I think you’ve assigned this interesting story because you want us to realize the importance of independent thinking. As we follow the plot of the story, we can detect there are generally three different categories of people having their own treatment for the drowned dead man. First group is the children who make him as their entertainment. “They have been playing with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up again.”(Marquez 1) Obviously, we are not children anymore. We are supposed to have the ability to think and find out the cause of the man. When the drowned man is handed over to the adults, they diverge into two attitudes. Because finding no answers from outside, the men urgently wish the drowned man to disappear as soon as possible.(Marquez 5) On the contrary, the women have taken their time to imagine the drowned man’s life. Dead can’t tell, but the details can tell the truth. The women started to endow him a name, Esteban, to construct the image of how big his house is and his embarrassment as a guest for visiting other people’s houses.(Marquez 3,4) If we relate Esteban to our class, personally, he would be our readings and writings the professor has given us, and we, the readers and writers, are the villagers in this story. At the beginning of the class most of us might be the men who are incapable of retelling the stories and making the writings beautiful. As long as we would like to take our time in thinking patiently, we will gradually dig out the moral of stories and embellish it to our writings just as the women empower a new meaning of life to Esteban.
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4 thoughts on “Jiaxing Rong Discussion2”
Hi Jiaxing!
I really like the way you answered the question. The last part stood out because it is exactly what we are doing. Esteban is the stories given out and we as the students, have to dissect every little detail to get the most out of it. Just like the women grouped around Esteban and took their time to imagine his life and go into detail about what he might have gone through, we would be doing the same. When given a story to read, we should all take time to sit down and break down what’s in front of us.
Hello Jiaxing. I really enjoyed reading your response and your take on the story. I agree with your last phrase since it may be tough for some of us, including myself, to grasp the story, but with more time spent studying it, we will be able to find out what the story is really about.
Jiaxing, thank you for the good comments here about why I might have assigned this story first. Your analogy between the class and the villagers is a good one. In class, we may not be the creators of the stories, but they can work their magic on us if we let them in. This is very much a story about how stories have the power to transform lives and change perspectives, which is what we all hope to achieve in college—and in life.
Hello Jiaxing. I enjoyed reading your analysis of both the story and why it was assigned as the first story of the course. I feel it was very in-depth and showed a lot of thought. I liked the in-text citations and since I haven’t had to write a formal essay in many years it will take a while for me to relearn how to write one properly. I feel we are the villagers in this story and that I am currently incapable of writing beautifully but hopefully with diligence and patience that will change over time.