More and More and More -- Crank -- Lindsey

By -
I read Crank when I was around 14. My mom didn’t believe in censorship of anything, and I was allowed to read, watch, listen to what I wanted. It benefitted me in more ways than I can count, and I thank her for building my reading and language skills by exposing me to things above my head. I was very young, and the content of this book was very heavy, but that fact alone made the images more stark and staying. As I reread the book for this class, the images and the mood from when I was 14 were recreated. I think that is the power of books told in verse. Simple lines and concrete details lead to powerful, clear responses from the reader. The cliché would be that less is more, but I think Crank exemplifies that saying. The verse moves quickly, readers are propelled through the lines, and the plot sneaks up on you as you read. There is no getting bogged down by unnecessary words. Each word, or simple string of words, is chosen precisely by Hopkins to convey just the right tone, the right mood, the right image. The poem in which I think this is most evident is “I Became an Instant Celebrity”, because it uses many poetic devices, and because it is a turning point for Kristina/Bree. Kristina/Bree talks about how she is now selling the drug, and Hopkin uses repetition and rhetorical questions to take the reader through the emotions of actions of her day-to-day existence. Of course, repetition isn’t a groundbreaking strategy to use in poetry or prose, but when combined with the knowledge that this book is written for adolescents, I think Hopkins morphs the strategy in a way that will mimic closely what Kristina/Bree is doing, and make it more accessible to the reader. The repetition of rhetorical questions makes Kristina/Bree’s foreshadowing clear. We know at once that something is about to happen that causes her to “quit” because she’s suddenly unclear about the “what ifs” if she had continued using. The repetition of “nonstop” mirrors the effect of being “wired” and “tired” because both of those actions are “nonstop”, like the use of the word “nonstop”. The same applies for the repetition of the word “more”. Kristina/Bree needed “more and more”, and Hopkins wrote the words literally more and more. The final line of this poem is the most important element. The very simple fragment “But it wasn’t.” delivers a punch that reverberates throughout the rest of the novel. The symmetry, also, between mentioning her “mom’s Sloppy Joes” and the foreshadowing of Kristina/Bree’s pregnancy directly reflects the fact that the real story of the real daughter is being written by her own mother. If one were to think about this story and envision it in typical, detailed, novel-style prose, I would imagine the plot would become unbearably hard to digest. The style of verse allows the author to include certain, specific details, and gloss over others. The impact, then, is more like a single but brutal punch to the nose, instead of a head-on collision; direct, painful, and to-the-point.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe...
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm...
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C...
Read more