Image and Theme (425)

Choose an image from Crash that in your opinion distills or embodies a central theme of the novel. Give a page and paragraph number of the image. What specific theme does it represent? Explain why/ how the image does so.

Homage

to John Garfield

by Nicholas Christopher

The heat’s on, dead wind shoots up
9th Avenue, a white T-shirt flutters
On the convertible’s antenna
Outside Billy’s Pool Parlour.
New York’s last tough guy
Walks down 44th Street, bums a smoke
And shows a good left
While feinting punches.
He crosses town, watches
East River tugs link the bridges
With foam in afternoon glare;
Whatever died in the last war
Left Brooklyn harbor, maybe
Is still out at sea.
After Hollywood, the big money,
Blacklisted out of pictures
When he won’t give names;
His voice a hoarseness,
Health gone to hell,
Caught up in gin and rumpled raincoats,
He lives in West Side hotels
With ex-society girls,
B-actresses and three old bankbooks.
He drinks for nine months straight,
Stirs endless ice cubes
In the narrow bars off Broadway,
Blacks out regularly at 4 a. m. ,
Dies at 39 in hotel sheets,
Journalists delighted to report
An English girl, under-aged
And on junk, in bed
With him at the time.

Uptown in a Bronx trainyard Three kids grown past stickball
Play blackjack under an overpass,
Blow dope and belt cough medicine
Over a low fire—the one
In the black sweater loses,
Can’t pay up, leans back
And watches rain come down
On a southbound express.

Definition (303)

For “History” in the HUM303 questionnaire.

  1. Any events that happened in the past.

2. History is trying to understand the ideas, behaviors and beliefs from people and events from the past.

3. History is a relational flow that can only be studied by witnessing movement. All human history can be found in the cyclical rising and falling, waking and sleeping, birth and death and resurrection, of the most minute individual. As Joyce once remarked, “in the particular is contained the universal”. History in and of itself is a fall of flow into static ink on paper, but is reanimated by the ever-changing material conditions it is comprehended within. These cycles of rising and falling do seem to be determined by negation: capitalism was once the negation of feudalism, communism, for now, lives only in the slightest gesture of that which negates alienation.

4. History is subjective, cyclical, revealing, and necessary for the progression of humanity

5. History is a giant game of telephone. It is a translated account of events that have happened in the past.

6. History is relics and stories of the past that create where we are today. History is a timeline of events that shows us the evolutionary concepts of art and culture and humanity.

7. it is narrative of the victor who shape the world in there image. it also the bit and pieces of multiple event put together to form a coherent story

8. History is the representation of everything that happened before the present. It’s the location of our cultural myths, half-truths, larger-than-life characters, and voids of information that generate our understanding of the present moment.

9. History, to me, is the events of the past that help us make better choices for the future. We cannot grow or change, unless we learn for our mistakes, wins, trials, and tribulations. History may not always be facts but it is the personal narrative of whoever may be telling the story.

10. History somethings that happen in the past for people to remembering forever. If you read a history book you will find something that is true and fact because they never lie in the past. Back in my high school year I always wonder if History is always true. I feel like people have a lot of history in the past they don’t really tell us everything. This is why I joining the class to know more.

11. History is like a review of past events that happened and marked a change in which nowadays we experience it.

12. I would define history as an unstructured timeline of events where no one point in time has only one event happening at the moment. The timeline itself is constantly being reorganized and rewritten based on new discoveries and new interpretations of old discoveries.

13. History can be many things. History can be written records, language and traditions passed down and events.

14. History is human’s narration of the past. It involves both change and continuity. The past is not history because history is the popular notion of the past.

15. History is our past and it enables us to analyze the mistakes of our ancestors. Through History we can avoid making the same mistakes our ancestors did.

Lowlife (225)

lowlife, n. and adj.
Pronunciation: Brit. Hear pronunciation/ˈləʊlʌɪf/, U.S. Hear pronunciation/ˈloʊˌlaɪf/
Frequency (in current use): Show frequency band information
Inflections: Plural lowlifes, (rare) lowlives.
Origin: Formed within English, by compounding. Etymons: low adj., life n.
Etymology: < low adj. + life n.
In sense A. 2b (especially in early use) frequently occurring in representations of the speech of Jewish characters, although no direct model appears to exist in Yiddish.
A. n.

  1. Usually in form low life. The social world of the lower classes; poor or humble society. In later use typically with the implication of coarseness, squalor, or disreputable behaviour. Cf. low-living adj. and n. (b) at low adv. Compounds 1b.
    1712 Spectator 1 52 These Laws were enacted by..Artizans and Mechanicks..; and..there is something in them which gives us a pretty Picture of low Life.
    1784 Gentleman’s Mag. Aug. 580/1 Such greatness of mind is rare to be found in low life in any country.
    1821 Edinb. Mag. May 436/2 The scenes in Goldsmith’s Alehouse, &c. are like the finest Dutch pictures of low life.
    1847 T. H. Fielding Knowl. & Restoration Old Paintings 183 His [sc. Adrian Brouwer’s] subjects were always taken from low life, as conversations of peasants, their feasts.., drunken quarrels, [etc.].
    1939 Life 4 Dec. 48/2 (caption) Society swells visit Nick’s saloon for a taste of low life.
    2003 C. Wiegand F. Fellini iii. 64 A poet of Roman low life, Pasolini..[pays] particular attention to the dialect spoken by the prostitutes.
    2.
    a. With plural agreement. Frequently with the. Lowlife people (see sense B. 1) as a class.
    1820 W. Hazlitt in London Mag. Sept. 254/1 The conversation of low life is nothing but rudeness. They contradict you without giving a reason.
    1856 Eclectic Mag. Oct. 223/2 To one portion of the ‘low life’ of London, that portion which coins its soul for drachmas,..we can only allude.
    1964 Amer. Folk Music Occas. No. 1. 7 It would be an error to conclude that such songs are found only among the low-life.
    1986 Cincinnati Mag. Mar. 6/2 Politicians.., magazine editors and other lowlife.
    2005 J. Singleton Skinny B, Skaz & Me xii. 182 Drugged up most of them. Bloody low life. They don’t want rehab. They want..a right arse kicking.
    b. A despicable or contemptible person, esp. one involved in criminal activity. Also as a term of abuse. Cf. low-lifer n.
    1909 Sat. Evening Post 11 Dec. 31/3 ‘Yes,’ Goldblatt replied… ‘That lowlife has got a wife. But who or what she is nobody don’t know.’
    1910 Western Monthly Oct. 39/2 ‘Oi, oi, oi,’ he moaned, tugging at his beard. ‘Oh, them low lifes, them loafers, them robbers!’
    1920 ‘H. Hall’ Egan i. 18 You great big bluff! You great big bum! Lowlife!
    1959 H. Pinter Birthday Party (1960) iii. 50 Keep an eye open for low-lives, for schnorrers and for layabouts.
    2011 D. Magowan Gerrity’s Law 5 His parents were lowlifes and he was raised as a lowlife.
    B. adj.
  2. Of a person: of low social status, lower-class; coarse, vulgar, disreputable; (later also) despicable, contemptible.
    1725 ‘C. Comb-Brush’ Every Man mind his Own Business 30 Thus did this low Life Lady apply her favourite Phrase so oddly, that the Ladies at our end of the Town have nick-nam’d her the Lady in Life.
    1742 H. Fielding Joseph Andrews II. iv. vi. 207 There was always something in those low-life Creatures which must eternally distinguish them from their Betters.
    1794 ‘P. Pindar’ Pathetic Odes 28 Behold Saint Crispin’s picture, strange to tell, The low-life cobbler’s tutelary Saint.
    1827 Vade-mecum India to Europe by way of Egypt 48 The English vessels to be met with are all of the worst sort.., and commanded by very low-life men.
    1885 ‘F. Anstey’ Tinted Venus 95 The peculiar stave by which a modern low-life Blondel endeavours to attract notice.
    1910 G. B. Shaw Brieux 16 Servants, solicitors, and other low life personages.
    1964 Eng. Stud. 45 368 Could minor low-life characters speak at once so feelingly and with our own voice, to their mistress, at a tragic climax?
    2003 N. Rawles Crawfish Dreams (2004) ii. 28 I let some lowlife white criminals drive me from my home in Louisiana.
  3. Of, relating to, or characteristic of people of low social status, or people regarded as vulgar or disreputable; (of a place) frequented or inhabited by such people.
    1728 J. Dalton Genuine Narr. Street Robberies 25 They..carried a Bottle of that Low-Life Liquor Gin, to keep their Hearts up, under the Low-Life Performance.
    1762 E. Farneworth in tr. N. Machiavelli Wks. I. Pref. p. vi The language in general, is..full of vulgarisms, quaint sayings, and what the Italians call il modo basso, or low-life expression.
    1861 M. B. Chesnut Diary 8 Dec. in C. V. Woodward Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (1981) xi. 260 Mr. Shuford, he goes fer low-life things—hurting people’s feelings.
    1880 Amer. Bookseller 1 Sept. 168/2 ‘Rogues and Vagabonds’ is the new low-life story which Mr. George R. Sims has begun.
    1939 Time 18 Dec. 21/1 There can be nothing very awful about even such ostentatiously ‘low-life’ dives as the Nut Club in Greek Street.
    1972 Listener 10 Aug. 184/3 Low-life action and local vernacular.
    2011 C. Rearick Paris Dreams, Paris Memories i. 31 Guidebooks and memoirs..described some of the lowlife dens as fascinating attractions to be visited.

FA21: 225

HUM 0225-03 Values in American Life
Jack Black, You Can’t Win
ISBN: 978-1902593029
Wm. Attaway, Blood on the Forge
ISBN: 978-1590171349
Wm. Gresham, Nightmare Alley
ISBN: 978-1590173480