Through Vertigo’s unorthodox visual narrative
consisting completely of woodblock prints, one is immersed in a series of
shifting snapshots of American life from roughly 1929-1935. The novel is separated into three divergent,
but interwoven stories focusing around The Girl, The Boy and The Elderly Gentlemen
provides three unique lens in which to view the social atmosphere and events leading
up to and immediately following the Great Depression. Ward makes use of certain symbolic elements through
the three stories, in order to clarify cryptic elements and hidden details and
tie together meaning stemming from the earlier segments. The Girl, The Boy and
the Elderly Gentlemen are all explored through various sections of time at an intimate
level to provide depth on how their desires and insecurities shift throughout
the depression. In this sense, the character’s
lives can be viewed as tools to illustrate social and economic injustice in the
American system of life.
The Girl begins to form
a pretense about positive directions of the lives of both the boy and girl. Starting with the introduction from
presumably a school official, an empowering high school graduation speech
unfolds, including various images depicting early America’s optimistic nature
and industrial grit. The speech boils
down the essence of the American dream by recounting the struggles and
achievements of the pioneers, and their shaping of America into the illustrious
nation it has become.
The continuation
of America’s roaring 20’s mentality is eluded to when the girl and boy visit
the amusement park following their high school graduation. Both the girl and boy visit a fortune-tellers
booth and were captivated by the physics’ crystal ball. The crystal ball revealed to them idealized
versions of the future, showing the girl in a violin performance with adoring
fans, and the boy on a building site. The
depiction of the crystal ball filled a majority of the woodblock, which
appeared to frame the image, setting the tone for a story within the original
narrative in which the characters gain some level of self-realization. Within the crystal ball image, the symbol of
the star reappears from when it was previously seen during the graduation
speech, as the driving force to Columbus’s ship, again playing upon the “American
Dream-esque” nature of their supposed destinies. The characters have been ingrained with a
headstrong view of America’s future, one that totes the prowess of capitalism
and industrialism as unable to fail.
These idealized futures
are not recognized, as the appearance of a storm at the park, ultimately the shifting
tides of the Great Depression, brings in an era adversely affects both the
lives of the girl and boy, as well as all others around them. The social change brought in by the
depression broke all preconceptions about the direction America was heading
from the standpoint of the 1920’s.
You have an interesting angle of discussing how The Boy and The Girl view their futures and the future of America. However you can develop more in depth on how these idealized futures are not recognized using specific images from the text, and expand upon the difference in the time periods (before and during The Great Depression.) In addition you brought up An Elderly Gentleman in your introduction but did not bring him up again. Id like to see you add him into your paper, maybe use as support to show how The Great Depression affected the rich as well.
ReplyDeleteOverall you have a great start to your paper, you have an interesting perspective and use great vocabulary.
A minor point - why do you call Vertigo a novel? Novels are long, usually fictional, prose narratives, which doesn't quite describe Vertigo.
ReplyDeleteA bigger point - rather than alluding to "symbolic elements" and "cryptic elements" in a fairly long first paragraph, you should already be more specific. This is a short essay - you need to clarify your argument from the start. The first & second paragraph could easily have been combined into one short paragraph, which *still* wouldn't have a polished argument.
The roaring 20's paragraph is much better. Ideally, you should have begun with something much more like this paragraph. You're doing a good job connecting their optimism to the historical moment, but I'd still like it to be more clear where you'll be taking us from that - is *Vertigo*, then to be read as a satire or critique of American optimism or American exceptionalism, for instance?
Overall: The idea here is sound, and your focus on the fortuneteller is a good start, but there's too much filler here in a very short essay - you wanted to move more quickly to the fortuneteller, and then also make much more clear how you want us to understand her.