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BOOK "O PIONEERS!"
On pages 68-69, Alexandra and Carl Lindstrum have a conversation where they compare the different paths their lives have taken. At the bottom of page 68, the paragraph begins with Carl saying--“Freedom so often means that one isn’t needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him. Our landlady and the delicatessen man are our mourners, and we leave nothing behind us but a frock-coat and a fiddle, or an easel, or a typewriter, or whatever tool we got our living by. All we have ever managed to do is to pay our rent, the exorbitant rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the heart of things. We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”
Taking this paragraph as your way “into” his voice, make up a single time, in a specific city, doing a specific thing, when he felt these things that he’s discussing. Writing in his voice, and being very detailed, capture the event/moment and also his feelings about himself, his life, and the things he longs for, misses, and hopes for. Try to capture the tension in his life, the ambivalence he feels, and try to identify the sources of that tension and ambivalence.
**story line is set in 1913 area
2 answers
Okay this is what I wrote, please let me know...--
This morning at work I look out to this Chicago city as gloomy and sad. Sad is how I would describe where I am at as of now, sad because I am the lowest I have ever felt. Work does not satisfy me compared to when I was out in the open fields with my father. Here I hold tools to use for engraving, thinking what I would be doing if I stayed on my farm back in Nebraska. Yes, I remember those days. I was poor and father was always distressed but I always felt freedom there, not here. I work with so many people just like me. We are all the same, seems like we all have one purpose and that is to engrave and do nothing else. Al’s everybody cares about is money and as long as our rent is paid. No connections for friendships, nothing. Work is the only thing that I live for now. Engraving is what I do all day. Many workers are just like me, here to just get some pay to get through the week. After work I go to my apartment to fix up something to eat, which I am no cook so it is always something little then I sleep. On other days when I feel like it I like to walk the streets to clear my head. Oh I wish Alexandra were here with me, or better yet I wish for me to be there. Chicago is no place for me, Nebraska was always to be my home.
This morning at work I look out to this Chicago city as gloomy and sad. Sad is how I would describe where I am at as of now, sad because I am the lowest I have ever felt. Work does not satisfy me compared to when I was out in the open fields with my father. Here I hold tools to use for engraving, thinking what I would be doing if I stayed on my farm back in Nebraska. Yes, I remember those days. I was poor and father was always distressed but I always felt freedom there, not here. I work with so many people just like me. We are all the same, seems like we all have one purpose and that is to engrave and do nothing else. Al’s everybody cares about is money and as long as our rent is paid. No connections for friendships, nothing. Work is the only thing that I live for now. Engraving is what I do all day. Many workers are just like me, here to just get some pay to get through the week. After work I go to my apartment to fix up something to eat, which I am no cook so it is always something little then I sleep. On other days when I feel like it I like to walk the streets to clear my head. Oh I wish Alexandra were here with me, or better yet I wish for me to be there. Chicago is no place for me, Nebraska was always to be my home.
1 answer