For this week I did a close reading of the story from Bulosan's "America is in the Heart" chapter 16.
"I began to be afraid, riding alone in the freight train. I wanted suddenly to go back to Stockton and look for a job in the tomato fields, but the train was already traveling fast. I was in flight again, away from an unknown terror that seemed to follow me everywhere" (Carlo Bulosan, "America is in the Heart", 604).
This was the first little snippet from the first paragraph in the story, but this little opening was so powerful it already captivated me as a reader. He is talking about how he is traveling on a train to a completely different area, what makes this different is the fact that he is in the back freight cars not on a commercial train. There are a couple themes that come to mind when I read this little bit. The first one is freedom, while the second is fear. I say freedom because it symbolizes that he doesn't have to stay in one place he can be free and on the road living by his own rules. The second theme I noticed was fear, being free is great and all but being in sketchy areas riding on a freight train alone all present one major feeling fear. He even said how he wished he stayed in Stockton to work the fields because he was afraid of the journey that he was on. He wanted the security of a job and things he knew but because he took that leap of faith he started to feel fearful about what lies ahead. Overall, I thought it was a very interesting story and would definitely recommend the read.
I like how you incorporated both freedom and fear within this snippet. It is interesting how you cant have one without either having or wanting to have the other. When you are "free" you still have the fear of that being taken away, but without freedom you are constantly living in fear.
ReplyDeleteHi, Austin!
ReplyDeleteI chose the same story to do my analysis, so I was happy when I saw yours! It's awesome reading someone else's point of view.
That story was really sad, so I found it interesting when you said that you saw freedom in there. I mean, at that time, Filipinos were facing hard times and in my opinion, the last thing the author would be enjoying would be freedom. I like that your perception brought this theme to you, though. I could not see it like that.
Hi Austin,
ReplyDeleteIt is very clever how you juxtapose two two very different emotions, freedom and fear. When I first read this work I did recognize the fear. I guess I so empathized with Bulosan's fear, maybe even sympathized with him, that I did not recognize the fact that he was also experiencing, to some degree, freedom. Good job.
Hello Austin, I think that you did a great job with this.To be honest I think that this story is a bit scary just by reading the first part of the quote. I kind of took it as he's more afraid of being on his own in writing out the strain then just staying somewhere that he already knew if that makes any sense.
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