Close Reading Chapter 2: In the Great City

"It is estimated that every day hundreds if young women enter New York never to return more than as many young men, also strangers, young, eager, ambitious, pour in upon the wonderful city from the South, the East, the West --from the four parts of the world."

 

This is the opening passage of the second chapter. It is a fantastic image of people coming into New York, with hopes of finding something that they don't have in their places of origin. 

Some of these young women enter the city looking for work; they know that there are already thousands of women working in the great city, and that there is much money to be earned in this place. 

Other girls come into the city after they have been afflicted by the lonelinesses that haunts them in the rural parts of the country they reside in. These girls hope to find friends or a strong, handsome, romantic man who will be the relief of her troubles.

Regardless of their exact reasons, all the young people who come to New York are blinded by the superficial glamour of the city. These people believe that they are coming to a marvelous place of endless possibilities, where they will escape all their troubles. However, these people will soon come to realize that the perfect city is just an illusion.  

 

"The girl pushed on, confused, frightened, lost in the wilds of civilization! Each step forward bore her only deeper in the heart of this new and to her almost terrible wilderness."

 

In this passage, one of the young women has gotten into New York; she has been stripped of her illusion of the perfect city, now she is only terrified in the "wilds of civilization". She hasn't found any friends or a handsome, kind-hearted man; she is all alone and scared.  And her troubles are just beginning. She will continue to endure hardships in the great city.

Omission of Important Content in "The Great Railroad Riots"

I was recently reading “The Great Railroad Riots of 1887”, as I am sure most of you have done as well, and I feel obliged to say that this reading stood out –I mean compared to the previous stories in the course packet.  What I found to be of such interest, in this narrative, was the poor job that the author did in exposing the issues which led to the uproar of the citizens. Of course, I am certain that this issue was not the effect of a humble mistake.

In the “Flour Riot of 1937”, the author makes it clear that he is opposed to the riot and all of the destruction and lawlessness that comes with the riot.  But there are moments in the narrative that help the reader understand and even try to justify the actions of the rioters. The author constantly mentions the hunger and frustrations that the high cost of living.  This is not the case in the railroads riots narrative. In the aforementioned, the narrator spends dozens of pages describing a storm of death and anarchy; yet he writes less than a paragraph presenting the conditions that led to the violent actions of the insurgents. I must also point out that even though the author wastes only a few milliseconds describing the rioters’ frustrations, he does not hesitates in negating the validity of these conditions.

In my opinion, the author deliberately avoids adding any content that might make the reader believe that the behavior of the insurgents can be justified.

What do you think?