Please make sure you respond NO LATER than Tuesday at Noon. Also, please make sure you bring a typed word document of your response to class on Wednesday. Have a great weekend.
Please pick out 1 or 2 "signifcant" passages from the story and tell us why they are "significant" to you. What is it about the passage(s) that you liked? How does it connect back to the semester's theme? Remember that enslavement/control comes in many forms.
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Michele Nemec
ReplyDeleteI chose the passage on page 1383 the third paragraph down beginning with, " The man was probably the child's father...as a mother and pick up the child herself?" I think this passgae is significant because it shows how men and women are subjected to gender roles and they are expected to have certain responsiblities. For example when it says, "If she loved him, why didnt she fulfill her responsibilities as a mother and pick up the child herself?" This part of the passage is saying that it is just the mother job to make sure the child gets back and forth to where they need to be. I like this passage because in the passage it says the man must have been a good father and husband just because he had picked uo the child from the nursery. I like this because I can argue with it. Just because you bring or pick up your child to or from where they need to be doesnt make you a good parent, husband, or wife. It is your obligation as a parent to do so whether you are the mother or father.
I can relate this passage to this semesters theme of enslavement/control by saying that people are stuck into these gender roles. You can say that your enslaved into living the way everyone thinks is the right way of doing things. In this passage it goes on by saying the accident could have been prevented if the mother was just fulfilling her responsibilitie of being a mother. Therefore it is as if they are enslaved by gender roles.
I choose the passage on "Thats terrible. Why didnt he pull his father out of the way." I went with this one because is this person serious? I Believe the child was 3 or 4 years old. I highly doubt even if he had tried, he would be able to move a full grown man. He is a baby he is enslaved by his size and knowledge. I bet the kid couuldnt even comprehend what was going on at that moment. When a person is young they are enslaved by their parents. A child doesnt have much choice is any situation. They are told what to do and what not to do. This is because they have little expierence in the world. They won't react because they are unsure of the outcome. Parents have much more control over their children than we think. Parents practically think for their kids.
ReplyDeleteCassie Nelson
ReplyDeleteThe passage I chose was “I clearly honked the horn and braked! Everyone saw it – he was trying to kill himself by riding into the bus! How can you say it’s my fault?” (1379). I liked this passage because it shows that society always needs someone to blame and they cannot blame someone who is already dead because the dead cannot speak for themselves. It shows societies need to keep control and if that is in the form of blaming someone who is not at fault then so be it. The societies want people to think they have everything under control and that they are safe so that they will stay living where they are even if the conditions are bad. If the society has such control over the people then they can make them believe anything and even enslave them. Make them do anything for their country, community, gang, whatever it may be that the society is. It is not fair that this bus driver is being blamed for something that may not be his fault. And it is not fair that that guy very well may have been trying to kill himself but those people will never know because the guy is dead and cannot tell them what happened from his point of view. So for now, that society, being the people of that town or city need someone to blame and that someone is the bus driver who might end up in prison for something that was not his fault at all. After the accident the police took the bus driver away and then people cleared up the scene and the blood. The next day no one knew what had happened there. Everyday something tragic happens and we do not even know, and someone gets blamed even if it was not his or her fault.
Janine Hull
ReplyDeleteThe passage I thought was significant was the one on page 1381 that says "was someone hurt? It was a father and son, Which one? The old man What about the son? Unhurt. Thats Terrible! Why didn't he pull his father out of the way?" "It was getting worse and worse with every generation that man was wasting his time on his son!" This really caught me off guard, I couldn't believe these people were saying all of this. The son was three, and it all went so fast that was the dad's first reaction was to save the son. The father did die but he will be known as a hero now, for saving his sons life. I liked this passage because it really opened up my eyes to seeing the world and how it is. It also shows that people should really not judge anything or anyone before they start making all these comments. Especially how rude all of these comments were. Did they really expect a three year old to save his dad from a bus coming quickly down the street? I think this connects to our theme of the semester because the dad was controlling the bike so in his mind it was right for him to sacrifice him self for his son. He had enough control to not be selfish for once.
Aaron
ReplyDeleteThe passage I choose was from page 1380 "What does it matter to drivers like him if they run someone over? It's not as if they'll have to pay for it with their own lives." The reason I choose this quote is because the person who stated this probally has never been in a sitituation liek the one that occured. The driver who hit the man has to go everyday thinking about what he had done and no that won't bring the man back, but that is alot of grief day in and day out. Not to mention if this man faces jail time that along with the grief would take a serious toll on the man, but again I know it will not bring the man back, but he will suffer day in and day out as I have said. I think this quote connects to the theme of the semester because of tone. The man who stated this statement was probally angry and scared. Not scared for the man who had just got hit, but the child that was with the man and what would happen to the little boy. The man expressed his emition through tone and he came off a little aggressive which he had the right to be.
Marshall Rose
ReplyDeleteThe first passage i chose from the short story "The Accident" was towards the bottom of 1380, when someone states "Why did he have to hook a baby carriage to his bicycle? It's hard enough not to have an accident with a regular bicycle". I chose this passage because i felt it was very disrespectful, mean, and uncalled for given the situation, i mean talk about an eye opener. A man is killed, and all you're going to do is rip on the guy for attaching a carriage, totally out of place to say that. The second passage I chose was on page 1381, which stated "was someone hurt? It was a father and son, Which one? The old man What about the son? Unhurt. Thats Terrible! Why didn't he pull his father out of the way?" I chose this statement because, of how i felt it was just flat out ridiculous, how is a young boy in a baby carriage supposed to pull his father out of the way. This connects to the theme of the semester because one form of enslavement is how the witnesses judge the father and son.
Joey King
ReplyDeleteThe section that I found to be most significant was the last two paragraphs of the story, starting on page 1383 with the “But it was unavoidable.” This section discusses how things like this happen all the time, but we all just think “oh, it will happen to someone else, not me,” but what about when it does happen to you? We all go around acting like nothing bad can happen to us, unaware of how fragile we are.
I also like that the author talks about how no one will ever fully understand all the details behind an event like this, such as whether it was a noble sacrifice for him to save his son, or perhaps it was instinct.
I think that this sections to the theme of enslavement because we trick ourselves into believing we are invincible, and many people, particularly young people therefore are enslaving themselves in this way.
If this story can teach us one thing, it is that a death like this can be very disillusioning to those around it, and that we are all only human.
Marisa Simpson
ReplyDeleteThe passage I find significant in the story is on page 1380, "Why did he have to hook a baby carriage to his bicycle?....You're lucky if you can get your kid into one at all." I think it's significant because it show how people avoid and deny what has happened. When the two men are talking about the nursery, it has nothing to do about the current event that has happened. They avoid and deny it by talking about something completely different. The event is being deny because they had no control. In society, people are so used to having things under control that when it gets out of control, they try to avoid it. I think this passage just made me think. If I were to hear people talking about nursery schools and things like that when a man just died, I would be giving them this weird look like, "hello, a man just died and your talking about nursery schools and how hopeless they are." On the surface what they say is insensitive but the bigger meaning is that they are just denying what happened.
Michelle Spadaro
ReplyDeleteIn the short story “The Accident” by Gao Xingjian, the two main characters, a father and son are struck by an oncoming bus in the middle of the road. I choose the passage on page 1379, “I clearly honked the horn and braked! Everyone saw it- he was trying to kill himself by riding into the bus! How can you say it’s my fault? In a strained voice the driver tries to explain, but no one pays attention. You can all be witnesses-all of you saw it!” In this short exert you can hear the panic in the bus drivers attempt to clear himself from the accident. I think this is significant because it raises the issue of whether or not it really was an accident or if the man intentionally rode in to the bus. Another passage that is significant is at the bottom of page 1380, “Nursery schools are hopeless-they won’t let you leave your children there for the whole day. You’re lucky if you can get your kid into one at all.” I think this passage is one of many in this story that is an attempt to pass the blame on to someone or something else other than a simple explanation of fate or maybe he had really being trying to kill himself. This relates to the theme of society not accepting fate or simply implying that this natural occurrence was not natural, he must have seen the bus, and the idea of humans being immortal, and thinking “this would never happen to me.”
I chose the passage on pg 1383, "Maybe the man had a miserable life and that's why he was so distracted." This passage really struck me. I wondered how the people can judge a person's personality on an accident that happened that he couldn't control. This passage relates back to our society because it shows that we judge people on what he hear about them, instead of knowing them or judging them on their personality. The second passage was " But it was unavoidable. He had no incurable disease..."(pg. 1383). This passage talks about how he abandoned his baby. I do not think he abandoned it, he did it for the better for the child, and I do not believe you can think about the relationship of the parents by this incident.
ReplyDeleteThe first passage that resonated with me was on page 1383 when Xingjian says, "No one can escape death. And no city is free of traffic accidents. In every city there is the possibility of death--even if the chance on any given day is one in a million--and in a big city like this someone is always encountering some kind of misfortune. The dead man was one such person." I like this passage because it takes a very realistic perspective on the accident. They are not imagining who the man was and what led him to get killed. They are just taking a very astute outlook on life and death. This passage also relates back to the theme of enslavement, because people are imprisoned by the fear of death.
ReplyDeleteThe second passage that I really liked was on page 1384 when Xingjian says, "Of course, a traffic accident can serve as an item in a newspaper. And it can provide the raw material for literature, when it is supplemented by the imagination and described in a moving narrative." This doesn't really relate back to the theme of enslavement, but I really like the way he pointed out that he took an ordinary event and turned it into an entertaining narrative.
Anna DeFusco
ReplyDeleteLinda Palushaj
ReplyDeleteIn the accident by Gao Xingjian, I have decided to choose the passage on page 1380 starting with, " Why are you trying to deny it? If you ran over a man...He was trying to get himself killed...If he hadn't had a child with him he would have made it across in time...Why did he hook a baby carriage to his bicycle?...Nursery schools are hopeless...etc." I believe this passage is significant because in times of conflicts people try to figure out answers and then start to come up with different reasons why it happened. People tend to start to blame different people and different things to come up with an answer. I believe this connects back to the semesters theme of enslavement because everyone in a way is trying to control other people by blaming them for the incident. They are unsure of what actually happened but they want to come up with a conclusion so they blame others and this is enslavement.
Heather Feenan
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the story “The Accident” by Goa Xingjian. My favorite passages are at the end, after the accident takes place. The first one is on page 1382,
“For some reason, my eye lid has been twitching for the past couple of days.”
“Which eye?”
“You shouldn’t walk down the street so lost in thought all the time. Quite a few times, I’ve seen you –“
But if something did I wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
“Stop it! People are staring.”
The two lovers look at each other and walk off down to the street, holding hands.
I really liked this passage because it’s the end of all the chaos. It is a different topic from what is going on. After that passage the narrator starts talking again. I feel like that passage was a good way to end that section of the story because it shows that life goes on. The line about people staring just shows how society enslaves us, and how we obey to it. Who cares if people are staring? You’ll never see them again.
The second passage I liked was the very last paragraph about philosophy and newspapers. The last sentence makes me think about what we talked about in class on Monday about Story vs Plot. The story was the last sentence and the rest was just a plot.