Claremont students excel on this section but that is due to their preparation.
This section requires you to write a five paragraph essay which discusses both stories in relationship to a topic.
For practice purposes, we'll use two stories:
"The Glass Roses" by Alden Nowlan and "The Moose and the Sparrow" by Hugh Garner. IF YOU WERE ABSENT TODAY, GOOGLE THE MOOSE AND THE SPARROW AND A COPY WILL COME UP OR READ THE COPY BELOW.
In a literary essay of 500 to 700 words, discuss how the two protagonists defy the narrow definiton of manhood offered to them in the logging czamps.
See below for the handout we will use to prepare for writing this essay.
Homework: Be sure to read the story. Highlight the evidence you plan to use. Re-read or skim read "The Glass Roses" in order to post-it note key quotations.
Be prepared to write the composition during class tomorrow. We have started reading our October USSR texts so if you have not yet chosen one from the list, see me asap.
MONDAY:
YOUR TWO USSR PROJECTS ARE DUE. GOOD LUCK.
PLEASE RETURN THE USSR SEPTEMBER BOOKS TO THE LIBRARY MONDAY.
English
12 Exam Preparation
Part
C: Synthesis Question: Discuss how the two protagonists cope with
the narrow definition of manhood offered to them in the logging camps
in Alden Nowlan's story, “The Glass Roses” and in Hugh Garner's
story, “The Moose and The Sparrow”.
Criteria:
- Create a thesis which says something interesting about the difference or similarities between the two stories
- Be sure to write formally, follow the literary must-haves, use accurate vocabulary, and sentence variety
- Be sure to refer to both stories equally
- Look for the best evidence you can find
- Add insight to our understanding of the stories
- Aim for a five paragraph essay
Example
thesis:
Both
protagonists, Cecil and Stephen struggle to fulfill the narrow
definition of a real man depicted in logging-camp culture; however,
by finding a creative pursuit beyond the muck of the camps, these
young men learn that a person is defined by his humanity:
intelligence, compassion, and bravery. (THIS IS ALL YOU NEED IN YOUR
INTRODUCTION)
In the first story, Hugh
Garner's “The Moose and the Sparrow”, Cecil's intelligence and
ambition threaten the definition of manhood, loosely depicted by the
strength and dominance of the character, Moose. (NOTICE THAT EACH
THESIS AND TOPIC SENTENCE OFFERS AN OPINION WHICH PROVOKES THOUGHT
AND AN OPINION WHICH SOMEONE COULD DISAGREE WITH)
- Marks are awarded here for your ability to stay on tract, to add insight and to support that insight with evidence from the stories
- DO NOT SIMPLY RESTATE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE STORY
- DO NOT SIMPLY RE-TELL WHAT YOUR VIEWS OF LIFE ARE
- DO ANALYSE THE PASSAGES
- DO USE LITERARY TERMINOLOGY SUCH AS PROTAGONIST, ANTAGONIST, IRONY, SYMBOL, IMAGERY.
- DO USE TRANSITION STATEMENTS
In the second story, Alden
Nowlan's “The Glass Roses”, Stephen is intimidated by his father,
yet, intrigued by the stories of the logger from the Ukraine. In
order to define himself, Stephen, must ignore his father's prejudiced
influence. (STATE WHAT THE OPINION IS HERE)
- Aim for 150 words per body paragraph
- Cite properly
- Proofread
Both
stories question the manner in which men are defined. Because logging
is so demanding physically, the workers are often too tired at the
end of the day to accomplish anything other than playing cards and
grunting at each other. Both authors exaggerate the camps in order to
make a point: manhood based on physical prowess must be questioned.
(IN THIS PARA. BE SURE TO FOCUS ON BOTH STORIES. COMPARE AND CONTRAST
THEM. DISCUSS WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN EACH STORY).
You
may conclude in one or two sentences. Be sure to repeat key aspects
of the question. State the key way in which both young men defy the narrow defiinition of manhood.
The
Moose and the Sparrow
Hugh
Garner
From the
very
beginning
Moose Maddon
picked on him. The
kid was
bait
for all
of Maddon's
cruel practical
jokes
around the
camp. He
was sent back to
the
tool-house
for left-handed
saws, and
down to
the office
to ask the
pay cheater if
the day's
mail was
in, though
the rest of us knew it
was only
flown out every
week.
The
kid's name
was Cecil,
and Maddon
used to
mouth it
with a
simpering
mockery,
as if it pointed
to the kid
being
something
less than a
man. I must
admit though
that the
name
fitted him,
for Cecil
was the
least
likely
lumberjack
I've seen
in over
twenty-five
years in lumber
camps.
Though
we knew he
was intelligent
enough,
and a man
too, if smaller
than most
of us,
we all
kidded
him, in
the
good
natured way
a bunkhouse
gang will.
Maddon however
always
lisped
the kid's name as if it belonged
to a woman.
Moose Maddon
was as different
from Cecil
as it is
possible
for two
human beings
to be and
still
stay
within
the
species. He
was a big
moose of a man,
even for a lumber
stiff,
with a
round flat unshaven
face that
looked
down
angrily
and dourly
at the
world.
Cecil on
the other
hand was
hardly
taller
than an
axe-handle,
and almost
as thin.
He was
about
nineteen
years old,
with the
looks
of an
inquisitive
sparrow
behind
his thick
horn-rimmed
glasses.
He had
been sent
out to the
camp for
the summer
months
by an
distant
relative
who had
a connec tion
with the
head
office
down in
Vancouver.
That
summer we
were
cutting big
stuff
in an almost
inaccessible
stand
of Douglas
fir about
fifty miles
out of Nanaimo. The logs
were catted
five miles
down
to the
river
where
they were
bunked waiting
for the
drive.
Cecil
had signed
on as a whistle
punk, but after
a few days
of snarling
the operation
with wrong
signals
at the
wrong
time and
threatening
to hang the
rigging slingers
in their
own chokers,
he was
transferred
to Maddon's
gang
as a
general
handyman.
Besides
going on
all the
ridiculous and
fruitless errands
for Moose,
he carried
the noon
grub to the gangs
from the panel
truck that brought
it out from
the camp,
made the
tea
and took the saws
and axes in
to old Bobbins, the
squint eye,
to be sharpened.
For the
first
two weeks
after
he arrived,
the jokes
were the usual
ones practised
on a greenhorn,
but when they
seemed to be having
lit tle
or no effect
on his bumbling
habits and even
temper Moose devised
more cruel
and
intricate ones. One
night Moose
and a cohort of his called
Lefevre carried the sleeping Cecil, mattress and all, down to the
river and
threw him in. The
kid almost drowned, but when he had crawled
up on shore and
regained his breath he merely
smiled
at his tormentors
and ran back to the bunkhouse, where he
sat shivering
in a blanket
on the
springs
of his bunk till the sun
came up.
Another time Moose painted a wide mustache with
tar on Cecil's
face while he slept.
It took him nearly a
week to get
it all off, and his upper lip was red and
sore
looking for longer than that.
Nearly all
of us joined in the jokes on Cecil at first,
putting a young
raccoon
in his bunk,
kicking over
his tea water,
hiding his clothes
or tying them in knots, all the usual things.
It wasn't
long though until the other men noticed that Moose
Maddon's jokes
seemed to have a grim purpose. You
could almost say he
was carrying out a personal vendetta against the kid for refusing to
knuckle under or cry "Uncle." From then on everybody
but Moose let the kid alone.
One evening as a few of us sat outside the
bunkhouse shooting the guff, Moose said, "Hey,
Cecil dear, what do you
do over on
the main land?"
"Go to school," Cecil
answered.
Moose guffawed.
"Go to school? At your
age!"
Cecil just grinned.
"What school d'ya
go to, Cecil? Kindergarten?" Moose asked him, guffawing some
more.
"No."
"You afraid to tell us?"
"No."
"Well, what school d'ya
go to?"
"U.B.C."
"What's that, a hairdressin' school?"
"No, the
university."
"University!
You!"
Moose, who
was
probably a
Grade Four dropout
himself,
was flab bergasted. I'm sure that up until that minute he'd
been living in awe of anybody
with a college education.
"What you
takin' up?" he asked, his
face angry and serious now.
"Just
an arts course," Cecil
said.
"You mean paintin'
pictures an' things?"
"No,
not quite," the kid answered.
For once Moose had nothing further to say.
From then on things became pretty
serious as
far as Moose and Cecil were
concerned. On at least two occasions the
other men on the gang had to prevent
Moose from beating the boy up,
and old Bobbins even
went so
far as to
ask Mr.
Semple,
the walking
boss, to
transfer
the youngster
to another
gang.
Since learning that
Cecil
was a
college boy,
Moose gave
him no
peace
at all, making him do jobs
that would
have taxed
the strength
of any
man
in the camp,
and cursing
him
out when
he was unable
to do them,
or do them
fast
enough.
The
kid may
not
have been
an artist,
as Moose
had thought,
but he
could make
beautiful
things out
of wire.
Late
in the
evenings he
would sit
on his
bunk and fashion
belt
buckles,
rings and
tie clips
from
a spool of
fine copper
wire he'd
found
in the
tool
shed. He
made things
for several
of the
men, always
refusing payment
for them. He used
to say it
gave him
something
to do,
since he couldn't afford
to join in
the poker
games.
One evening
late in the
summer as
I was
walking
along the
river having
an after-supper
pipe, I
stumbled
upon Cecil curled
up on a nar row sandy beach.
His head
was buried
in his arms
and his shoulders
were heaving
with sobs.
I wanted to turn around
without
letting him know he'd been seen,
but he looked
so lonely
crying
there
by himself
that I walked
over and
tapped him on the shoulder.
He jumped
as if
I'd prodded
him with a
peavey,
and swung
around,
his eyes
nearly
popping from
his head
with
fright. The
six
weeks he'd
spent
working
under Moose
Maddon
hadn't
done his nerves
any good.
"It's
all right
kid,"
I said.
"Oh! Oh,
it's you,
Mr.
Anderson!"
He was
the only
person
in camp who
ever called
me anything
but "Pop."
"I don't mean to
butt in,"
I said.
"I was just walking along here,
and couldn't help seeing
you. Are
you in
trouble?"
He wiped his eyes
on his sleeve
before answering me. Then he turned
and stared out across the river.
"This
is the
first
time I
broke down," he
said,
wiping his
glasses.
"Is
it Moose?"
"Yes.”
"What's
he done
to you
now?"
"Nothing
more than
he's been
doing to me all along.
At first
I took it -
you know
that, Mr.
Anderson,
don't you?"
I nodded.
"I thought
that after
I was out
here a couple of
weeks it would
stop,"
he said. "I
expected
the jokes that
were played
on me at first. After
all I was pretty
green when I arrived here.
When they
got to know me the other
men stopped, but not that
- that
Moose."
He seemed to have
a hard time mouthing
the other's
name.
"When are you
going back to school?" I asked
him.
"In another
couple of
weeks."
"Do you
think you
can stand
it until then?"
"I need all
the money I
can make,
but it's
going to be
tough."
I sat
down on the
sand beside
him and asked
him to tell me about himself.
For the next
ten or
fifteen
minutes he poured
out the
story
of his
life;
he was one
of those
kids who
are kicked
around
from birth. His mother
and father had split
up while he
was
still
a baby,
and he'd
been
brought up in a series
of foster
homes. He'd
been smart
enough, though,
to graduate from
high school at seventeen.
By a
miracle of hard
work and
self-denial
he'd managed to put himself
through the first
year
of university,
and his ambition was
to continue
on to law
school.
The money
he earned from his summer work
here at the
camp was
to go towards his next year's
tuition.
When he finished we sat in silence
for a while. Then
he asked, "Tell me, Mr. Anderson,
why does Maddon
pick on me like
he does?"
I thought about his
question
for a long time
before
answering
it. Finally
I said,
"I guess
that
deep down Moose
knows you
are smarter
than he
is in a lot of
ways.
I guess
he's-
well,
I guess you
might say he's
jealous
of you."
"No matter
what I do,
or how hard
I try to
please him,
it's
no good."
"It never
is," I
said.
"How
do you
mean?"
I had
to think even
longer
this time.
"There
are some
men, like
Moose
Maddon, who
are so
twisted
inside that
they want
to take
it out on the
world. They
feel
that most
other men have had
better breaks than
they've
had, and it
rankles inside
them. They
try to
get rid of
this feeling
by working
it out on somebody
who's even
weaker
than they are.
Once they
pick on you
there's
no way of
stopping
them short of getting out of their way
or beating it out of their hide."
Cecil gave
me a wry grin. "I'd never be able
to beat it out of the - the Moose's
hide."
"Then try to keep out of his way."
"I can't for another two weeks," he
said. "I'm
afraid that before then
he'll have
really hurt me."
I laughed
to reassure
him, but I was afraid
of the same
thing myself.
I knew that
Moose was
capable of going to almost
any lengths
to prevent
Cecil leaving
the camp
without
knuckling under at least
once;
his urge
seemed to
me to be
almost
insane. I
decided to
talk to George
Semple myself
in the morning,
and have
the boy
flown
out on the next
plane.
"I don't think Moose would go as far as to
really hurt you," I told him.
"Yes he would! He would, Mr. Anderson, I
know it! I've seen the way he's changed.
All he thinks about any more are ways to
make me crawl. It's
no longer a case of practical jokes; he wants to kill me!"
My reassuring laugh stuck in my throat this
time. "In another two weeks, son, you'll be back in Vancouver,
and all this will seem like a bad dream."
"He'll make sure I leave here crippled,"
Cecil said.
We walked back to the camp together, and I
managed to calm him down some.
The next day I
spoke to Semple, the walking boss, and convinced him we should get
the boy out of there. There was never any thought of getting rid of
Moose, of course. Saw bosses were worth their weight in gold, and the
top brass were calling for more and more production all the time.
Whatever else Moose was, he was the best production foreman in the
camp. When Semple spoke to Cecil, however, the kid refused to leave.
He said he'd
made up his mind to stick it out until his time was up.
Though my gang was working on a different side
than Maddon's, I tried to keep my eye on the boy from then on. For a
week things went on pretty much as usual, then one suppertime Cecil
came into the din ing hall without his glasses. Somebody asked him
what had happened, and he said there'd been an accident, and that
Moose had stepped on them. We all knew how much of an accident it had
been; luckily the kid had an old spare pair in his kit.
Few of his gang had a good word for
Moose any more, which only seemed to make him more deter mined to
take his spite out on the kid.
That evening I watched Cecil fashioning a
signet ring for one of the men out of wire and a piece of quartz the
man had found. The
way he braided the thin wire and shaped it around a length of thin
sapling was an interesting thing to see.
Moose was watching him too, but
pre tending not to. You could see he hated the idea of Cecil getting
along so well with the other men.
"I was going to ask you to make me a new
watch strap before you left,"
I said to Cecil. "But
it looks like you're running out of wire."
The kid looked up.
"I still have about twenty-five
feet of it left," he said. "That'll be enough for what I
have in mind. Don't worry,
Mr. Anderson, I'll make you the watch strap before I leave."
The next afternoon there was quite a commotion
over where Maddon's gang were cutting, but I had to wait until the
whistle blew to find out what had happened. Cecil
sat down to supper with his right hand heavily
bandaged.
"What
happened?"
I asked one
of Maddon's
men.
"Moose burned
the kid's
hand,"
he told
me. "He
heated the
end of a saw blade
in the tea
fire, and
then called
the
kid to take
it to the
squint eye
to be
sharpened.
He handed
the hot end
to Cecil,
and it burned
his hand
pretty
bad."
"But -
didn't
any
of you?"
"None of us
was around at
the time.
When
we found
out, big
Chief went after
Moose with a
cant hook,
but the
rest of us
held him
back. He would have
killed
Moose. If Maddon
doesn't
leave
the kid alone,
one of us is going
to have to cripple
him for sure."
Moose had been lucky
that
The
Chief, a
giant Indian called
Danny Corbett, hadn't
caught him.
I made up my mind
to have Cecil flown out
in the morning
without fail,
no matter
how much he
protested.
That evening
the kid turned
in early,
and we made sure there was always
one of us
in the bunkhouse
to keep
him from being
bothered by
anybody.
He refused to talk
about the
hand-burning
incident at
all, but
turned his head
to the wall
when anybody
tried to question him
about it.
Moose left
shortly
after supper to drink and play
poker in Camp
Three, about
a mile away through
the woods.
I woke
up during the night to hear a man laughing near
the edge of
the camp,
and Maddon's name being
called. I figured it was
Moose and Lefevre
coming home drunk from Camp Three, where the bull cook boot-legged
home brew.
When I got up in the morning, Cecil was already
awake and
dressed, sitting on the edge of his
bunk plaiting
a long length
of his copper wire, using
his good
hand and the
ends of the fingers of the one that
was burned.
"What are you
doing up so early?"
I asked him.
"I went
to bed right after chow last night, so
I couldn't sleep
once it got light."
He pointed to the plaited wire. "This
is going to
be your watch strap."
"But you
didn't need
to make it
now, Cecil," I
said. "Not with
your hand bandaged and everything."
"It's all
right,
Mr. Anderson,"
he assured me. "I
can manage it okay, and
I want to
get it done as soon
as I can."
Just
as the
whistle
blew after breakfast
one of the
jacks from
Camp Three came running
into the
clearing
shouting
that Moose
Maddon's
body was
lying
at the bottom
of a deep
narrow ravine
out side
the camp.
This ravine
was crossed
by means
of a fallen log, and Moose
must have
lost his
footing on
it coming
home drunk during the night. There
was a free
fall of
more than forty feet
down to a
rocky stream bed.
None
of us were exactly
broken-hearted
about Moose
kicking off
that way, but
the unexpectedness
of it
shocked us.
We all ran
out to the
spot, and
the boys
rigged a
sling from
draglines
and hauled
the body to the
top
of the
ravine. I
asked Lefevre
if he'd been
with Moose the
night
before, but he
told me he hadn't gone over to Camp Three.
Later
in the day
the district
coroner
flew
out from Campbell
River
or somewhere,
and after inspecting
the log
bridge
made
us rig a hand-line
along it.
He made
out
a certificate
of
accidental
death.
When they
flew the
body out,
Cecil
stood
with the
rest of us
on the
river
bank, watching
the plane
take
off.
If I'd
been in his
place I'd
probably
have been
cheering,
but he showed
no emotion
at all,
not relief,
happiness,
or anything
else.
He worked
on my watch
strap that
evening,
and finished it the next
day,
fastening
it to my
watch and
attaching my
old buckle
to it. It
looked like
a real
professional
job, but
when
I tried to
pay him for
it he waved
the money aside.
It was
another
week
before
Cecil
packed his
things to
leave.
His hand
had begun to heal
up nicely,
and he was
already beginning
to lose the
nervous
twitches
he'd had while
Moose was
living.
When he was
rowed out
to the company
plane, all
the boys from
his bunkhouse
were on the
river bank
to see him
go. The last
we saw of Cecil was
his little
sparrow
smile, and
his hand
waving to
us from the
window.
One day in
the fall I
went out to the ravine to see
how the hand line was making
it. It
still shocked me to think that Maddon,
who had been
as sure-footed
as a chipmunk,
and our best man in a log-rolling
contest, had fallen to his death the way
he had.
Only then
did I notice
something
nobody had looked for before. In the bark of the trunks
of two small trees that faced each other
diagonally across the fallen log were
burn marks that
could have
been made by wire
loops. A
length of thin wire rigged from one to the other would have crossed
the makeshift footbridge just high enough to catch a running man on
the shin, and throw him into the ravine. Maddon could have been
running across the log that night, if he'd been goaded by the
laughter and taunts of somebody waiting
at the other end. I
remembered the sound of laughter and the shouting of Maddon's name.
I'm not saying
that's what happened, you
understand, and for all I know nobody was wandering around outside
the bunkhouses on the night of Maddon's death, not Cecil or anybody
else. Still,
it gives me a queer feeling
sometimes,
even yet,
to look down at my
wrist. For all I know I may
be the only
man in the world wearing the evidence of
a murder as a wristwatch strap.
