This week we read an article and a short story. It seemed to me that both of them were informational in nature. But while the article was written more concisely and restrained, the short story was written in a more pleasant manner with smooth transitions and was easier to read, since the language of the narrative seemed more lively.
Both texts are related to the events of September 11. It’s always been a little hard for me to read the news because of their style. Therefore, for this assignment, I decided to consider a short story given to us for reading.
“Fear & Loathing in America” is a short story written by Thompson, which covers the events of September 11, but at the same time gives us his personal perspective. He doesn’t only describe what happened in detail but also adds something personal there. For example, he mentions that he was “writing about sports” (Thompson, n.d., para 1). You can feel, what mix of negative emotions is going through the whole narrative – uncertainty, fear, anxiety, uneasiness, and tension. When the author mentions that in this war there is no guarantee to win even if you spend a lot of resources (Thompson, n.d., para 10), you can realize that this sentence can be used to describe everything in our lives literally. Even though this short story was written so many years ago, it is still relevant and many of the ideas from it can be applied to recent events.
It is obvious that the narrative is very important as soon as it can add significance and new perspectives to what the author writes about. Unfortunately, this is used by many authors when they try to propagate something or encourage people to do something bad. With the help of the right narrative, you can even inspire people with some ideas without them even noticing it. This is one of the reasons why the modern press is dangerous – whoever can pay a talented author more is right.
References
Thompson, H. (2022). Fear & Loathing in America. ESPN. Retrieved from https://proxy.espn.com/espn/page2/story?id=1250751