Week 3 Profile Response

What I most enjoyed about the pieces selected by Jackie, Joseph, and Elizabeth for this week was that they all told the story of individual people framed in a larger context. In particular "Rajas and Rollers" and "Notes from Rio," describe the current climate of particular cities in relation to specific individuals who represent one side of the story. In this way we get a look at how persons interact within a larger environment and through their words and actions we get a sense of how the greater society operates. All three pieces weave personal stories into a larger and more significant context well.

In "Rajas and Rollers," A.A. Gill establishes authority in his writing and also (through the writing) shows the reader that he is a foreigner in a place that is always a little foreign no matter how often he visits. The author does a good job of setting us in a scene (a Bombay traffic jam) and relating this struggle to contemporary class issues in India--cars become a synecdoche for the larger issues of capitalism and shifts in class structure. The portrait that Gill paints of Pranlal Bhogilal depicts him as a symbol of the old, imperial India--aloof, unconscious of his own extravagance, and intentionally naive of the changes in the world around him. Gill has eloquently weaves the story of one out-dated individual into the story of the progress and struggle of an emerging middle class. The boy selling the Vogue magazine--the symbolic pinnacle of Western material culture-- to middle class motorists in Bombay juxtaposed with Bhogilal--the owner of more cars than he could count--brings together three classes of people and shows how each stands in relation to the others: with upward mobility the thread connecting the three.

"Notes from Rio" works similarly, I think. We see a picture of a place through the lens of the people who live there and the way that those people interact with each other and with outsiders. This approach to reveals some of the many layers that all at once are at play in any given location. It also enables American readers to see how our influence effects other places and people. It is a slice through a people and place rather than an overhead view.

In all three articles, quotations from the interviewees are used effectively to expose the personal and emotional impact of larger events; humanization makes the pieces relatable. This approach to narrative journalism provides the reader with both a general and narrow scope of individuals within a larger society--which is essentially what we all are.