Analytical Response 3 Woolf
Zach Runberg In the short story “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf, I found that she was trying to show that life, while it can seem simple, is also very unique and strange in its ways. To begin, during the story, she was describing what this moth was doing on her window sill until the moth fell on it’s back and was struggling to get back upright. "It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom." This quote to me describes that life in some aspects is almost simple. She wanted to help the moth, but knew that if the moth was going to live, it needed to flip over on its own. She saw that life runs a course, and helping would have changed that course. Yes many people would have liked to help in this situation, but she didn’t. Another way that made me interpret her story this way was towards the end when she was describing what the moth was before and after death. “ Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. ” It stood out to me that she was conveying an image to show that life itself has so many twists, turns, and adventures that make is so unique and different. As soon as life is in mid-swing and happening for one animal, it could very quickly be taken away by death. The moth was “ dancing ” around, then all of sudden collapsed and after a struggle, died. This to me shows her reasoning in showing why life and death are unique and strange things.

Analytical Response 4 Rakoff
Zach Runberg In the talk “The American Life: The Invisible Made Visible” by David Rakoff there were a couple things that stood out to me. At the beginning of his talk, his mood was light and humorous. The things he was saying were funny yet there was still a story behind it. Then he showed his other talents and began to dance midway through. After he came back his mood changed to being more serious. “Until there you are, standing with a battered and empty suitcase that frankly, no one wants to look at anymore.” This quote stuck most with me because it’s sad how this happens, it shouldn’t be that as you get older that people aren’t as interested in you anymore, but that is how it goes in this era. Another quote made me think about things a little bit. “One could still turn to someone and promise them something truly worth while just by saying, hey” As I think about this quote, I think that the true meaning that Rakoff is trying to convey is the fact that now a days, words are tossed around so much that people rarely find true meaning in things that people say. But a few decades ago, something worthwhile and meaningful could be as simple and easy as a small conversation. Zach Runberg
Analytical Response 7 Emmitt Till 1st Half In the first half of the story “Looking at Emmett Till” by John Edgar Wideman, I learned interesting things about what it was like back then to be African American. In the story, Wideman first starts off discussing when he first saw the picture of Emmett Tills face. Jet was a once a week newspaper that was established to some as “the Black Dispatch”, was stories for the black community. This newspaper was the source of where Wideman first saw the picture of Emmett Till. “A blurred, grayish something resembling an aerial snapshot of a landscape cratered by bombs or ravaged but natural disaster. As soon as I realized the thing in the photo was a dead black boys face, I jerked my eyes away. But not quickly enough.” Reading this shocked me on many levels. At first, it shocked me because of the fact that this kids face was so distorted and destroyed that at first sight someone thought it was a landscape of craters. It also made me feel disappointed and uneasy of the fact that people could do an act like this. Having that much hatred toward another race to me is