AHWOSG - Dave's 'near-death' Experience

From pages 304 to 309, Dave describes a moment in time when he thinks he is dying, but really he just has a kidney stone. Today you are going to be doing some literary/linguistic terminology and grammar revision through this section of the text.

Follow the link to access the handout for today's lesson. Work your way through the literary and linguistic techniques, and then leave yourself half an hour at the end of the lesson to write up your findings into PEE paragraphs, using the questions at the bottom of the page as a prompt.

Post to your blog when finished, and then use these notes as revision.

Click here for the link to today's handout.




Reminder:Your mock exam will take place 2 weeks today. If you finish today's task before the end of the lesson, start thinking about how you will revise. Click this link for some revision tips and techniques.

AHWOSG Chapter 7 - John's Suicide Attempt

Hi everyone, 

Please see the notes and key quotes for chapter 7. Read these in detail, making any necessary additional notes, and then complete the task below which focuses on John's suicide attempt.

Chapter 7 Notes

·         Eggers finds out that he didn’t get a place on the MTV show The Real World. He pretends to reject it but he implies that it would have still been good publicity for Might magazine. As usual, the reader is presented with contradictory and conflicting opinions about the value of popular culture. They use the man who got Eggers’s place on the MTV (Judd Winick) show in order to publicise their magazine and they do have eight seconds on the show as Judd comes to do some work with them. Eight seconds is enough for the team to become ‘mini-celebrities in the neighbourhood.’

   

  Key Quote:

‘Fuck it. It’s just as well. It’s a relief. It would have been wrong. It would have been wrong, right? It’s a stupid show, a show that’s almost unbearable to watch, everyone on it made hideous, silly and simple, two-dimensional. Fuck it. Let the cartoonist be made into a cartoon. I don’t need it, we don’t need it. We don’t need The Real World, we don’t need any crutches, we don’t need an ongoing role on a television show with a massive worldwide audience and an unquantifiable kind of influence over the hearts and minds of the young and impressionable’ (p240-1)

·         There is a more cynical response to their work at Might magazine compared to the optimism and enthusiasm described in Chapter 6 and Eggers explores the fickleness of youth as Might magazine actively contradicts its opinions on a regular basis seemingly to provoke a reaction: ‘Kaboom!’ The magazine is all about challenging assumptions, challenging the norm and playing on readers’ expectations about form (sound familiar?!)  There is still the idea that this is a group venture through the constant use of the first person plural ‘we’ and there is a contradiction in  the fact that although they are trying to break the mould, they are actually just all the same and part of a very particular social group, for example in how they dress: ‘We are happy with our shorts and t-shirts , one side tucked in, just an inch of it on the right side, showing some belt, the rest hanging out – this is our look-‘. Everything about their lives is self-conscious and carefully placed.

·         Eggers narrates a story about a second naked photo shoot – its aim to challenge the media’s distortion of people’s bodies:

Key Quote:

‘This time we are setting out to demonstrate what people’s bodies actually look like, the exercise being a response to a familiar complaint, of course: the media’s and advertising’s distortion of out perceptions of our own bodies, how the average person does not and cannot meet the unattainable expectations rammed down our blah blah blah’ (p247)

Toph is brought back into the narrative during the chapter and there are echoes of previous chapters as Eggers comments on their relationship.

Key Quote 

‘What would one do if one did not have a Toph, sitting in his room, ready at a moment’s notice, always willing to run one’s errands, to be pushed against a wall and have his kidney punched, to be brought as he is at the moment, to the Berkley Marina, for the throwing back and forth of things? To not have Toph would be to not have a life’ (p254)

They spend time teasing each other, playing Frisbee, mocking others, wrestling (Eggers lists and describes the manoeuvres in some detail). This play fighting is marred by Eggers’s concern that he could be seen as an unsavoury character and a paranoia about people watching.

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John's Suicide Attempt

The climax of the chapter revolves around the suicide attempt of Eggers’ friend John. There is a sense of panic as Dave goes to help his friend but he creates a ‘hero’ narrative and there is a feeling of excitement and enjoyment about the drama ‘This is purpose, something is happening. The window needs to be opened. The radio needs to be turned up more now that the window is open. Something is happening’ (p261).  He makes it sound like the description of a film narrative. Once again Eggers challenges the reader with the reality of the situation and he seems to want us to dislike him for trying to make notes about the situation as it might make a good short story. The apparent dialogue between John and Eggers highlights Eggers’ self-awareness of using John as a narrative device. John isn’t called John and seems to be an amalgamation of different people, including Eggers’ dad, and is a symbol of a wasted youth, pain and loss.

Key Quotes

‘Screw it, I’m not going to be a fucking anecdote in your stupid book.’

…

‘What the fuck are you talking about? You’re the one who put yourself in here in the first place! You’re telling me you took a handful of pills in front of me and two cops and you didn’t want attention? Fuck you.’

…

‘This is mine. You’ve given it to me. We’re trading. I gave you the attention you wanted, I bail you out, when you spend three days in the psych ward, and say how you’re still thinking of doing it, I’m the one who comes in a sits on your bed and gives you the big pep talk – anyway, the point is that because of all this, all the shit I put in for you – now I get this, this is mine also, and you, because you’ve done it yourself, made yourself the thespian, you have to fulfill that contract, play the dates, go on the road. Now you’re the metaphor’ (p274).

Task:

Read the entirety of John's suicide attempt thoroughly and make notes on this section. How does Eggers deal with this situation? Can you find similarities to any of the other deaths in the book? Obviously this is a near death experience and not a death, so are there any differences in the way Dave handles this? Do you think he has grown, or learned anything from the death of his parents?

Similar to what we did in class on Monday, and write 3 PEE paragraphs on how this section relates to the key theme of death and loss, bearing these questions in mind.

Ensure this work is thorough, as we will be going through and discussing this in Monday's lesson.

Claudia