"Censoring Myself for Success": close reading #4

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/knaan-on-censoring-himself-for-success.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Close reading of "Censoring Myself for Success," by K'naan

In this essay by K'naan, a Somalian-Canadian musician who has recently achieved international success, he discusses the "self-censorship" of music in the pursuit of fame and radio play. Compellinglly telling his own story, K'naan uses rhetoric skillfully to draw the reader in and treat them to an entertaining, as well as thought provoking, read. His use of figurative language, diction and syntax especially contribute to the effects he creates.

The figurative language is essential to the presentation of this piece. It is placed in the context of an extended metaphor, in which K'naan is compared to "a fox that wanted to walk like a prophet," and his attempts to mimic the prophet destroyed the "elegant walk for which the other animals loved him." Upon first reading this, I was shocked to see a musician writing in the New York Times bashing their own music so harshly, as through this metaphor he implies that his newest album is well below the standard that his previous albums had set. The use of this metaphor draws the reader in, especially if they are familiar with K'naan's music, because it is an incredibly real thing to read in a piece distributed as much as this one must have been.

This metaphor is the most important part of all of the techniques that I noticed, and it ties in with the syntax that is found in the article. The organization of the ideas that are presented is that it lapses between storytelling and reflective writing, making for a very fluid commentary on the way that musicians feel pressured to produce music that could be popular among larger audiences. In the opening few paragraphs, he tells two stories related to Somalia, one a fable and the other a personal experience, drawing connections to his recent experiences in the music industry. He tells the fable of the fox, refers to his situation in his musical career, and asserts that he doesn't want to"censor [his walk] in the name of marketing." He then tells about how the Somalian government carried out real censorship, showing him the power that truly thoughtful music can have but also taking the blame for the censorship away from the record companies, as many might be quick to jump to do.

Smaller, more subtle techniques are also important in the way he tells his story. When K'naan refers to "His sense of self. His walk." he uses anaphora, and he does the same in the following passage:

"So I began to say yes. Yes to trying out songs with A-list producers. Yes to moving production from Kingston to Los Angeles. Yes to giving the characters in my songs names like Mary."

The repetition of the word yes shows how he was persuaded by the executives to change so many aspects of his "walk," leading him to where he was in his last album.

Diction is another important technique that K'naan uses in this article. At several points, his word choice causes the reader to stop and think about what he just said, and why he said it. He refers in passing to "the killing ground of Somalia," as if the entire country were a warzone, something that a reader probably would not expect. The references to "anti songs" also stood out to me, as he seems to classify songs of rebellion in their own genre, apart from love songs or folk songs. This is a different way of thinking about music than I am used to, and the way he tells the story elevates the position of "anti songs" above the other types that he lists. He also referred to how, in his older works, the auidience "see[s] geography" when they listen to his music, another choice of word I wouldn't have expected. He seems to be saying that they are taken to his homeland of Somalia, but by saying geography he broadens the definition to whatever the reader thinks when they see the word geography.

This article was very enjoyable to read, and displayed adept understanding of the use of rhetoric in order to write a compelling piece. I can only hope that it means his music in the future will return to the quality of his past albums.

Open Prompt #4

2007. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

In Death of a Salesman, the often seamless blending of both past and present into one narrative causes interaction of characters with the past to be an important part of the play. This is especially evident with Willy, who often relives past events at the same time as he is interacting with people in the present. He is unable to let go of the past and causes it to become a distorted reality of the present, unable to accept the sometimes harsh realities of life.

This distorted reality is embodied in Willy's relationship with his son, Biff. Willy had seen Biff as an extremely promising young man with boundless potential until he failed to graduate from high school, something that has haunted Willy ever since. He decided not to pursue his degree after he walked in on Willy having an affair in a Boston hotel, and went between dead-end jobs for fourteen years after that. Because Willy was driven by a desire to be "number-one man" and his passion was to make it big as a salesman, he was crushed by Biff's decision not to follow in his father's footsteps seemingly solely because of the affair that he witnessed. Willy can't believe that Biff ruined his life for any reason other than "to spite [Willy]," and he makes this clear throughout the play. This conflict of one life goal with another is one of the key themes of the play, with Willy going the route of a capitalistic salesman and Biff taking another which he doesn't seem to be quite sure of, but it is doing whatever makes him happy.

Their neighbor Bernard plays the role as a foil to Biff and draws the reader's attention to the actions Biff took in high school. A football star with the opportunity to go to a fantastic school on scholarships in U of V, Biff seemed to be going places to his father despite the fact that he was "failing math" according to Bernard. While blowing off school, Biff worked to become "well-liked" as Bernard worked hard to acquire skills that would help him succeed in the real world. The turning point in their relationship occurs when Biff returns from Boston and burns his U of V sneakers, making it clear to Bernard that he had "given up." They switch places as adults, and Bernard's role as a foil to Biff is clear when Willy finds that Bernard is arguing a case before the Supreme Court as Biff fails to find a job. This shows very clearly that the relationship to the past plays a large part in the lives of the Lomans.

One of the most noticeable times that the mixing of past and present occurs is whenever Ben is present, as Willy's focus alternates between what "Ben," or his mind's perception of Ben, and the people he is really interacting with. In scenes with Charlie and with his family in their yard, Willy often returns to the times that Ben visited his house and offered him what seems to him now an opportunity to make it big. In the climactic scene where Willy ends up killing himself, this mysterious figure from his past influences Willy to do what his family dreads. He represents the desire to earn money at all costs and Willy subscribes to this ends-justify-means approach by killing himself for insurance money. His son Happy then goes on to commit to the same ideals as his father, and the cycle of self-destructive work as salesmen vying to be successful continues in the Loman family, making the relationship between past and present of this particular character cyclical and continuous throughout the family.

Death of a Salesman reflection

Death of A Salesman is a play written in 1949 by Arthur Miller about a family that lives in New York City. Willy Loman, the father, is a salesman who has worked for the same firm for 34 years (same age as his son Biff). He has a wife (Linda) and two sons (Biff & Happy). Happy works in NYC, lives in his own apartment and has a job similar to that of Willy's. Biff works on a farm in Texas and is visiting NYC during the play.

Theme: Death of A Salesman is about the way people are treated in the system of capitalism and how this is at odds with the traditional values of American people.

Much of the play takes place in the Lomans' house, a very important part of the setting. It is in one of the boroughs of New York other than Manhattan (maybe Brooklyn? not sure if stated in text) and seems to be run-down although Willy used to enjoy working around the house so much. All around it there are now apartment buildings which crowd out the sun, making it unable to grow a garden like Willy would like to do. This is an example of the way Miller shows that capitalism is crowding out the more traditional way of life that the Loman family would seem to enjoy. Their presence in New York seems to be significant because it is the country's financial center and seen as the center of American free-market capitalism, with Wall Street and the financial system's big players located there.

quotes:
"There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." -Biff about Willy
In this quote, Biff is saying that Willy was not suited for the job of a salesman, and referencing how much Willy enjoyed working outdoors and on the house. Biff knows that a job Willy would have liked and been successful in is one that he enjoyed and was good at, something where he could use his hands and build things.

"No man needs only a little salary." -Charley
In the capitalist society that the story takes place in, and in the business world where Willy works, there is a feeling that more is always better. Since money is so highly valued, Willy believes that those who make more money are more successful or somehow superior to others.

"You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away-- a man is not a piece of fruit!"
In this quote, Willy is fighting against the harsh reality of the for-profit company in which he works, which is impersonal and profit motivated, placing little value in the lives of its employees.

As I read the play while reading Brave New World, Miller's style contrasted with Huxley's extremely overt style and seemed to be extremely clever and hidden with all of the clues to his message. Having read the interviews with Miller, everything seems more obvious to me now, with the title and some of the key quotes pointing very directly to what Miller meant by the play.
I also really enjoyed the symbolism that Miller used. Things like the cars and the house or his jacket didn't stick out to me on the first read (/the movie), while things like the rubber tube and the U of V sneakers were much more obvious. There are multiple layers of meaning, and the complexity of the symbols reflect that.

Response to Course Materials #4

Since the last response to course materials, we have finished discussing and reading Death of A Salesman and this past week we began our study of Hamlet. 

In Death of a Salesman we read a play that I found pretty enjoyable (the annotations for The American Dream were nothing short of torture). Reading all of the discussions afterward was also really helpful, as it helped me to develop my thoughts and consider the meaning of the work more than when I had been reading  the play itself. Miller is a great writer and I just hope that next time we watch a movie, it's more entertaining than Salesman or his Crucible were.

So far in Hamlet, we've only gone through about an act and a half, but I can tell it's going to be much harder than the last couple of works for me. It's challenging to follow everything that the characters say without my attention drifting off while we read in class, but when we go back and re-read what has been said it is helpful. The Shakespearean language hasn't really been a problem for me this far and the subtleties of it that I would miss have been explained well by Ms. Holmes (fishmonger=pimp? never would have known). I haven't read any Shakespeare since Julius Caesar a couple years ago, and I didn't really pay all that close of attention to that play so I'm looking forward to closely reading Hamlet this next quarter.