Monday, September 8, 2014

Vertigo - Life in America During the Great Depression

             In the beginning of Vertigo, there is a brief history of the United States that shows a vast amount of progress and positive changes occurring. The meaning of this brief history of America presented in ‘1929’ is to show how far the country had come and how much was accomplished in the time before everything changed during the depression.  There are sharp differences between the ‘1929’ chapter and the chapters that follow, but at the end of the ‘1929’ chapter there is warnings of unfortunate events to come.  When the chapter is coming to an end there is a rainstorm that ruins the carnival for many people.  This foreshadowing tells a little about the pain and suffering that is in the chapters ahead for the three main characters, the boy, the girl, and the gentleman.

             Throughout the chapter with the brief history there are many images of men working, building great skyscrapers, constructing railroads, and exploring new areas. The many pictures of the great work showed strong, very fit men doing the work; whereas, many of the men in the later chapters were shown to be small, thin figures.  The differences between the men used, showed a strong correlation between the health of the country and the health of the workingman.

            The man telling the brief history at the graduation ceremony spoke of all the good that can come when you work hard and dedicate yourself to a higher purpose.  Like the transformation of the workingman doing masonry at first and then the skyscrapers being erected by the end of the history, with a similar looking workingman.  This was intended to inspire the young audience to go out into the world and work hard so one day they could be part of a better country than the one they are walking into. The inspiration is quickly turned into desperation, which is highlighted when the boy steals from the man who wrecked his car over a cliff. This shows a drastic change in the once innocent boy that has been turned into a desperate man by the hard and unforgiving world he found shortly after his graduation. His desperation leads him planning to mug a man in an alley, and eventually selling his blood to the old gentleman when he has no other options.

            At a further look, the man telling the history also talks about fighting that took place, and immediately after the war picture there is a page with men traveling out west, and exploring new lands. This shows that even if there is war and fighting there can be a positive outcome. Later in the book there is also more fighting and war with the workers and the National Guard with an outcome that is not as prosperous as in the brief history.  When the old gentleman ordered the National Guard in, there is intense fighting between them and the rioters, except these pictures of the fighting are more graphic and are shown to be more harmful than the ones shown in the history. 

Furthermore, the old man’s health is suffering greatly after the riots because of the business problems he may be having or the remorse he has for calling in the National Guard.  Regardless of the reason, this is a far different picture after the prosperity shown after the fighting in the brief history.  Since the author is an advocate of unions, I think he showed this to say there is sometimes a good reason to use force and other times it is not beneficial to anyone involved. He also wanted to portray the old gentleman as a person who does not care much about people and only about his business earning money, regardless of what he has to do.

In conclusion, the brief history is a summary of the ups and downs that a society will face throughout time.  There sometimes needs be periods of war, despair, and instability before true progress can be made. In the end the author never reaches the part of progress for the boy, girl, and the old gentleman, possibly because he did not want to give his audience false hope.  He may not have known what would be next for the country and he was simply telling the story as he saw it. There was little hope for the characters, as there may have been little hope in the country during that time.

2 comments:

  1. I really like the comparison of men’s health in the history versus the story portion; you could definitely cite specific examples and elaborate on how this might be effective as foreshadowing. I also think that you could elaborate on the example of the young man. His downfall could probably be tied in more with the historical sequence, which would really strengthen your argument that they are connected. I think it would be interesting to delve in deeper with the parallels between the history and Depression portions. Perhaps bringing in some of the symbols we spoke about in class would strengthen your argument. For example, talking about the different ways that the star is used in the two sections could be an interesting argument that the author foreshadowed themes or ideas.
    As far as what could be cut, I don’t know if all of the second-to-last paragraph really pertains to the argument. The portion about the old gentleman being portrayed negatively should be brought back to draw a parallel in the history section or cut out.

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  2. You want to quickly establish an argument which would be interesting or provocative to someone else in the class, someone else who has read the book. Saying that the '1929' chapter foreshadows events ahead is certainly true, but it's also obvious. You want an argument which actually has something to prove.

    By the third paragraph, you are focusing on interesting details: "This was intended to inspire the young audience to go out into the world and work hard so one day they could be part of a better country than the one they are walking into. The inspiration is quickly turned into desperation, which is highlighted when the boy steals from the man who wrecked his car over a cliff. This shows a drastic change in the once innocent boy that has been turned into a desperate man by the hard and unforgiving world he found shortly after his graduation." I like this material - you are reading closely, and you clearly get that there are interesting contrasts here between the ideas of 1929 and the harsh reality that follows, but even though it's gotten more interesting I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish.

    The two paragraphs about violence are both interesting and totally unfocused. Analyzing and making an argument about violence in the book is a good idea; relating the violence of American history to the violence of the union-busting is an excellent idea. You could certainly write an essay about that - but here I have no idea what you're actually trying to *say* about how we get from one form of violence to the other.

    Overall: By the conclusion, it's especially clear that you don't really have an argument. You focus on interesting questions, which is good, but if you revise your first job is to figure out what you're really trying to prove, and then reorganize/rewrite around that.

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