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King by Matthew Dickman https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/11/01/king-2
A Happy Death from Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
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Instructor: Mat Wenzel, MFA, M.Ed.
E-Mail: mwenzel@fsu.edu
Office: WMS 331
Office Hours: TUES 12:30 to 4:30 OR by appointment Effective Feedback
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I read "A Happy Death" by Alison Bechdel. The comic to me in the beginning had a very innocent approach to it, like a grandmother was just telling her grandkids a story about their father being stuck in the mud. However, the comic took a little bit of a dark turn when the child really had no feeling of sorrow for his father's passing. He could have been little when he passed and maybe that is why he doesn't, but regardless it brought a strangeness and uniqueness to the piece I have not seen. In addition, the child ends it by making a joke "stuck in the mud for good this time" which is both very impersonal and has a…
The Condition of Black LIfe is One of Mourning by Claudia Rankine was highly relatable because I personally know African Americans that have died either due to being shot by the cops or black on black crime. This article explores the struggles and unfairness that blacks have to suffer with daily. The phrase "No living while black" is an anology that blacks are not allowed the same living priviledges as any other race. As a black person, you liable to be killed for almost anything. Due to the stereotypical thoughts that are constantly thought of about blacks. For instance, Rankine states no hands in your pockets while black. This implies that blacks are likely to be carrying a weapon if…
In his poem King, Matthew Dickman asserts that he is always the king of something. What we discover he is the king of, however, are things that seem fairly trivial: shady grass and dirty sheets. Maybe the reason Dickman claims kingship over these things is because he wants to feel as though he has some amount of power in his life — some level of control over his surroundings. He reminds himself, pills and razor in hand, that he is essentially the king of his own death. Whether he lives or dies is the king’s decision. It seems that this fact may even be a comfort for Dickman — evidence of his self efficacy. His kingly powers cannot bring back…
A Happy Death- Bechdel is using many different things within the story to try to bridge the concept of life and death in a very interesting way; have a fathers children essentially not grieve for him when he committed suicide. To some extent everyone grieves differently and their father did work in a morgue, but it had a very impersonal touch to it as well like he was just another body the children saw as opposed to their own father. In a way, that can mean the author is trying to tell us life goes on after you die.
A Happy Death- Alison Bechdel
Reading this piece by Bechdel was interesting first because it was written as a comic, then the writing itself was sad and I felt it had a depressing vibe to it. The fathers death seems to not bother Alison, especially when she writes about not tearing up at the funeral or even hearing the news, but what also caught my attention was towards the end where she goes to her dads grave and the ends with "stuck in the mud for good this time".