Narrative Essay (September 17th, 2019)

While I did use my peer review to revise my narrative to an extent, I probably could have engaged more in the collaborative aspect of the writing process. Yehuda wrote that I should get to the point of my piece more quickly and expand on the differences/parallels between me and my father. I agreed with this and tried to introduce this kind of subtlety into the piece, like when I added the sentence about my father speaking on my behalf. However, I did not change my introduction like he had suggested. I had thought the exposition was important in making the narrative more coherent. Looking back, though, I can see how the first couple of paragraphs seemed like fluff and how I could have shortened them, like cutting out the first sentence entirely. Concision is just something I generally need to work on.  

Additionally, Yehuda commented on my “unnatural” use of language. This can be connected to the second course learning outcome, or my use of rhetoric. I could understand how it seemed like formal and stuffy academic language, but changing it seemed untrue to my voice as a writer. But now I can understand that perhaps this wasn’t best suited for the audience of my piece; I could have improved the rhetoric used in my piece. Like Yehuda wrote, the audience that would connect most to my narrative would be the children of immigrants. As such, I can see that the diction I used (“elocution”, “recalcitrant”) could have muted the emotion of the piece, but maybe using more clinical-seeming language also worked in evoking the distantness of being an outsider, like in “my total assimilation…was tantamount.” 

While I didn’t address all his comments on my work, I did try to go into more depth. For example, I added a few lines of dialogue to reveal more about what my dad thought of my being an outsider in Albania. While I returned to the topic of how he viewed my assimilation, I also added a comment he made in relation to himself to show how he accepted that he couldn’t fully erase his background. I also added another line about my status as an outsider, how unlike my dad, it was apparent I wasn’t from the country even to total strangers. I could have changed my draft more according to Yehuda’s comments, but I think I did take the peer review into consideration. I gave Yehuda plentiful feedback, especially on things that confused me, like how he felt like an “outsider in [his] own body.” However, reading his narrative didn’t really influence me to change mine. I recognized the differences in the language we used, but I just strove to make the little dialogue in the piece sound authentic like Yehuda did with the text messages from his friends and his inner thoughts. I could have done more with regards to the third course learning outcome, but I think I communicated well while writing my peer review and working on the analysis of the magazine in class. Next time, I’ll probably consult peer reviewer in person to better the collaborative and rhetorical aspects of my work. 

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Critical Lens (November 15th, 2019)

How did you get started? 

I did not do an outline for my essay. Before I wrote anything in my body sections, though, I wrote my introduction and made sure I had a solid thesis statement that would provide a clear launch pad for the rest of my essay. Prior to writing anything, I already had a general idea of my arguments and evidence. After writing my thesis, I started writing my paper in the exact order it would be read in, beginning with the section on beauty because it is featured first in the Singer text and I had a clearer idea of what to write for that. 

How did you choose your target? 

It may not seem like the most obvious connection to draw, but I was already thinking about using Hannibal as my target text as I read “Sublime Mutations.” I recently did a re-watch, so I guess the show was lingering in my subconscious. However, something that really struck me was the use of the words “beautiful” and “sublime” in the finale of the show’s final season. Right after Lecter and Graham kill Dolarhyde together, Will looks at the blood covering his hands and tells Lecter that “blood really does look black in the moonlight,” echoing what Lecter said in a previous episode. Then he tells him, “It’s beautiful.” In the next moments, they embrace, and Will takes them over the edge of the bluff as Siouxsie Sioux’s “Love Crime” plays. The song was written specifically for the finale, and one of the lyrics is “Oh, the skies, tumbling from your eyes//So sublime, a chase to end all time.” 

This connection in diction got me to initially consider Hannibal as a target, but it was really the show’s stunning visuals and premise that made me choose it. I think that as an audience, we’re definitely made to root for the central characters of Lecter and Graham, despite their being non-normative and, well, killing people. Lecter manages to evade the FBI and fool everyone as well as kill people without the slightest hint of emotion. Still, his fondness for beauty and sincere belief that he is helping his victims and society at large by pathologizing rudeness elevates him beyond the psychopathic serial killer archetype. It is through Lecter’s character and his motives/mission that I saw a blend of all three of the representations discussed by Singer—he is almost inhuman and sublime in how clinical he is towards his victims as he “corrects” their illness: rudeness. (Maybe that’s why Harris wrote him as a doctor?) Rudeness, according to Lecter, is “unspeakably ugly,” therefore he makes his victims what they could not be in life: beautiful. 

Where was the sticking point? In other words, what difficulties did you have composing the essay? 

The most challenging part of writing my essay was staying within the word limit! I had to winnow out a lot the evidence I wanted to use in favor of more thoroughly analyzing the best examples. For a show with only thirty-nine episodes, Hannibal covers a gamut of themes and is so complex and layered that I had to accept that I was only really skimming the surface; I could probably go on and into further detail for ages.  

I had originally planned to use an article I found online about the show and its aesthetics titled “Hannibal: A Disturbing Feast for the Senses” about the aesthetic cacophony of the show, particularly how it blends the beautiful and obscene. I wanted to address Lecter’s sybaritic and artistic lifestyle, but I had to constantly ensure that I was still using Singer’s lens. The cuisine of the show plays such a major role, reflecting an aspect of Lecter’s psyche and worldview. I did mention how Lecter “elevates” his victims by making them into sumptuous meals, but it made more sense to establish the visual connection between Singer’s photographs and the murder tableaux. Additionally, in the section about beauty, I could only write about and fully analyze two of the murders. I also eventually had to cut out the murder tableau from the second season because I simply did not have space for it. 

Related to that, I think I also had trouble giving equal attention to the beauty and sublimity sections. I had just as much to say about both, but because I had written the beauty section in advance, it was difficult to cut it down. While it still ended up being longer than the section on the sublime, I was ultimately satisfied with how it turned out. 

What was the easiest part of writing the essay? 

I touched on this before, but it was very easy for me to get started and come up with ideas for what I was writing. I also found it easy to make direct, textual connections to Singer and incorporate quotes from both. I think this has to do with the fact that a major theme of both works is morality and ethicality, though they take wildly different approaches to it. Singer’s work is written with the principle that everyone deserves ethical treatment or “proper regard.” In a way, Hannibal demands the same consideration for Lecter and Graham but fails to show it for more normative characters, subverting our expectations as an audience. At no point in this paper did I feel stuck—I had difficulties with being selective, but not with the concepts behind my examples. 

What was the focus of your revision? 

Like I said before, I had to really work on being more concise and sparing with my examples. I also spent a lot of time trying to cut down the introduction and definition sections so that I could better explain the role of the sublime. However, it still didn’t leave me too much room to discuss the William Blake paintings and the Tooth Fairy’s (or Francis Dolarhyde’s) self-projection onto them.  

While I was writing, though, I added almost as much as I cut out. For instance, I wrote the conclusion from scratch and added some additional exposition and analysis on the role of the wendigo in representing Lecter and the sublime. As I was writing, I remembered another hallucination scene in which Will Graham sprouts antlers—resembling Lecter’s wendigo. This struck me as a very important visual that should be discussed in the paper because Graham eventually unleashes his repressed affinity for violence, and this transformation is catalyzed by Lecter’s manipulations. Overall, I did not really stray from my first draft too much, even with the added information.