Skunk Dreams

To be truthful, I had no idea where this story was going as I started reading it. At first it seemed as if it were just random stories about skunks, trees, the country, and whatever else the author felt like talking about. Then...it clicked. Maybe I should have figured it out sooner than I did, but my "aha moment" was when the author repeated the paragraph about the fence and trees from the beginning. I felt stupid at first, but I realized that all along she was leading up to the idea that she dreamed about something before it happened. Then she went even further to talk about how the dream, fence, etc. were just obstacles to her desires. Once she got past those obstacles, there were more obstacles. At the end of the story, Louise Erdrich looped back to the beginning by addressing the idea of skunks. She talked about how skunks have the most security in living, and perhaps this is even because they are allowed to be arrogant while also living fearlessly. This seemingly not-going-anywhere story actually made a lot of sense by the end.

In the beginning, Erdrich said, "I understand that I should be self-proud, content to gee-whiz at the fact that I am the world's only mechanism that can admire itself." Then later Erdrich went on to say, "We should take comfort from the skunk, an arrogant creature so pleased with its own devices that it never runs from harm, just turns its back in total confidence." I felt like the first statement was a naive statement from the person she was before. The second statement seemed to me as if she realized that skunks could also admire themselves. Skunks are so confident in themselves, and their own devices, that they don't have to worry about danger much. Also, I feel as if she was considering the idea that skunks don't really have obstacles at all. They don't really have a problem with going anywhere or staying alive. So, I guess the question that this essay left me was...do skunks have obstacles? If they don't, do they need to dream? I ask that second question because Erdrich said early that dreams were obstacle-less ways of living. I don't know if this makes sense at all, but maybe skunks don't have to dream because they already live without obstacles?????

Finally, I just wanted to say that overall I really enjoyed this story/essay. I loved the descriptions, metaphors, similes, etc. that the author chose to use. I really liked her comparisons and choice of wording. Also, this essay left my mind thinking non-stop about everything she talked about. My thoughts became confused and unsure of whether or not what I was thinking was even a purpose of her even writing the essay. Some of my thoughts, as you can probably tell from above, were extremely hard for me to put into words, but they make sense in my own head. Hopefully, I haven't completely confused whoever is reading this because it sure confuses me sometimes when I read it over.

Updike and Sontag

After reading John Updike's essay, I found myself in a unexpected mood. Even though I had heard it all before, had seen the unforgettable images on that terrible day, and had remembered most of what he described, his recollection of September 11, 2001 left me heavyhearted and gloomy all over again. Maybe it was his impeccable word choice and descriptions or his beliefs that made me think twice about why war is even an issue, but Updike clearly wrote from his heart. One of my favorite passages from this essay was "Determined men who have transposed their own lives to a martyr's afterlife can still inflict an amount of destruction that defies belief. War is conducted with a fury that requires abstraction...we have only the mundane duties of survivors--to pick up the pieces, to bury the dead, to take more precautions, to go on living." In my eyes, this passage itself summed up the effects of war and conflicts. Updike did an awesome job of not only telling but also showing how America was harmed and changed forever. Even better, Updike was able to end his essay with a pinch of happiness as he declared that Americans get through it all.

Now, once I read Susan Sontag's essay, I would have to say that my mood changed quite radically. I would best categorize it as an angry but calm one. For lack of a better word because my brain isn't quite functioning, I re-realized quite a few things as I worked my way towards the end of her essay. America isn't perfect, humans aren't perfect, and governments are definitely not perfect. I completely agreed with Sontag in the sense that bombings done by any country are wrong, even the U.S. I have to admit though, I was completely and utterly offended when Sontag said, "...whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards." Why was this so offensive to me? Well, in my eyes because they did something so terrible, they are cowards. The brave people are the ones who learn to live with their enemies and don't kill innocent people. I was also offended because to me it felt like Sontag was saying American's deserved what we got because our government isn't perfect and we can be so much better. Obviously we can potentially be more than strong, but we don't need to have a terrorist attack to prove this.