At the end of the last class, Professor Graban raised perhaps the most important question about In Search of America: "why end it this way?"
Asch ends his story with a short conversation with a man who reveals that he is a poet, but does not want to share his writing with anyone. He says, "it would be too much like showing my insides." My initial reaction to this was that Asch has traveled through a large portion of America in search of the working class or what makes America tick, and upon seeing this, he does not like what he sees. The last conversation works as a metaphor for the entire story. This is a pessimistic view, one that leaves the reader disgusted.
After further thought, I have changed my view. Certainly Asch's intentions were not to disgust or shame the audience (in fact there is no apparent audience anyway). Before I focused mainly on that list bit of conversation with the poet, but instead the more important part is before the last statement: "I do it for myself."
In his story, Asch is in search of America, that's what it's called after all. The lack of a clear audience and the quote "I do it for myself", point to the fact that Asch is searching for his own sake. Just as the poets writings are nothing more then a way to vent his frustration, Asch is using his story for his own benefit.
In his story, Asch is looking for self identity. Perhaps "it's for nobody to read", but instead of trying to show the dirty side of a rough world, Asch is trying to find himself and it may be just like "showing [his] insides."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
My view on, “why end this way,” would be just slightly different than yours. Although I completely agree with your points because they are valid and they make sense to what I would also think Asch’s goal was but I think I could add a few thoughts. I also think that it ended this way because, like discussed in class, it is suppose to be symbolic to the fact that America hasn’t changed since then and most likely never will change. People are set in their ways and if they are not greatly affected by the sadness in this world, they seem to glance over the flaws in our world.
ReplyDeleteThe people in this world often seem to be private and usually mask their true identity from the world. So I have a different approach to how you justified the phrase, “I do it for myself.” I took this phrase very literally. I took it as, people are often ashamed of themselves, therefore they try to do things on their own and they don’t want to “show their insides” because of the past that they have. Overall, I completely agree with your thoughts and you showed me a different way to look at two simple phrases.
Our in-class discussion led to an interesting point that Joshua highlights in the above essay. As perhaps an unintended audience, readers may not be sure of what they should take away from Asch's writing. Furthermore, they may be quite confused by how he ends the story. However, as Joshua also says, the choice of ending makes sense, albeit for a slightly different reason than one might suppose.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that Asch is merely using writing to vent or to explore himself but not to share, as the poet he meets does, is very interesting (Asch 306). Without having a better idea of who Asch actually is, readers may not understand why he chooses to use an account of such negativity to parallel his search for himself.
Asch encounters many attitudes and situations that he describes in his writing. However, most of the individual glimpses we get seem to centralize around themes such as exploitation and hopelessness. Perhaps this is a means to address feelings of desperation that he, himself feels. We also see throughout the narrative Asch becoming more involved in the situations he encounters. First he watches the people he sees and attempts to interview them, keeping the relationship professional (Asch 284-288). But soon he too begins to feature in the stories he tells us. We see him buying drinks for girls, living with loggers, and witnessing the loss of the drilling bit at the oil camp (Asch 291-292, 299). We watch him become more invested in the people and not the situations that he intends to write about. Perhaps this is why we have such a difficult time wrestling a meaning out of his writing, We too, have become caught up in the character of Asch’s narrator and so we’ve forgotten to keep an eye out for what it is that his writing is telling us.
Asch gives us a picture of dejection but in this dejection, we see the bright spots, the "edge of [a] silk pajama top… sticking out” from under the leather jacket of a man spattered with oil (Asch 291).
This comment is actually a response to Cora from Josh [he had trouble commenting]:
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right in saying "Without having a better idea of who Asch actually is, readers may not understand why he chooses to use an account of such negativity to parallel his search for himself." Understanding Asch helped me look at the story differently. Before I knew his background, I focused more on the writing and story, and I didn't really take much from it, besides a negative view of the people he is writing about. After learning about Asch, I realized the story is more about discovering himself and how he relates to the people he writes about. This is evident in how he slowly becomes more "involved" with the people and their way of life.
However I don't think becoming caught up in his narration takes away from his story. Relating to him and how he slowly becomes like these people helps us see their situation better. I felt myself barely paying attention to what I was reading at the beginning of the story, but as Asch gets wrapped up with the people he writes about, I found myself more and more interested. Being caught up with Asch as he starts to feel what these people are going through made me relate to these people better. Understanding who Asch is and focusing on his narration strengthens his story.
(By the way, I love this: "Asch gives us a picture of dejection but in this dejection, we see the bright spots, the "edge of [a] silk pajama top… sticking out” from under the leather jacket of a man spattered with oil (Asch 291)." Superb!)"
-Josh
Woo I can comment now!
ReplyDeleteI want to add more my opinion to the Joshua’s wonderful essay ‘The end?’ This essay actually made me take some time to think about Asch’s novel again. Joshua suggested, in his essay, the last sentence can work as a metaphor for the entire story. And I totally agree to this thought.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator, in the beginning of the novel says, he wants to see the world untouched, and the most isolated. However, its intention seems related to America’s economic situation. He’s not sure as most people don’t know the truth. But his words gives some possibility that something is possibly happening, if we see, “How I could get to live a week with sharecropper family” (Asch 284) Interest to identity differ person to person, but it’s vague to define his intention with his using words like “shack”, “cotton” and “shelter” in the beginning.
Right after, he met a guy who has a farm in Minnesota and travels the country when he’s free. The narrator and Pedar have common interest that is travel, a process to find themselves. It is interesting Pedar was travelling when narrator meets him coincidentally. They, after having short conversation about the outside world which affects directly to people’s identity, leave together to see what kind of the world they are living in.
It is hard to describe what they all saw. Miserable, inhumane and cruel life. Even the narrator controls his tone well, (I think he is a less self conscious narrator and has less ego), he expresses he’s shocked “It was the meanest town that I have ever seen.” (Asch 285) These shocking scenes sporadically continue to show as he moves by his describing. Whenever he moves, new miserable and poor story pops up that it’s not hot news for readers anymore. Asch is tired to describe this happening at final stage. “And there again I saw how people hate people they rob.” (Asch 305) There is no need to arrange episodes anymore, which tell same disappointing stories and in each one it never gives how each story ends.
As the story ends, one thing we can conclude, that is, the poet is different from other croppers and workers. What he does was writing and it is on the same line with narrator’s passion to the world, because the poet has strong will to express what he sees (it could be changing the world) and at least he loves himself and the world around him.