About Me

Hi all, my name is Logan Stahl and this is my very first blog post. If you ever see me in person you may think I may be just a big football player but there’s much more to me than just that. I was born in Huntersville, North Carolina on October 17, 1998. My family lived in Huntersville up until to 2006 before we moved to Hershey, PA, the same place that they make the Hershey Chocolate bar and many other kinds of candies. Hershey is what introduced me to football, I started playing “Pee-Wee” football when I was in the 3rd grade; I have been playing ever since. In 2012 my dad had a job transfer to Pittsburgh, PA. This is what I consider home in a way, Pittsburgh is where I went to high school and the place that I feel has shaped me the most. Pittsburgh is also where I met the current Lenoir-Rhyne football coaching staff, when they were at Cal PA. If I wouldn’t of met them I wouldn’t be where I am today.

 

 

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The Irony Within

The first day of class was a little different from I was expecting. This seemed to be a bigger theme through my entire first month of college. On the first day of class I realized that the name of the class, “Critical Thinking & Writing” took a quite literal turn. Through the class I felt like I developed a better understand on how to analyze pieces of work and how to turn my analyses into blog posts.

I enjoyed reading the story The Devil in The White City by Erik Larson. I believe my essay on the prologue and how it gives you an idea on the dark theme for the rest of the story, was my best piece of work yet this year. As I had learned from my previous essays I was able to analyze the story finding a common theme of irony. Throughout the book Larson introduces people that are looking forward to great events like the various victims of H.H. Holmes. They all came to Chicago looking forward to visit the World Fair little did they know they were going to be murdered. This can be seen in the prologue as well, “…a sinister day in maritime history, but of course the man in suite 63–65, shelter deck C, did not yet know it.” (24, Larson). This excerpt is a perfect example of the various kinds of irony found within the book, specifically dramatic irony. Being able to analyze a book and see knowledge I had learned in past years of English was a cool way to connect the two.

Personally, I found the hardest essay to write this year was the essay on Creature by Heidi Schreck. While this was the first essay and blog post we had to write and it might have seemed easy for some people. I found myself struggling. I truly believe this was due to the concussion I was coming off of at this time. I had a hard time and was injured, mentally, just like how Margery Kempe seemed throughout the story, Creature. In my analysis, I wrote about how I believed that Margery Kempe was faking that she had talked to god to gain attention. I said that when she was at St. Magaret’s church she seemed as if she was experimenting with the different levels of her crying then can be seen saying, ““I don’t know what is happening to me. Who are you?” (, Schreck). I feel like looking back I might have been able to relate to Margery to a certain degree as I do believe I had a certain number of teammates who believed I was faking my concussion. Looking back, I feel like I would have had a different kind of opinion on the play Creature by Heidi Schreck.

Throughout the class I feel like I grew as a student a lot. I learned to start following rubrics more strictly as well as to start working on pieces of writing early allowing me to take my time and not have to cram in the last second. Throughout the course I found myself in many ironic situations whether it be reading about dramatic irony in The Devil in the White City or see an ironic connection between you and a mentally ill play character. By the end of the course I found myself enjoying analyzing pieces of writing as there’s messages underneath what you may initially see.

 

Works Cited

Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City. Vintage, 2004. Print.

Schreck, Heidi. Creature. Samuel French, 2011. Print.

 

Bibliography

Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire, Sept. 2003.

“The Falling Man”, by Tom Junod talks about how a single photo can document such a great amount of different ways to view the photo. The photo was a photo of a man jumping out of a tower during 9/11. During the attack people had no way down, their only hope was to jump. Junod describes the man in the photo as if he were at peace with himself and had accepted his fate.

 

Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City. Vintage, 2004. Print.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a book about the World Fair and the come up of the World Fair Hotel. The story switches between two conflicts; the architect of the world fair trying to make money and H.H. Holmes murdering travelers under the cover of his hotel.

 

Richtel, Matt. “Blogs vs. Term Papers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/muscling-in-on-the-term-paper-tradition.html.

The article, “Blogs vs. Term Papers” by Matt Richtel touches upon a very relevant topic within English 131 at Lenoir-Rhyne. This article talks about the two opposing viewpoints of writing long essays and writing short blog posts. The article talks about how multi page essays can be not as motivating for students, while blog posts might be more enticing.

 

Schreck, Heidi. Creature. Samuel French, 2011. Print.

Within the play Creature by Heidi Schreck, Margery Kempe has birth. Shortly after giving birth Margery claims to start seeing demons. This causes Margery to distant herself from her husband, John Kempe. As the story progresses Margery claims that she comes into contact with God and that God talks to her.

 

Twinge, Jean M. “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Aug. 2017, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/.

In the article, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation” by Jean Twinge, touched upon how today’s smartphones and technology can be seen as destroying a generation by some people. The article also brought the views of the opposing argument that smartphones are connecting the world that we live in. The article features a compare and contrast between the two sides.

 

Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad: Doubleday Books, 2016. Print

In the book The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead the story mainly follows the life of Cora, the daughter of Mabel, a slave who is living on Randall Plantation. As the story progresses the reader learns about different confrontations the slaves of Randall Plantation have and the results of those confrontations. These in turn cause Cora to run away

 

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2013. Print.

The play Our Town by Thornton Wilder takes place throughout an entire theatre rather than just on stage. The play stars the stage manager, the Gibbs family, the Webbs family and various other characters that interact with the families. As the play progresses the focus moves towards the romance of George Gibbs and Emily Webbs. The entire play is done with very few props, the only props that can be seen on stage is a couple of benches and chairs.

Our Town of Unconventional Plot

On an early May morning of 1901 the stage manager introduces the audience to the wonderful town of Grover’s Corners. This town is the town Thornton Wilder writes about throughout the story of Our Town. The play mainly follows the interactions among the Gibbs and Webb families, throughout the play the interactions become more focused on George Gibbs and Emily Webb’s romantic relationship. The play Our Town is a very unique and unconventional play among its time period; this can be seen through many different interactions in the play and a play within a play.

There are a variety of bizarre interactions among the play, Our Town. A good example of this would be within Act I, when Howie Newsome is first introduced within the play. Howie comes into the play walking beside a horse and carrying supposed milk bottles in his hands. Neither the horse or the milk bottles can be seen by the audience in the play and are supposed to be inferred. The only sensory que to hint at either would be the clinking of milk bottles off stage. Within seven lines of Howie being introduced; the audience is not even made aware of Bessie, Howie’s horse. Dr. Gibbs and Howie are having a conversation when Dr. Gibbs goes, “Hello Bessie” (Wilder, 10) and reaches to stroke the horse which is supposedly up center on stage. The audience is then left to infer that the animal that Dr. Gibbs reached out to is a horse. This is just a single example of how interactions among the characters with their props proceed to go throughout the rest of the play.

Halfway through the introduction of Our Town in Act I you are able to tell that something is off, besides the fact that there is nothing on the stage. The stage manager is acting as a narrator explaining the stage and the town to the audience. The stage manager explains the stage as if he were a part of the town of Grover’s Corners. In his introduction he says, “Nice town, y’know what I mean?          Nobody very remarkable ever come out of it, s’far as we know.” (Wilder, 5). Through the stage manager’s use of the word “we” he infers that he is a part of the town. The stage manager who first seemed as the narrator telling the audience about the play setup, now seems as if he is a part of the town himself. This leads the audience feeling as if they were a part of the play as well. This can be later emphasized in the play when the stage manager starts answering questions from supposed audience members and addressing the audience multiple times. This gives you a feeling that the play isn’t just being enacted on stage but within the entire theatre itself.

The play Our Town is a very unconventional play and can be seen as purposely being wrote this way. Wilder bridges the gap between the stage and the audience to allow the audience to feel a part of a town that doesn’t focus on social injustice or hypocrisy as was the current mood of the era the play was performed in. Wilder doesn’t completely ignore the negativity but instead focuses the play on greater values. The values of interactions among people to other people. Wilder successfully achieves his goal within the play through the use of interactions with characters, props and creating a play within a play.

Works Cited

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial, 2003.

The Sludge Below the Surface

Within Erik Larson’s Book, The Devil in the White City, the prologue gives you a very keen insight to the novels theme throughout the rest of the book. At the very beginning of the prologue Larson introduces you to Daniel Hudson Burnham, a well-known architect of his time as well as the story’s protagonist. It’s April 14, 1912 and Burnhams are currently aboard the Europe-headed Olympic; the sister ship to the Titanic. Throughout the first couple pages Burnham has many issues: he is dealing with an injury to his foot and he is becoming frustrated as his message via Macroni Wireless to his good colleague Francis Millet is not going through. At the end of the prologue Burnham finds out that the Titanic is in a very bad situation and the Olympic is en route to help at all costs. All Burnham could think about was his colleague and hoping that he would be able to carry out numerous more conversations together.

The prologue gives the reader an idea about the happiness and joyful spirit of the 1910s while giving you an idea of a dark sinister undertone. The very first line within the prologue really describes the theme for the rest of the story; Larson writes, “…a sinister day in maritime history, but of course the man in suite 63–65, shelter deck C, did not yet know it.” (24, Larson) The entire book is built upon people’s joy of a new event while they do not understand what else is happening until it is way too late. This common theme can be found multiple times throughout the prologue, another example being how Richard Harding described the world fair being, “Richard Harding Davis called the exposition ‘the greatest event in the history of the country since the Civil War.’” (29, Larson) It is very ironic to compare a fair as being one of the greatest events since a civil war within a country. This kind of dark humor is another perfect example of the sludge sitting below the surface of the water throughout the book.

The prologue is a very key part of Erik Larson’s book. Without it you would not be introduced to the book’s protagonist and the darkness the seems to find its way through the shadows throughout the novel. The prologue gives the reader an idea of the theme for the rest of the book.

The hints of Scene 3 and Scene 4: Creature

In the book, “Creature” by Heidi Schreck there’s numerous explications among numerous among numerous passages. I believe a passage that might help describe character as well as a setting would be scene three and continued into the beginning of scene four. These two scenes show an insight of Margery’s character, gives you an idea of the setting and gives you an idea of the plot.

At the beginning of scene 3, Schreck has Margery enter St. Margaret’s church. As she is standing within the church she looks at the cross and says, “Here I am. I will do whatever you ask”. Immediately after saying that she suggests that she could start crying like saint Mary of Oigres. Within the next line she starts crying. Schreck describes Margery, “experimenting” with escalating the sound of her own crying. This makes you wander that maybe Margery is doing this for attention. She then says, “I don’t know what is happening to me. Who are you?”. This shows that she is completely faking it, she was just experimenting with the different volume levels of her crying but now she says she doesn’t understand what is going on.

Scene three and four also give you a great idea of the setting of the play. In scene four Father Thomas talks about how he helps the poor. As Margery tries to say that she is poor, he corrects her and says, ” You have a husband and a baby and from what I hear a highly profitable beer business”. This kind of gives you an idea of the time period, that there were multiple different classes within their society. Another hint to the time period of the play would be at the end of scene four. Father Thomas mad the comment, “… I have an English bible.” This gives you an idea that the play might of been in England in the early 1400s as it was not commonly accepted to have a bible that was translated to English.

As for the plot scene three and scene four gives you a very good idea of the play. Scene three opens up to Margery trying to figure out how to seem like God has touched her even more. To then Margery acting like God has been talking to her about Father Thomas. To then Margery convincing Father Thomas that God might really be talking to her. This foreshadows how Margery tries to manipulate people throughout the entire play. This also makes you think that Margery might actually be crazy as well.

Of all passages throughout the play, I believe scene three and four do the best job. Scene three and four are able to describe Margery’s character, describe and give you an idea of the setting, and foreshadow and give you an idea of the plot.