“New Journalism” Imitative Writing

I will be trying to imitate the characteristic of new journalism that involves shifting point of view:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
At the end of the day, Mr. Wolfe approached Wally in the hallway as he was nearing the exit of the school. Wally had just endured a long and arduous day: he had a pop quiz in physics, he butchered his oral presentation in Spanish, he got a demerit for whispering too loud in the library, and lunch was meatloaf, his least favorite food. The last thing Wally wanted was to talk to Mr. Wolfe, his history teacher. Honors Ancient Asian History was his least favorite class, and Mr. Wolfe was by far his least favorite teacher. Mr. Wolfe said, “Mr. Schirra, we need to have a talk in my office right now.””But Mr. Wolfe, I was just about to leave- I have driver’s Ed today.” “I’m sorry Wallace,” Mr. Wolfe said, “but this is extremely important.” That was Wally’s least favorite thing about Mr. Wolfe- he always either called him Wallace, his full first name which he hated, or Mr. Schirra. Not looking for a fight, Wally obliged and walked alongside Mr. Wolfe toward the history department office.

Wally’s mom, Rebecca, waited in the car. She was starting to get annoyed, for she had arrived to school fifteen minutes early and her son was now already ten minutes late. She could not wait until Wally had his driver’s license and she no longer had to drop him off and pick him up everyday. Problem was, she thought, Wally never made it to Driver’s Ed Class- he was always preoccupied with flight test club or baseball practice, or simply was not in the mood to go that day. She decided that that day, he was going to Driver’s Ed no matter what.

“Mr. Schirra,” proclaimed Mr. Wolfe after Wally and he sat down at the kidney-shaped table in his office, “I know that the paper you turned in comparing and contrasting Chinese Confucianism and Japanese Shintoism was not your original work.” “What are you talking about Mr. Wolfe,” Wally exclaimed, “I spent five hours on that.”

Gordon had just hopped out of his father’s Volkswagen GTI and gone upstairs to his room one day earlier when the remorse hit him. “What was he thinking?” Gordon wondered. “I was so stupid to write Wally’s paper for him, if I get caught that will destroy my transcript and I will never get into University of Hawaii,” he thought. Gordon was a great student, but he had a hard time saying no, and when his best friend Wally asked him to write his paper for Honors Ancient Asian History, a course he aced the year before, he could not help but to put his dreams of graduating early and studying at Hawaii aside. However, Gordon then realized that he would probably get caught: if he got caught, the punishment would be more severe than if he turned himself in. He decided that the next morning he would turn himself into Mr. Yeager, the Dean of Academics, and suffer the fate he deserved.

“Wallace, do not lie to me. Your friend Mr. Cooper has already admitted to writing your paper for you, so there is no reason to cover up the details.” At that point Wally realized that he was trapped, so he would not try to lie about what happened and instead would work to receive as minor as punishment as he could- kind of like pleading guilty in court; you are admitting to what you have done but asking to be forgiven. “You will be sent before the disciplinary board tomorrow morning at 7:15 AM in Mrs. Slayton’s room. You and your parents must prepare your case tonight. That is all Mr. Schirra, you are dismissed.”

Wally walked out to his mom’s car, looking down at his feet the whole time. After putting his backpack in the trunk and getting in the car he said, “Mom, I can’t go to Driver’s Ed today.”

“New Journalism” Technique in “The Right Stuff”

Much of the technique discussed by Tom Wolfe in “The Birth of New Journalism” is present in his book “The Right Stuff.” The predominant example of new journalism discussed in the article that I found in the novel was shifting of point of view. Throughout “The Right Stuff,” Wolfe switches point of view very rapidly. Sometimes this is done with grace, but oftentimes the point of view switch is very forced and unfriendly, which is done purposely by Wolfe for stylistic effect. I found the shifting of point of view most commonly utilized at the start of the novel, however this is probably because at that point in the book shifting of point of view is most noticeable because the reader has not yet gotten to know the characters and the plot so it becomes confusing. Wolfe starts with a very omniscient third person view, discussing the official Wife Lingo that is unspoken and describing the emotions of Jane and other characters. However, he quickly rushes into Jane’s point of view:

“My own husband- how could this be what they were talking about?” (3)

He shifts back to his third person view, describing the continuation of the phone call chain and then makes another shift. Though the narration is coming from the same place, he drastically shifts over to the scene that Pete Conrad is enduring, the topic that Jane and the fellow wives are discussing and curious about. The narration of what has happened to Pete contradicts the direction that the narrator was taking us when the story was focused on Jane, and this too has an extremely unique stylistic effect because it shows that the narrator knows all but it seems as if the thoughts are coming from the characters themselves because the narrations almost contradict each other, written as if the narrator had limited knowledge even though he knows what is going on from both sides. These shifts which continue throughout the first few chapters really set up the story in an interesting way, exposing the reader to many different characters and plot points quickly, but revealing little enough that the reader stays wondering about each of said characters and plot points.

“The Right Stuff”

The aspect of Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff” that most intrigued me was how anytime a test pilot died because of a problem in the air, the other pilots, rather than feeling sorry for his death and looking at him as someone who died for his country, dismissed his status as a pilot and claimed that he did not have “the right stuff.” In test flight there are so many things that can go wrong, many of which are beyond the pilot’s control. However, the pilots who lived had such inflated egos that they believed all of the deceased pilots not to have the right stuff, even though many of those things could easily happen to them. Wolfe writes,

“Every wife wanted to cry out ‘Well, my God! The machine broke! What makes any of you think you would have come out of it any better?’ Yet intuitively Jane and the rest of them knew it wasn’t right even to suggest that. Pete never indicated for a moment that he thought any such thing could possibly happen to him. It seemed not only wrong but dangerous to challenge a young pilot’s confidence by posing the question. And that, too, was part of the unofficial protocol for the Officer’s Wife.” (13)

This is a common reaction to discussion between fighter pilots in which they claim that some other pilot did not have “the right stuff” simply because he died in flight. However, Jane, and all the other wives, have a different perspective because they are not actually in flight themselves. While the fighter pilots believe themselves to be immortal if they have “the right stuff,” the wives understand that a man can be a perfectly competent pilot and still die in flight if something goes wrong. However, it is possible that the reason so many pilots did die was a result of their feeling immortal following their judgement of the other fighter pilots who died for the same reason.

“Does” Analyses: “Here is New York”

Selection #1:

“Every facility is inadequate- the hospitals and schools and playgrounds are overcrowded, the express highways are feverish, the unimproved highways and bridges are bottlenecks; there is not enough air and not enough light, and there is usually either too much heat or too little.”

This sentence follows the classic method of making a very bold claim and then providing an informal dash (as opposed to a formal colon), behind which are a list of examples that support the claim. The overall goal of this sentence is to improve that New York has inadequate facilities. Just saying this would not be enough to convince the readers, nor would just providing examples because some readers may view it as a random list of facts about New York as opposed to examples that imply something. Splitting the claim and the examples into two sentences would take away from the force of the statement. Therefore, the author has no choice to concisely make the claim then spurt out various examples. The author does so effectively, by discussing various facets of New York’s inadequacy. The strangest part of the example portion of the sentence is that some ideas are divided by commas and others by semicolons. This variation of punctuation is not only used to make the sentence more interesting and less redundant, but also to go from specific examples backing the claim to broader concepts. The overcrowding of the schools, hospitals, and playgrounds, the feverish express highways, and the bottleneck bridges are very specific examples about the facilities, which were mentioned in the original claim. However, the discussion of the air, light, and temperature is not specific just to the facilities but rather discusses the overall environment of New York City- still inadequate, but just of broader scope. The semicolon is placed between the list of inadequate facilities and the list of broader faults overall to help make the sentence easier to read and more fluid.

Selection #2:

“The people seated on the benches fanned out in front of the band shell are attentive, appreciative. In the trees the night wind stirs, bringing the leaves to life, endowing them with speech; the electric lights illuminate the green branches from the underside, translating them into a new language.”

These two sentences use activity for descriptive purpose rather than to move the overall story forward. Although there are plenty of active verbs, including fanned, stirs, bringing, endowing, illuminate, translating, these verbs are not used to introduce points about New York but rather describe the actions of people within New York which then overall contributes to the classification of the city itself. The first sentence employs a classic example of asyndeton, a method of writing in which conjunctions are purposely omitted for greater stylistic effect. The people should be described as “attentive and appreciative,” but instead White just classifies them as “attentive, appreciative.” This omission of “and” gives the sentence a more fluid, relaxed tone, rather than a very rigid feeling that would come from “They were attentive and appreciative.” The asyndeton exemplifies the creative liberty that a writer should show to reach the greatest stylistic power which in turn helps make the point stronger. The second sentence employs a mix of commas and semicolons to describe the city at night. The first portion of the sentence solely lists information about what happens surrounding the trees in New York City. “The wind stirs, bringing the leaves to life, endowing them with speech…” This portion is a very simple sequence of verbs regarding the trees provided by commas. However, the semicolon makes the sentence more complex. The trees and the night are still being discussed, but the subject has been changed to the electric lights, which allows the writer to explore the effect of a new object on the trees while avoiding an awkward transition. Once this is achieved, the same technique is completed” “The electric lights illuminate the green branches from the underside, translating them into a new language.” Another comma is used to provide a sequence of information about the electric lights and their effect on the branches. Both sentences are very powerful, the first through its simplicity and asyndeton, and the second through its two series of information regarding the same topic but with separate subjects and divided by a semicolon.

Question for Classmates

What is your opinion on the death penalty? In the other terms, is execution an acceptable punishment for severe crimes or should it be ruled unconstitutional and therefore eliminated?

Welcome to My Blog

This is my first post on my WordPress Blog which I will be using for Mr. Parker’s Advanced Placement English Language and Composition class in the 2011-2012 school year. My name is Spencer Blair and I attend the King Low Heywood Thomas School in Stamford, Connecticut.

My interests include sailing, tennis, ceramics, biking, reading, acting, politics, photography, debating, art, reading, and spending time with friends and family. Below is a picture of some ceramic work I have done.

My favorite books include “Catcher in the Rye,” “Of Mice and Men,” and “Lolita,” and my favorite movies are “A Time to Kill,” “Step Brothers,” “Donnie Darko,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Billy Madison,” The Reader,” “21,” “Orphan,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” and “Superbad.”

I have a wide variety of musical interests, but a few of my favorite musical artists include Cold War Kids, Turin Brakes, Vampire Weekend, The Beatles, Dispatch, The Rolling Stones, Josh Ritter, Bo Burnham, MGMT, Artist vs. Poet, Basshunter, Billy Joel, Bob Marley, Bon Jovi, Eagle Eye Cherry, The Police, Dan Mills, Eric Clapton, Guns n’ Roses, Queen, Slightly Stoopid, Semisonic, Third Eye Blind, Weezer, and many more. Below is a video of one of my favorite songs, “We Used to Vacation” by the Cold War Kids (I wanted to use an audio track but that requires a $20 upgrade):

Finally, I would like to leave you with a few of my favorite quotes:

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle

“A truly wise man knows how little he knows.”
-Unknown

“The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.”
-Aristotle

Thank you for reading my introductory post and I hope you continue to read my blog as I post about topics discussed in AP English Language.

-Spencer