the story has it, a man and a dog). How does their point-of-view compare and contrast with the “main” character’s point of view? How does this disjunction inform the story (i.e. how the dog Knew that Something Was Off the whole time while the man brashly continued on)?

5.) At least two discussion questions pertaining to why the story is written the way it is (as opposed to English-class type questions like what would you do if you were in the character’s situation).

1 – The narrative voice is also a key aspect of this story. How would it have been different if the reader was solely receiving the POV of the man or the dog?

2 – How does the slow build of the conflict complement the narrative arc? Essentially: how would the story change if instead it was faster-paced? Why does he place so much importance on every scene?