In this passage written by Steven Church, there are some main points that Church tries to get across. First of all, let me say that I believe that Church’s purpose is that he doesn't have a purpose. Now let me explain what I mean, but let's understand the story more first. Now I believe that the very primitive aspect of these chambers is that of Auscultation. It is the title, after all. You get this feeling in the first chamber of the essay, but it is not represented as auscultation, instead it is simply a solution to a problem, a bad problem. The problem is based in a mine, 1500 feet below the ground in Crandall Canyon, Utah, in August 2007. There are six miners trapped below ground, after a catastrophic collapse that was so intense it registered as a 3.9 magnitude earthquake on seismographs. They deploy rescuers immediately to assess the situation, and begin a 3 day process of digging the men out. Finally, they set up seismic listening devices to try to hear any of the trapped miners, and pinpoint their location. …show more content…
But in the end, they never heard or saw of these miners. They later filled up the mine, closing it off for good. Throughout the following chambers he talks about doctors, auscultation, and listening for the sounds of heartbeats. To me, this directly relates to the miners. I feel like listening for a heartbeat, for instance a baby still in the womb, is the first time you really hear life in a newborn, and as a parent it is the first connection you have with your child. “I first heard the whoosh-whoosh of my daughters heart as a reproduction, as an electronic transmission through a fetal heart monitor strapped to my wife’s belly-an electronic stethoscope.” Line
Although each character delivers their powerful and moving account, I would like to focus on one individual and his struggle to organize the miners. Rondal Lloyd struggled most of his life, he knew the coal mines first hand when he had to leave school to help his dad work in the mines to pay off debt to the company store. Unfortunately, this was common back in the times that this story is based upon. In West Virginia as far back as 1901 there are archives that have tried to set some sort of standards for child labor, but we must remember that these children grew up hard and fast. (West Virginia Mine War...
Some of them include the substantial gifts and the overflowing charm box. By referring the gifts that the natives supply to the medicine men and the herbalists with the exorbitant prices we paid to get prescriptions, Miner illustrates our willingness to pay to obtain the right medicine. The overflowing charm box of the Nacirema symbolizes the expired medicines in our medicine cabinet. Miner also discuss the relationship between dentists and the people when he writes “the natives return to the holy-mouth-men year after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay” (505). Miner make fun of our ignorance because we believe what the professional said without a single doubt. When the dental professional recommend teeth cleaning twice a year, we visit the dentist regularly. Toward the end, Miner indicates our obsession with perfectionism when he wrote “There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make women’s breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are large” (506). With this, Miner emphasizes that we are constantly influenced by the society’s false assumption on the perfect and ideal body
The chat wasn’t the only lasting result of the mining; left in this corner of Oklahoma was also 300 miles of mining tunnels (5). These tunnels were created by a method known as room-and-pillar (1). Large rooms were mined to get access to ...
He was learning to survive. This man was filled with stress and anxiety. When you’re stressed your body doesn’t react the way it would if you weren’t stressed. He was anxious and his heart was beating fast. His mind was scrambling trying to figure out what was happening.
...l of open-mindedness. “Cathedral” concerns the change in one man’s understanding of himself and the world. From the start of the story the narrator is restricted in his understanding to accept the blind man just as his wife has. He cannot fully wrap around the idea of what makes Robert so special. Until, that is, that the narrator starts drawing the cathedral which starts off as a house almost, and expands into something grander. This short story allows us to realize that the world is greater and further detailed than what we consider it in our confined minds. And that in fact we should never assume that there is nothing more to what the eye can see. It simply states that we shouldn’t form an opinion on someone or something based only on what you see on the exterior, because usually after taking the time to explore, the person or thing will not be what you expected.
The narrator explains how it is hard for him to describe more of them, because he isn’t religious, so how can someone describe something with embellishment if you don’t believe in it? Robert then asked the narrator if he would like to draw one together. The narrator agrees, when he brings the paper bag to draw on, he describes how Robert is touching the paper, the edges, and the corners. When they both begin to draw, Robert places his hand over the narrator’s and follows, the narrator is in disbelief on what is happening because he never thought anything like this was ever going to happen to him. Robert comes off as a very encouraging man who unconsciously is helping Robert believe in himself by trying something that he’s never been used to doing. The positivity, patience, and great words Robert used towards the narrators’ effort in drawing the cathedral made him want to keep going and he didn’t know exactly why, all he knew was that he couldn’t stop. After a while the narrator closed his eyes and continued to draw, then he opened his eyes to tell Robert how the drawing came out. Surprisingly, the narrator kept his eyes closed and he mentions that although he knew he was home he felt like he was in anything. While remaining with his eyes closed and answering Robert on how the drawing looked like, he then said “It’s really something.” (Carver, 1983). I
...h it emotionally detached without the pleasure of living. In the end, when the narrator has his eyes closed drawing the cathedral, he is the most open he has even been to the world. The narrator’s limited point of view in the story was crucial in showing the reader that what will hold you back the most in life are your biases and judgments. If the story was told in Robert’s point of view, it would have been a joyful story about visiting a long time friend, even with the tragedy of his wife’s death. We would have never known of the prejudices that were held inside the husband, and no true theme would have come from the story. The limited point of view was used in a way that expanded upon the theme even more, and made for a stronger story structure.
These are the philosophical conclusions the narrator comes to and then summarises in the coda. This essentially states that archaeology is unimportant due to its failure to capture the human spirit. The archaeologist himself, therefore, might be a personification of archaeologists or archaeology as a whole. Exact details about his study are not included, and the ambiguity of his conclusions, the most emphasized fact, applies to all ancient history. Personification of concepts or large groups are present the poem: e.g. "the criminal in us." This simplifies the concepts being referred to, both making them more accessible, and expressing them in fewer words. Therefore, doing this tightens the structure of the poem. The archaeologist’s inability to answer the questions posed by the narrator both parallels his lack of awareness of the narrator's viewpoint, and discredits him to the audience. This vindicates the narrator's final dismissal of 'history'. The narrator, of course, can only make discoveries if they are a character themself, with a unique perspective which may or may not reflect the authors. If not, they are a persona used to consider an issue from a new perspective. The visibility of the narrator is demonstrated through their use of colloquial language - "that's a stumper". In the coda and title, attention is also
...es those who diverge from the norm and would quickly separate itself from them. Bromden’s description of the workers implies that society prefers order and efficiency over anything else even individual freedom. The furnace would symbolize society’s method of removing the different and the pace and rhythm of factory would symbolize society’s obsession with order and a uniform identity.
As I walked down the corridor I noticed a man lying in a hospital bed with only a television, two dressers, and a single window looking out at nothing cluttering his room. Depression overwhelmed me as I stared at the man laying on his bed, wearing a hospital gown stained by failed attempts to feed himself and watching a television that was not on. The fragments of an existence of a life once active and full of conviction and youth, now laid immovable in a state of unconsciousness. He was unaffected by my presence and remained in his stupor, despondently watching the blank screen. The solitude I felt by merely observing the occupants of the home forced me to recognize the mentality of our culture, out with the old and in with the new.
The reason that Miner wrote the essay was to allow Americans to read it, and lead them to believe that they were in fact reading about a culture elsewhere. I believe that Miner’s idea of creating a sort of illusion to the reader was accomplished. I am sure that the anthropologists who have read Miner’s essay were left speechless. I believe that Miner did an extraordinary job at giving the reader an outside perspective of the American rituals of society.
The elements of setting including the cell, the black cloud strips, and the hole in the cell wall, as well as tangible objects including the portable phonograph, the books, the lead pipe, the records, the needle, all are examples of symbolism in “The Portable Phonograph”. The civilization in this short story is falling apart, and is wanted to be preserved for future generations to see and use. Once said by G.K. Chesterson, “when it comes to life, it is critical for us to take not things for granted, but with gratitude.”
Similarly, ashes take the form “of ash-grey men, who moved dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air”. (21) The stiff, weak movements show its inhabitants to be barely alive. These men have the same lack of life and vitality as their surroundings do. This is seen in the inhabitants of the valley. George Wilson, who...
To start, the story “To Build a Fire” describes an image of hopelessness that reflects what the narrator feels at the drying out facility. Carver describes, “I try to remember if I ever read any Jack London books. I
After just two hours, our very large friend said he’d had enough for the day and was heading for the surface. We told him we’d be out in a few more minutes and to hang around so we could discuss what we’d found. As we began our ascent toward the entrance, we became acutely aware of the complete absence of light the entrance usually emanated. When our flashlights finally found the source of the unusual darkness we were horrified; the big guy was stuck in the cave’s opening again. This time Scott’s head and shoulders were outside, so instead of being able to pull him through, we would have to try to push him out of the opening. We pushed in every combination of ways possible, and needless to say it did not work this time. The paramount problem was that the cave floods from the interior out, so we would all drown if we couldn’t get Scott unstuck, and unstuck quickly.