Welcome to the blog for Prof. John Talbird's English 221 class. The purpose of this site is two-fold: 1) to continue the conversations we start in class (or to start conversations BEFORE we get to class) and 2) to practice our writing/reading on a weekly basis in an informal forum.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

"Jack, July" Repsonse


Reading “Jack, July” really makes me feel as if I ‘m in a drunk/high state of mine. The story is unable to focus at plenty of points but at the same time I feel like that was the intention. The entire time I was reading this piece, I could help but be forced into the shoes of this crystal meth addict, losing time and pieces of the story not lining up at certain points. Conversations seem disjointed and flashbacks plague plenty of areas, forcing me to have to recall what’s the reality and what ‘s the flashback. It’s as if  I was constantly living in two worlds. With the only spots of clarity coming from needing the next fix of crystal. The story makes you feel weak in the sense that there seems to be no positive path for Jack to go. It seems as if he’s burned every bridge with napalm. Random thoughts pop into his head; he’s violent, incredibly irritable, talks under his breath and at multiple occasions, doesn’t make sense at all. He can’t seem to find what world he wants to live in. He's broke, he's homeless, he's without love and without family. All he has is his memories. It's sad, but it makes sense, with someone who's so deep in drug addiction, losing all these things just seems like the scenario most likely to happen. So the story accomplishes it goal by making me feel like the addict or at the very least the downtrodden aspect of the addict.

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