Incomprehensible Anguish
Authors Sabrina Rubin Elderly and Dexter Filkins write about the fragility of the human spirit and the need for acceptance. Both masterfully craft their narratives reflecting incomprehensible anguish. In “School of Hate” Elderly focuses on an external driving force of hate inflected by others; bullying and the search for acceptance. In Filkins, “Attornment” focuses on an internal driving force of hate and the search for acceptance. A common point of view is established in both essays, lack of acceptance creates incomprehensible anguish, acceptance doesn’t heal the past, but it paves the way for purpose. Both crafted by combining various nonfiction elements shown through style, setting and characterization.
In “School of Hate “Elderly’s long-form narrative crafts a theme of incomprehensible anguish through her style and setting. Introducing the reader to the daily torment of the protagonist, she opens with “her nerves already on alert, bracing for the inevitable” (Holt 253) it is with those words, the reader begins to question the setting and anticipate the direction of the essay. When she writes, “pretending not to hear, Brittany would walk briskly to her locker, past the sixth, seventh and eighth-graders who loitered in menacing packs” (Holt 253) anyone who has ever been bullied identifies immediately. Throughout the essay the reader is introduced to other students, bullied to the point of suicide, her style reaches her audience, connecting them to the disparity of the child and the tragic loss felt by their parents. Elderly’s dictation spotlights the role the school and community played in creating the perfect storm of hopelessness dealing with a very controversial subject of LGBT. She reveals while officials claimed to have upheld an anti-bullying policies they also upheld homophobic policies that were believed to have led to multiple teenage suicides. Her blend of matter of fact and emotionally driven style impacts the narrative....