The Future is Now by Katherine Anne Porter (Text TOW #7)

       Written in the 1950s, a time period of uncertainty and fear, of the over-arching shadow of atomic bombs, The Future is Now presents a new perspective of viewing destiny and another reason to be progressive. Though initially aimed at mainly mature college readers as the essay was first published in Mademoiselle, a young adult magazine, the essay gradually diffused throughout the American public over time.

As it was primarily written to encourage the doubtful people of their brighter future ahead, the article itself is an intricate philosophical reflection detailing the narrator’s puzzlement about the inescapable depression of the atomic age and his final regain of faith in human progress. Porter knew the silent suffering of not knowing what the next second will become as she admitted her puzzlement over “why waster energy on a table that was to be used merely for crawling under at some unspecified date” (Oates 194). However, she also wants the people to know that life is far from over, that “when people want something better, they may have it” (Oates 198).

Yet, what made Porter’s essay successful was more than her message; it was the way she conveyed the message. Porter as an author had already won several writing awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, before she wrote this essay. The fame of her being a renown writer already adds sincerity and trustworthiness to her insight. In addition, Porter convinces her readers that she know their silent suffering of uncertainty. She knew the horror living under the atomic age, that “real safety seems to lie simply in being somewhere else at the time, the farther away the better” (Oates 193). Yet, all uncertainty , both her’s and the reader’s, was washed away when she offered a simple anecdote, a men cleaning his table and her realization that “he is doing something he feel is worth doing” (Oates 195). The action itself is trivial, but the power of the men to focus on the present and trust in that the future will be rewarding to the actions taken in the present, that the table will not be used simply as a shelter for bombs but as a faithful company to the men, is insightful.

       Trivial actions are being performed all the time, and in these actions, Porter argues, hold the key to the future.

How it feels to be colored me By Zora Neale Hurtson (Text TOW#6)

      Published in The World Tomorrow in 1928, Zora’s essay, How it feels to be colored me, stands incongruous to its surroundings. At a time when racial segregation and racial identities were emphasized heavily, Zora portrayed to her audience an African-American girl accepting and embracing the melting-pot American society. Such an idea of human uniformity may be a shock to many at the time period, especially since the essay is published in a popular American magazine consumed by people of all races, but it fits perfectly for Zora, as an anthropologist and human rights activist.

Through her description of an American African-American girl accepting the shared culture of America, Zora attempted to convince her readers, the American public, that similarity people share is much more important that their differences, such as color. As she appeals to her audience, Zora emphasizes upon the value of individuals, and cautions the readers not to categorize anyone simply based on race and color.

 What makes Zora’s essay successful and impactful to her audience is the fitting use of imagery and analogy. She remarked “When I set my hat at a certain angle and saunter down Seventh Avenue, feeling as snooty as the lions in front of the Forty Second street… the cosmic Zora emerges” (Oates117). The actions and feelings of Zora, how she sauntered down Seventh Avenue and felt as snooty as the lions, gave Zora a human face for readers to connect to. Zora, in this description, is enjoying life and ignorant of the racial problems in the world. She gave the audience an impression that she is Zora, an individual belonging to neither race nor time. In later paragraphs, Zora also presented her audience an imagery of bags, “white, red and yellow” (Oates 117) and how the bags can be “all be dumped into a single heap and refilled without altering the contents greatly” (Oates 117). Likely many readers are more insensitive to “bags” instead of “race” at the time. Zora, instead of talking directly about race, chose to talk about different color bags so that she can connect to all parts of the American public, and let all of them at least ponder about the similarities shared by human beings.

Bags are universal. They can be dumped and refilled without changing much; Zora asserts, so are human.

Hiroshima by John Hersey (IRB TOW#1)

       Life was never the same again for the people who experienced the flash known as the atomic bomb in Hiroshima in 1945. Millions lost their lives, families were torn apart, and cities destroyed. John Hersey reflected all of these tragedies in his chronicle Hiroshima and examined the fate of two doctors, a clerk, a widow, a Japanese pastor, and a German Jesuit whose lives were changed forever. However, beyond drawing the public’s attention to the impact of weapons, Hersey also put much emphasis on how the six main characters coped with the disastrous change in the latter of his book, and he spent over fifteen years researching and interviewing the Hiroshima survivors in order to do so.

       The final version of Hiroshima, included with the complete follow up of the six main characters, was translated into many languages and published in1979, a time period characterized by change and uncertainty through events such as the Cold War. Many people were overwhelmed and uncertain of the future. Yet, Hersey thought otherwise. He looked at change from another angle and his chronicle of the aftermath of Hiroshima bombing presented a universal theme of the continuation of life.

       An important device Hersey used to comfort his readers of changes was anecdotes, and he did so through the detailing of how the six main characters lived after the Hiroshima atrocity in a third-person perspective and an objective tone. While describing the life of Dr. Sasaki, one of the survivors, he wrote “Dr. Sasaki decided quit working for the hospital and to set himself up…”(Hersey 103); when describing Jesuit Takakura, he wrote “he felt enterprising, and, had builders add two rooms in the chapel.”(Hersey 113). Though bombarded with changes, none of the characters Hersey detailed gave up, which fits the theme of life’s continuity and appeals especially to readers who were in times of change themselves. In addition, not much imaginations can be associated with these descriptions, which gives the author a sense of authenticity and authority and makes events seem believable from a historical perspective.

       As readers began to be drawn into the anecdotes of survivors and their strong hold on life, Hersey then successfully sent out his message to society: life moves on.