mps Gesse by Zz Packer

ZZ PACKER - Geese

Packer’s short story “Geese” is the first in this collection to intrigue me. It is the only one of her stories that caused a desire in me to anticipate the next page. And so you can imagine the disappointment that came over me as I read the last sentence. I turned the page after digesting its last few words. There was nothing there. I needed more and knew that I must have missed something. So I reread the last paragraph and it put all the pieces together.

In the second reading I noticed that the ending of this story is unique. Not to all stories but to those within this particular collection. This is the only time in the collection that Packer uses the reflection of a character to conclude her story. This is probably why I didn’t recognize it as what it was.

In it she briefly describes the work of Japanese kamikaze pilots. “How they pledge their lives to the emperor and take flight on suicide missions with only enough fuel for the one way trip.” (Pg. 209) And the narrator also mentions that when Dina had first read about these pilots, in the “all knowing arrogance of youth she concluded that there had to be another way. She in the same circumstance would have done things differently.”

The point that Packer is making here is to liken the Kamikaze suicide missions to the path that Dina is currently on. As she does this we come to find that Dina had been wrong to assume she would have done things differently. If we consider a few instances that occur in Dina’s story before she prostitutes herself, we can see the parallels.
For instance in the beginning Dina makes a sort of pact like the one made to the emperor, with her family and friends that she is going to Japan to make a large sum of money before moving on. Than when she uses the last of the money she has on futile things like buying ice cream for Ari. Like the kamikazes do, she leaves herself in a terrible circumstance, by not preparing for a possible change in plans. Dina in this situation did everything just as the Kamikaze did. She led herself down a deadly path and makes no previsions for escape.

secretary of bestcornergroup08,



melissapierresaint

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: “Geese” and “Doris is coming”

Comment one:
An interesting sequence of events that jumped out at me in “Geese” was one that took place between Dina and Sayeed. After Sayeed tried to kill Dina the two started to avoid each other at all costs. “Not a schedule exactly, but a way of doing things. If he returned from a day of looking for work he might ask every one how the day had gone. In that case she would not answer, because she was to understand that he was not speaking to her. If she was in a corner of the room she would go to another.”(Packer p.223) For some reason this reminded me of the intricate tango that takes place between a couple that is headed for divorce but can not come to terms with that fact yet. I know there was little if any love between Dina and Sayeed, but I could not help but be reminded of this exact tango my parents carried out for years preceding their own divorce. Nothing was admitted to be wrong, but nothing seemed to be going right either. The lack of communication and retreating to opposite ends of the house were common. For some reason when I read this quote this imagery leaped off the page and into my head, bringing me right back to the hostility of 1999.

Comment two:
In Doris is coming a passage that called to me was on page 246 where Doris is describing her return from school to home. “but she knew her father must be home; she could hear him hammering away. Her father was trying to build a third bedroom where their back porch had been, but the partition made from blankets never kept out the draft. She turned on the kitchen stove to warm the house and start dinner, wondering why her father had picked winter, of all times, to tear down two major walls of the house.” (Packer p.246) She goes on to describe the pock pock of the hammers meeting the nail heads. This jumped out to me being that my father did indeed make the same mistake when trying to renovate our porch into a “new room”. He picked late fall to start this project thinking it would only take a few weeks and that we would be spared from the cold arrival of winter because the gaping hole in the side of our house would be a finished room by then. Oh boy was he wrong the project took like 5-6 weeks longer than anticipated and I can still remember waking up in the morning for school to the pleasant smell of cooking gas. My mother used the same method of blasting the oven to warm the rest of the house. This one brought me back to 1989.

Posted by Michael Clark

"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" By ZZ Packer

In Packer's short story "Doris is Coming" we read about a young African American girl growing up in segregation. She is from a strict Pentecostal family. Doris was an intelligent girl who wanted to make a difference in her world. She wanted to be part of sit-ins for the equal rights movement. She struggles with her identity it seems throughout this story. She has not joined these movements for fear of disappointing her parents, her reverend, and her friend Mr. Stutz. Finally by the end of the book she takes a seat at the counter of a five and dime shop where they don't serve "colored people." Her brevity and strength made her proud and frightened at the same time. When she leaves she makes a point of telling the woman behind the counter that she is not leaving because she is not welcome but because she must get home. I liked this part. I also liked the description at the end of the story. "The shy had just turned her favorite shade of barely lit blue, the kind that came to the window when you couldn't get back to sleep but couldn't quite pry yourself awake." (265) THis seems to be the state that Doris is in just at this moment. Am in between stage of a person who is changing from a girl to a woman. From a person who isn't sure of her identity to someone who has an idea of whom she would like to be.

Posted By: Krista Behrends

"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" By: ZZ Packer

In ZZ Packer's short story "Geese" I was struck by the last paragraph in the story. Throughout the story you wonder why Dina is allowing herself to stay in this situation. Why she doesn't try harder to get a job or go home. By the end of the story Dina is living with four other jobless foreigners and they are eating what seems like one small "meal" a week. When it comes down to starving she decides to prostitute herself. After this is done she is on the train home and remembers reading a book about Japanese suicide kamikazes. It is at this point that life makes a little more sense to Dina. She always thought that she would choose a different ending if she were one of these bombers but now she knows this isn't the case. She did exact;y what they did, knowing that the ending only had one outcome. I thought this was a sad story.

Posted by: Krista Behrends

"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" second response

"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" By Z.Z. Packer was an excellent, fast paced story. I Truly felt the anxiety of the first week of college, the nervous awkwardness of trying to fit in, and hoping not to be left out. One particular quote stood out to me the most, when Dr. Raeburn tells our narrator that "you're pretending"(p.142). He then goes on to say the professional term for it is denial, as she sits there stunned by this accusation she kind of goes blank only focusing on the one word "pretending". "I'd hooked on that one word pretending. Dr. Raeburn would never realize that pretending is what had got me this far", she goes on to describe how she felt on the morning of her mothers funeral, that she was given milk to ease her stomach, and how she imagined that it was coffee "I imagined that I was drinking coffee elsewhere". We get a good look into our narrators character with this statement. I remember having similar feelings of uneasiness on the morning of my own mothers funeral, and how I wished that I could be "elsewhere" but I don't think it was coffee that I was longing to drink. I had to push on and kind of pretend that everything was all right, and now almost a year later I still sometimes feel like I am still pretending, pretending that my mother is elsewhere, not in a cold grave but perhaps on a warm beach, an extended vacation. Sometimes it is the pretending that gets us through the day.

In speaking in tongues a comment need to be made about a particular passage that stood out to me. "Dezi kissed her cheek... it was the first time a male had kissed her... she had always imagined that when someone kissed her, her eyes would be closed in anticipation, she would be waiting to receive the kiss" Knowing the circumstances of this scene takes away from how truly romantic this thought that Tea is having at this moment. I reminded me of my first kiss and how I thought it would be perfect, eyes closed, music playing, me saying something romantic, but in reality it was nothing like that. In fact I remember the first one, quick and awkward, and then it was over. Innocence lost forever in a passionate kiss in a dark closet at my neighbors birthday party.

posted by Michael Clark

"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" By ZZ Packer

ZZ Packer’s short story “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” was one of the best stories in this book so far. I really enjoyed the story line and the playfulness of the concepts and dialogue. I could almost imagine walking on to the Yale campus and seeing circles of people asking very philosophical questions. I loved Dina’s response, so honest and challenging in the basis of the atmosphere. Can you imagine, you get accepted to a school like Yale and disappoint everyone on the very first day! However, she did get a lot out of it such as having her own room and always being left alone. My favorite part of the story was when her and Heidi hosed each other down in the cafeteria. It seemed to be the peak of the story. Dina finally seemed to come out of her shell and have fun with life. All in all, this was a great short story. I found it unique in it’s emotion and honesty and I truly enjoyed reading it.

Posted by: Krista Behrends

mps Drinking Coffee...

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ PACKER

a comment

While interviewing ZZ Packer, Robert Birnbaum asks if she is considered a black writer. " She agrees that she is but adds “I am writing for black people, but I am also writing for whites, for Chinese, for Americans”. Her point: being black doesn’t limit an author to a black audience.
I thought about how frequently authors will respond to a question like this one in the same manor. Acknowledging their race, and confidently sure that they possess the ability to speak to all people regardless of their differences. I hear it all the time but I wonder if it is true. I understand that anyone who pick up this collection becomes Packer’s audience, whoever they me be. But I wonder if we should be just all more honest about the term audience. Should we be considering other factors…. like humor maybe? [I know that’s a bit random. Try to fallow me]

Packer’s stories are filled with great humor. Maybe not knock your socks off funny. But it’s smart and witty. I found myself laughing a lot but because I’ve had this idea of audience on my mind it made me question; who when reading this book would be laughing with me. Who would understand the humor that she incorporates into her work and who would not? While reading the story “Brownies” for the second time, I stopped a moment mid laugh to acknowledge the possibilities. “Caucasian Chihuahuas…What are you? Caucasian?... That was so Caucasian!” (pg 3&4). Being an insider on the joke, I thought that, that was hysterical! Well that is until I flipped the script. Black Chihuahuas. What are you? Black? That was so Black! It just wasn’t as funny anymore and I assume it might not have been as funny for her White audience. [I couldn’t be sure. I meant to ask someone. But It's such an odd question to ask.]

In any case, would it be completely terrible if White people didn’t think that was funny? You know I’m not sure. And this makes me consider all the other features of a writer’s work that can be lost in translation. It makes me more conscious to the fact that even when you read a story you can be an insider or an outsider and I’m starting to consider that the insiders might be a writer’s true audience. For instance in Packer’s stories she tell of the racial divide and black identity that she is accustomed to, in her everyday life as an American. What I am proposing is that the experiences and circumstance she writes about it are best understood by those who who’ve share them with her. This doesn’t exclude everyone else from being her audience. But it might mean that every story [not just Packer’s] has a true audience. One who is best able to catch emotions and views the author shares with the reader. Even they’re simple jokes.

Now if that is the case, something a simple as race [ha] could not be a sufficient divider for every joke in every story or every circumstance our characters face. But I think it worked in the Chihuahua joke to help me acknowledge all the other factors that celebrate an author’s true audience.

The audience within the audience …boy is that deep.


secretary of bestconrnergroup08,

melissapierresaint




the interview: http://www.identitytheory.com/interviews/birnbaum103.html

Class Canceled November 17

PLEASE NOTE:
Class for Monday, November 17, is canceled. Please bring your assignments for this week’s class to next week’s class, along with the assignment for next week. Your assignment for next week is to finish reading Drinking Coffee Elsewhere and write a response paper, or complete any of the alternatives for writing a response paper (including writing two comments about the reading). So, in total, for November 24, you should have finished reading all of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere and should bring in two response papers, or their alternatives.

The group that was to present tomorrow will present on November 24, in addition to the group that was already scheduled to present on November 24.

I’m canceling class because I’ve thrown my back out of alignment. It occasionally happens, but I’ll be back on November 24.

Please email me if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Karen

Response Papers

As I mentioned in class, you now have another option for response papers. Now that we're in the final stretch of the semester, and your workload is probably piling up, here's an easier option of response papers. You can continue to do response papers as you've done them all along, or you can opt for this alternative.

Instead of completing a two-page response to the stories, you can bring in TWO comments on the assigned reading. Comments can be anything of interest that you've noticed in the stories, for example, a paragraph that included an unusual or beautiful description of something, an observation about the nature of a character, or a comparison between the assigned short story and a previous short story. Be prepared to read your comments aloud in class, as well as remark on other's comments. Your comments will still be graded.

"Speaking In Tongues" By: ZZ Packer

I really enjoyed the two stories in this week’s reading. ZZ Packer’s “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” and “Speaking in Tongues” were edgy yet sentimental. The rough and tough subject matter that is being faced in the second story couldn’t have been easy to write about in a way that would be easy to read. But, if there is one thing that has become obvious about Packer it is that she is not concerned about making her reader feel comfortable with the subject at hand.
In the story “Speaking in Tongues” we meet Tia, a young church-going and naïve teen from the South running away to Atlanta to find her real mother. Her strength and brevity seemed admirable until you realized that it wasn’t really strength, but foolishness and naiveté that landed her at Dezi’s apartment. In the scene when Dezi begins kissing and undressing her I experienced a mixture of feelings. As I imagined this young woman in my head being taken advantage of by a thirty-two year old man I felt sympathy, anger, frustration, and most of all shock. Yes, my mouth actually dropped while reading this passage. It seems that Packer confronts many scenarios and though it should be expected or not surprising when you come by such events, but somehow it still manages to shock the reader.
The unfortunate truth is that these stories happen more often than any of us would like to believe. Packer just brings it to the forefront of your mind. I really hope Tia made it home.

Posted by: Krista Behrends

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, by Z.Z. Packer

When first reading this group of short stories by Z.Z. Packer I truly thought I was going to have a long week of reading ahead. I was not able to grasp the angle of her tone being used here, but soon caught on to these splendid, morally soaked passages. Each story has a distinct knowledge of the social high ground, but does not always choose to engage in this knowledge. There is also a distinct religious undertone in her stories. In "Every Tongue Shall Confess" we meet a gospel singer in the church choir, Roberta, who is also a nurse in a local hospital. She has been bullied by the people in her life and by her job. She has been sexually assaulted by the great Reverend of her church but decided not to tell anyone about it due to her own embarrassment. When the Reverend decided one day while driving her home to stick his tongue down her throat and hands down her paints, he became very hostile towards her for not letting him know that it was that time of the month. I thought this situation was awkward for the both of them but really how could the Rev. get mad at her when he was the one who was acting inappropriately. The fact that he got upset about this shows how shallow of a man he is. He is a star at the church and beloved by the community. However like most men of power he knows no boundaries, and sees no faults in any of his actions. Roberta is a dedicated nurse as well as a great singer; she even makes a point of calling all her patients on her days off. It is during one of these calls where her destiny is made clear to her, but not right away and not very clear at first. She mistakenly connects with her patient’s roommate, an old blues guitarist with a deep soul. He also has a thing for Roberta and tries to convince her that they should get dinner together and spend some time getting to know each other. Roberta changes the subject to religion saying that he should be concerned with changing the fate of the bluesmans' soul. She declares that Jesus can save his soul, but only if he let would only let him in. He tries to make a deal with her saying that if Jesus saves his knee he will start going to church regularly. She believes that there is no deal making with god and that he should go to church no matter what happens to his knee. In the stories' climax we see Roberta singing in the choir when she notices the blues guitarist standing with the aid of his cruch, and with his trusty guitar strapped to his back. He decided that seeing her was worth the price of admission, and that it is undeniable that they were placed on this earth to save one another.
In "Our Lady of Peace" we are given a glimpse into the inner city Baltimore school system. Tired of not being able to make her rent our narrator decides that she will become a schoolteacher. Sounds simple enough but is it? This story resonated with me because it shows the true perseverance of teachers, and the strife they deal with on a daily basis. Most people think that there could not be an easier job, summers and holidays off, but as we see here there is a whole lot more than meets the eye. Our narrator has trouble enticing the class with her lesson plans, and controlling the classroom. She turns to Sheba, a juvenile delinquent living at the Our Lady of Peace home for children, which is actually more like a jail. Sheba has a bad reputation; it is rumored that she shanked her former teacher at her old school. The students quickly fall into line when Sheba decides that they should shut up and pay attention. Everything seems to be working out until Sheba turns on the teacher, she gets pregnant and stops coming to class.
While trying to restore peace to the classroom and her life the teacher decides to on a peace offering to Sheba, she offers her a ride home. Things do not work out as planned and our narrator is upset with the world as it is today. She cannot stand the nonchalant attitude of the inner city youth, two of which are taking their sweet time crossing the street in front of her. Fed up with it all she decides to floor the gas pedal to give the kids a scare. She ends up accidentally hitting one of the kids, and flees the scene. She eventually decides that she is no longer cut out for teaching these kids who don't care for learning or advancement in any way shape of form. It took a bunch of chaos for her to realize where her peace lies, one thing is for sure, it is not at Our Lady of Peace.

posted by Michael Clark

Comment on “The Ant of the Self” By ZZ Packer

“Outside autumn is over, and yet it’s not quite winter. Indiana farmlands speed past in black and white. Beautiful. Until you remember that the world is supposed to be in color.” (86) I thought this was a great thought. There are times when I can remember feeling the same way. Everything seems black and white and gray and winter hasn’t even started yet. You know it’s a long road ahead of you before life blossoms again. I thought this quote was a foreshadowing of the events to come and the time that would pass before Spurgeon feels alive again. Another good quote from this story is when a preacher at the March says “… freedom is attained only when the ant of the self – that small, blind, crumb-seeking part of ourselves – casts off slavery and its legacy, becoming a huge brave ox.” (101) This seems to be where the title came from. This story is about the character Spurgeon, who feels like he is only the “ant of the self,” he hasn’t had the chance to chose who he wants to be because he is always a slave to his father’s opinions. He can’t escape the need to be accepted by his father. He is, “that small… crumb-seeking” person trying to have some kind of relationship with his father. He is picking up any crumbs he can, in hope that his father will change or surprise him. It is clear by the end of the story that his father, Ray Bivens Jr. will not change, however, it is unclear if Spurgeon will stop trying to change him. We do know that he realizes how abusive and lacking their relationship is when he watches a father get the man at the station to yell “All Aboard” for his son. Spurgeon comments that he almost cried but instead he just put his head in his hands. This was a very emotional story, one that I assume is all too often true to reality.

Posted by: Krista Behrends

Comment on “Every Tongue Shall Confess” By ZZ Packer

Firstly, I got a kick out of the length of the name of the church and how Sister Clareese never shortened the name but continued to repeat “Brother’s Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized.” I liked the way ZZ Packer used italics to exaggerate or emphasize words in dialogue. As if, while you are reading you are getting the attitude of the character through the emphasis on certain words. When the father was preaching about call-waiting, for example, you can almost hear the ring of it and his voice. “Jeeeee-uz did not tell his Daddy- ‘I’m sorry, Pops, but my girlfriend is on the other line’; Jeeeee-zus – never told the Omnipotent One, ‘can you wait a sec… Jeeeeeeee-zus – never told Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, ‘I’m sorry but I got to put you on hold…” While reading this I almost heard the preachers’ voice in my head. Emphasis on words is something everyone does in reality and I thought it was interesting that Packer incorporated it in to her stories.

Posted by: Krista Behrends

Professorial Brainstorm

I stumbled upon this recipe for Derby Pie by ZZ Packer. In the name of thorough academic research, I think we should probably bake said pie and eat it while talking about her stories in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. I'm prepared to bake one pie, and wanted to know if anyone else might be interested in bringing in another pie or something to go along with it. Here's Packer talking about her grandmother's kitchen and the recipe for Derby Pie, which originally appeared in the New York Times:

Derby Pie

By ZZ PACKER

Every Sunday after church, my grandmother's kitchen in Louisville, Ky., became a kind of depository for desserts. Female relatives and friends would drop off cakes and pies on her sideboard the way guests at a wedding fill up the gift table. Most were of the too-delicious-to-be-true black Southern strain: seven-layer caramel cakes, sweet-potato-and-yam pies, cinnamon-flecked peach cobblers or ''Sock It to Me'' cakes with a dollop of sour cream. My favorite was my great-aunt Fannie Lou's version of Kentucky Derby pie.

The Kentucky Derby is run the first Saturday in May, and in addition to bourbon-heavy mint juleps, hot browns, burgoo and other Kentuckified foods, Derby wouldn't be complete without Derby pie. (I should say so-called Derby pie, because by trademark, only Alan Rupp, of Kern's Kitchen Inc., can make a true ''Derby pie'' -- though to my mind, a batter of melted butter, egg yolks, flour, chocolate chips and walnuts poured into a pie crust seems as elemental and universally delicious as ice cream.)

My first time eating Rupp's ''real'' Derby pie came when I went to the Bristol Bar and Grill on Bardstown Road in Louisville as a teenager. Like my great-aunt Fannie Lou's pie, Rupp's is a veritable dessert casserole, and like a casserole, the pie must be served warm. Not sizzling, not tepid, just hot enough to be on the verge of melting, so that there is just the right amount of -- how else to put it? -- goo. And this ''goo factor'' is why reactions to the pie range from incoherent babbling to orgasmic moans. The yolky messiness of it transports you to some prenatal limbic state, evoking the euphoric feeling of licking cake batter from the spoon, eating raw cookie dough or stuffing melting s'mores into your mouth.

Official Derby pie is supposedly made with a layer of chocolate chips lining the bottom of the crust, the batter poured over the chips to keep them undisturbed and the heat of the oven baking the topmost layer so that it forms a kind of flaky-crispy crust. When you cut into it, you can see the sedimentary layers. I prefer my great-aunt Fannie Lou's version, which looks more like a cross-section of half-molten conglomerate rock. And hers is best enjoyed a day or two after it's baked, when all the ingredients have had a chance to work their magic on one another.

Though I've eaten many versions of the pie (some use pecans instead of walnuts, some add bourbon to the batter or make it less viscous with additional flour, some top it off with bourbon whipped cream), I haven't found any that improves upon Fannie Lou's. I do, however, expect that someday someone will subject Derby pie to the grand unified theory of Southern cuisine: ''If it tastes good now, it'll taste even better fried.''

Fannie Lou's Thoroughbred
(Almost Derby) Pie
[serves 6]

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
4 tablespoons butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup semisweet-chocolate chips.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the crust in a pie plate and prick the bottom with a fork. Cover lightly with a sheet of foil, pressing it gently into the crust and making sure the edges are covered. Place weights (metal pie weights or dried beans) on the foil to weigh down the bottom and hold up the sides of the crust. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove foil. Continue baking until the crust is firm and has lost its sheen but is not browned, about 5 more minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the butter, eggs and vanilla extract. Add the brown sugar and flour and mix until thoroughly blended. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the walnuts and chocolate chips.

3. Pour the batter into the crust. Bake until puffed and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and place on a rack to cool. Serve warm.

ZZ Packer is the author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Stories.'

civil war and the bad decline

Cilil War and the Bad Decline starts out , Whenever a potential big investor comes for the tour the first thing I do is take him out to the transplanted Erie Canal Lock. We've got a good ninety feet of actual Canal out there and a well-researched diorama of a coolie campsite. Were our faces ever red when we found out it was actually the Irish who built the Canal.The title story, about a Civil War theme park terrorized by teenaged gangsters, though at first I was unable to understand what was going on, I found this captivating and wanted to continue reading on. I found Saunders to be captivating and funny throughout reading I found myself laughing out loud. I think his descriptions come alive through humor, and help the reader continue on and stay interested. The main character explains how he has no better career options and works at a theme park, how him and his wife are not doing as well as they could , and feels like he may be a slave to his boss.The book has many characters , the people who attend the theme park and usually writes in a first person , thus far. The theme park is getting taunted by a gang, and the main character wants to take care of what is happening at his theme park. For the most part, I enjoy the stories, the way the author writes. but a lot of times i felt like he was asking too much of me as a reader, the stories to far out that i have trouble suspending my belief. at times they read like an madlib, combining five completely unrelated subjects into one short story.

"Civilwarland in Bad Decline" by George Saunders

In the book of short stories Civilwarland in Bad Decline, by George Saunders we encounter a few mildly confusing yet somewhat entertaining stories that involve everything from ghosts with morals and guilt to themes of poverty vs. decency. In the first we encounter a Civil war themed park with a gang violence problem. The investors of the park are going to pull the plug on the project soon if the ownership cannot make the place a safe attraction for family fun. Local gangs are running ramped in the park, tagging graffiti on old colonials and even beating up patrons. The park takes action by trying to hire one of the soldier actors as "security". He is told to scare the gangs with warning shots. Along comes Samuel, a Vietnam vet that was dishonorably discharged for violence, true irony. Sam impresses the owner by intervening on a situation where a gang tried to rape a teenage girl attending a cousin’s baptism on the parks grounds. Sam kills six of the gang members, sending a message to the rest of the community. Our narrator is caught between a rock and a hard place, morally speaking, he feels it is wrong to kill these gang members but if he speaks up he may lose his job. He cannot afford to take the moral high road with a wife and two children at home. Sam suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome, just as Mr. McKinnon, the father of the civil war ghost era family that haunts the park does. We see similarities between the two near the end of the story. The pair both suffer from skeletons in their closets, causing them to feel only two emotions hate and hate. The symbolism here is how ghosts from your past can haunt your present.
In "the 400 pound CEO" we encounter Jeffrey an overweight office worker who is constantly harassed by his co-workers about his weight and unsightly looks. He was not always so large, at one point he would describe himself as portly, which is a nice way of saying fat but without such a negative connotation. His job is to sell humane capture and release of pesky varmint like raccoons. Certain housewives cannot deal with killing such pests and it weighs lighter on their conscience if they go the humane route. The problem is they are capturing and killing the raccoons anyway. Jeffery's boss is a rotten man with many deficiencies. He spent time in jail for intentionally backing over a frat boy with his car. While in jail he conceptualized his rouse. He even has an S&M chamber in the basement of the office. When an animal rights activist uncovers his mode of operations we finally see Jeffery step out side the norm and stand up to his boss. He was going to kill her in the woods and burry her in the same mass grave as the raccoons. Here Jeffery intervenes accidentally killing his boss. In the end he is sentenced to 50 years to life in jail, suffering for the rest of his days for doing what was right. His boss gets off easy with death while he has to endure nightly go-rounds with an inmate that has made him his property. If he just let evil run its course he might not have ended up in such a bad situation. He made a choice to do what is right; sometimes the law is blind to right and wrong. At least he can take solace in knowing he did the right thing regardless of the repercussions.


Posted by Michael Clark