When it comes to our selected readings, I found both Ragtime and In the Lake of the Woods to be intriguing books that forced me to think critically about their contents including narrative elements, historical context, dialogue, and much more. My main question concerning the class deals with our two novels. I am curious as to how Ms. Weaver came about discovering that Ragtime and In the Lake of the Woods shared many similarities? If I would have read the two books separately and without searching for textual parallels, I would have thought the two novels to be extremely different from one another. However, through the analysis that was encouraged in our ENG 112 course, I came to learn that the two do share a lot.

The portion of this class that I had the most trouble with was the metaphor section. Since we covered this section quicker than the others, I felt like we didn’t have as much as an opportunity to dissect and explore metaphors more analytically. I knew how to identify a metaphor before this course, but I hadn’t had much experience breaking down metaphors and picking them apart piece by piece. It made selecting a topic a little tougher, but once I figured it out, it flowed more easily.

Overall, I really enjoyed ENG 112. I felt fairly challenged and I believe I have worked toward bettering my writing and my thought processes directed at analyzing other’s writings. It has certainly been an enriching course that caused me to develop a deeper interest in writing.

In closing his segment, Klein writes, “In an age of viral power, Democrats might argue, the U.S. has to be more than a hammer looking for nails. We have to find a way to act as a vaccine.” This ‘hammer looking for nails’ metaphor views foreign policy in an interesting manner. The metaphor represents U.S.’s actions to fix the ‘loose nails’ in foreign relations by using our nation’s powers to  to ‘hammer’ them back in to their proper place.

However, Klein is arguing that we need to work and act as a vaccine to create a cure for the problems of the world that have inflicted the global population like a virus. Hammering a nail is often just a short, intrusive way to resolve an issue. There is the possibility that the nail will was again become loose, creating an obtrusion that could once again snag foreign policy. A vaccination, on the other hand, serves as a more preventative action that creates long standing results and eliminates the further spread of problems.

Before turning in my final draft, I plan on adding a paragraph to contradict my argument. This would be for the purpose of proving my that argument could be approached and argued differently. I also have some sentences that need some restructuring for clarity, but other than that, much of the fundamentals of my paper will remain the same. As a side note, I was really impressed with the other papers I read during peer review. These papers opened up observations and arguments that I had failed to consider before, which I found intriguing. Though getting this paper started was a little more challenging than the last, I feel more satisfied with my final product this time around.

The ending of O’Brien’s novel was slightly chilling. The fact that Kathy is never found nor John’s whereabouts known creates a very mysterious and inconclusive ending. Though part of me wishes O’Brien would have provided an ending with answers, another part of me appreciates his leaving it to be interpreted by the reader. Truly I feel John completely lost his mind at the end, especially when he began his radio broadcasts.

There certainly are a lot of lingering questions left behind from this novel. First and foremost, there is the question of what happened to both Kathy and John. But beyond that, I have a questions on Claude’s involvement. There were times where it seemed like Clause knew more than he was letting on, possibly things that John may have told him that we as the readers were never informed of. The conversation the two had on page 281-282 was alarming to me. On page 282, John says that he didn’t hurt her (Kathy) in which Claude replies, “Now there’s a fact”. John continues to deny hurting Kathy and Claude laughs and says, “Better late than never.”  What does Clause mean by this?

I’m also curious of some of O’Brien’s choices. I understand why O’Brien chose to sometimes call John “John” and why other times he used “Sorcerer”. It had to deal with the identity in which John Wade saw himself, either his civilized self or his war self. But why did O’Brien decided to sometimes call John solely by his last name, “Wade”? On pg. 230, O’Brien first refers to his main character as “John” but later on in the page as “Wade”. I’m trying to see the motivation and/or the significance behind this choice, but I haven’t been able to come up with any.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading this book. O’Brien’s style was completely unique to any other style I have read before, which kept the novel interesting. The fact that the story is told through a narrator investing the case only makes it even more interesting!

Kathy Wade, the wife of former Lieutenant governor John Wade, was reported missing September 21st. Immediately following her reported disappearance, multiple search parties searched the Lake of the Woods as well as the surrounding area for clues of Mrs. Wade’s mysterious disappearance. Wade’s vanishing shook the community and triggered waves of sympathy and a nearly uninterrupted search by local volunteers. However I emphasize that all of these events did not happen until after her reported disappearance filed by husband John, which took nearly two days.

Why such a long wait?

For those of you who are having troubling recalling the significance of the name John Wade, allow me to provide a refresher. As mentioned above, Mr. Wade formally filled the position of Lieutenant governor and recently ran for a seat on the United States Senate. Things were looking optimistic for the Wade campaign team until the news leaked that Wade was involved in Charlie Company mass murdering of defenseless civilians in the Vietnam War. With such a shocking and emotionally disrupting association brought to public light, naturally the Wade campaign suffered a miserable defeat in the general election.

This brings me back to Kathy Wade’s disappearance. The couple was on a retreat to vanish from the public eye for a while. Understandable. John Wade, however, woke up one morning to find his wife missing. No note. Nothing. Instead of calling the authorities or even neighboring businesses to inquire on his wife’s disappearance, John Wade failed to act in any concerning manner. Eventually, a report was filed. After an extensive eighteen day search, Kathy Wade’s location still remains unknown.

While maintaining hope in difficult situations is often beneficial, I think it is safe to say Kathy Wade will never be found. I think it is time for authorities to start taking a closer look at husband John. Too many pieces of evidence, both physical and not, have been collected pointing to suspicious activity on the husband’s behalf. First, the telephone to the cabin was not only unplugged but entirely hidden, leaving his wife no way to communicate in an emergency. Second, the house looked disheveled with dead plants strewn about, something John claims to have done in his sleep sometime throughout the night. Third, there are entire pieces of the night and the following day that John forgets. As many of you know, oftentimes murders claim to forget blocks of time where the crime was committed.

Yes, I’m willing to go out on a limb without any previous detective experience and saw that John Wade murdered his wife. Clearly, as he proved in Vietnam, Wade is capable of killing innocent people without thinking twice. Many people agree that John Wade was a suspicious fellow and oftentimes acted strangely. To add to all of this, Wade can’t remember a thing. During the search, Wade showed very little emotion and was observed as having very little involvement in the initial search. Doesn’t sound like a loving husband eager to find his missing wife.

My theory: after a life of tragedy (between his father’s death during his childhood and the wicked horrors he encountered in Vietnam), John losing the election was the final straw on the camels back. Feeling consumed with failure and inadequate to his wife, John Wade felt no other choice but to end her life so he would no longer be a disappointment to her. Perhaps one day Kathy will be found. But until then, it is my firm belief that John Wade is the only person who truly knows where Kathy Wade rests.

Parallel to Wade’s obsession is Younger Brother’s strange behaviors in Ragtime. Younger Brother was entirely consumed by thoughts of a woman, but in his case Evelyn Nesbit. He, too, followed her around while she remained completely unaware. Younger Brother’s stalker-ish behavior continued to spiral out of control until finally he was caught. “At this moment a hoarse unearthly cry issued from the walls, the closet door flew open and Mother’s Younger Brother fell into the room, his face twisted in a paroxysm of saintly mortification” (Doctorow 63).

In both cases, despite their strange and disapproving actions, both John Wade and Younger Brother get the women they obsess over. However, Younger Brother eventually  looses Evelyn Nesbit to her own flightiness and it appears John Wade looses Kathy, even though how he lost her is yet to be determined. I find the series of events – stalking/spying, winning the girl, losing the girl – demonstrated in both stories to be an interesting intertextual element between Ragtime and In The Lake Of The Woods.

Before turning my final draft in, I plan on revising my thesis statement. I want to make it more specific so it targets one particular narrative element instead of a broader spectrum. Currently, I talk about how Doctorow uses characterization, but in my revision I want to narrow it to characterization through perspectives. Also, I want to try to include one more solid example to support my case, or restructure my current examples to make my argument stronger.

The descriptions of the game that Doctorow went into lengthy detail about didn’t involved Father or the boy much. Instead, he wrote about the different players, their jerseys, behaviors of the crowd, and the overall atmosphere of the stadium. Doing this made Father and the boy’s characters seems of little important when compared to the game, but that really isn’t the case. After all, Ragtime hadn’t mentioned baseball prior to this chapter.

Part of me wants to believe that Doctorow chose to write this chapter as he did to, in a way, show that even if the New Rochelle family was facing what they considered to be a terrible crisis in their lives, there is still an outside world that continues to function. In other words, when the New Rochelle family’s lives seems to halt in their tracks, the world around them went on forward. I feel that this can tie into why Doctorow focuses on so many individual characters whose connection is, at the time, unclear. Just a theory: maybe Doctorow is trying to show that these people, whether it be Evelyn, Henry Ford, Younger Brother… etc, are all facing hurdles in their lives that seem crippling, society still goes on with or without them.

I hope that makes sense.

Doctorow writes how Houdini feels as though he lacks connection with his fellow citizens and constantly sees himself as an outsider. Though Houdini is widely successful in his business and travels the world on bookings for awed audience, other “high citizens” in America still see themselves as being superior to him. Most likely they see Houdini’s career as more of a hobby turned into a laughable career and see that their hard work in things such as the banking industry to be more respectable.

Houdini is fully aware of his classification yet chooses to keep performing. The reason I find this so peculiar is because he seems like a man who holds respect for himself and is an intellect. Not only does he teach himself how to fly a plane, he even pulls together a team and self-educates himself on mechanical physics. Neither of these subjects are easy to comprehend yet Houdini perseveres to become somewhat of an expert. Houdini takes his acquired knowledge and uses it to make his performances even more intense and unbelievable. He pushes it so far as to upsetting his audiences. This not only leaves him little respect as a citizen but also as a performer.

For such a smart man to be upset by his place in the hierarchy of society, why does Houdini keep pushing his performance in a way that only causes him to loose more respect?