Essay 2: A Good Fall by Ha Jin, 150 points
In a 5-page essay, contrast helplessness and its resulting recurring cycle of futility with the Third Eye and its resulting effective action in at least 2 of the stories. Use personal interviews to give further depth to your contrast of helplessness and the Third Eye. Your sixth page, your Works Cited page, should have my blog, the book, and your personal interview.
Suggested Structure
Paragraph 1: Define learned helplessness and Third Eye
Paragraph 2: Give examples of both from your own experience, personal interview, movie, book, story, etc.
Paragraph 3: Transition to a thesis about learned helplessness and Third Eye as they pertain to Ha Jin's stories.
Paragraphs 4-6: Body paragraphs devoted to learned helplessness (block form)
Paragraphs 7-9: Body paragraphs devoted to Third Eye
Paragraph 10: Conclusion
Always Match the Correct Thesis with the Essay Assignment
All Thesis Statements Should be Constructed as a Debatable Claim or Argumentative Thesis
America's "War on Drugs" is a phony war that strengthens the military and prison industry while stripping Americans of basic freedoms.
These claims go under four different categories:
One. Claims about solutions or policies: The claim argues for a certain solution or policy change:
America's War on Drugs should be abolished and replaced with drug rehab.
Two. Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that a person, thing, policy or event caused another event or thing to occur.
Social media has turned our generation into a bunch of narcissistic solipsists with limited attention spans, an inflated sense of self-importance, and a shrinking degree of empathy.
Three. Claims of value: These claims argue how important something is on the Importance Scale and determine its proportion to other things.
Global warming poses a far greater threat to our safety than does terrorism.
Four. Claims of definition. These claims argue that we must re-define a common and inaccurate assumption.
In America the notion of "self-esteem," so commonly taught in schools, is in reality a cult of narcissism. While real self-esteem teaches self-confidence, discipline, and accountability, the fake American brand of self-esteem is about celebrating the low expectations of mediocrity, and this results in narcissism, vanity, and sloth.
Your essay is a claim of cause and effect or extended definition as they pertain to learned helplessness and metacognition.
Causes of Learned Helplessness
Cause One: Your interior thoughts create a self-fulfulling prophecy loop:
You believe a negative outcome will happen; the negative outcome occurs and you now are convinced of your "prophetic powers."
"She's going to leave me." A guy calls his girlfriend every ten minutes and asks, "Are you leaving me?" What does the girlfriend do sooner than later? She leaves him of course. So now the ex-boyfriend tells himself, "I knew it!"
"I'm not attractive enough. No one will ever love me."
"I'm going to fail."
"I'm too damn scared to do this properly."
"Tonight at the Senior Prom I'm sure I'll have a horrible time and make an ass of myself."
Eighty percent of the characters in Ha Jin's stories are trapped in this loop.
How do you free yourself from the self-fulfilling prophecy loop?
You need metacognition or the Third Eye; otherwise, you won't even know you're trapped in the loop.
You need successful experiences to contradict the "failures" that live inside your head.
Cause Two: Narcissistic Self-Pity
The grief and self-pity you feel over your perceived learned helplessness convince you that your suffering is deeper than everyone else's and this belief that you are a Special Victim of Intense Suffering makes you feel, in a perverse way, superior to everyone else. Therefore, your learned helplessness is a form of egotism and narcissism.
Again, you need the Third Eye to see how narcissistic you've become.
Cause Three: Beholden to the Lie That Manipulation Is an Easier Life
Recall the nurse at Little Company of Mary who told me the "loser nurses" exert more energy manipulating others and convincing others that they are helpless so that the good nurses will do their work for them. We learn from this anecdote that it's easier for us to do our job than it is to manipulate others into doing our responsibilities.
Cause Four: Mindless Habits
Brian Wansink studies obesity and found that people who are in the habit of mindlessly eating in front of the TV and computer screen are more susceptible to gaining weight than to those who don't.
In other words, learned helplessness reinforces itself through repitition. The more we behave in a helpless fashion, the more helpless we become.
"The House Behind a Weeping Cherry" (195)
1. How are the main characters prisoners living inside a prison? 197; also the juxtaposition of the garment shop with brothel. See 212. They come to America for freedom, but find themselves slaves to debtors, blood-suckers, predators. They are indeed prisoners seeking heaven in their American hell. These short stories were written in the 1990s when China's economy wasn't the powerhouse it is today.
Part of their personal hell isn't merely economic however. It's also their own complacency with set routine (of course owing the Mafia is part of it too).
2. How does the story deal with appearances and reality? Think glamorous exotica and meretricious malaise. See 198, 201 America is an alluring chimera, a prostitute, if you will, attracting people from all over the world, who come here only to be enslaved. In both stories, America is a sort of character, a Trickster, that takes the other characters up and down the different emotions of promise and crushing disappointment.
3. What is Wanping’s rite of passage on page 208? He expels one of the unruly clients out of the house and establishes his power, authority, and loyalty. A rite of passage is a way of initiating into a group, a way of proving one's worthiness of the group, a way of proving one's fidelity, loyalty, and strength for the sake of the group.
4. What does Wanping realize about his life on page 209 when he catches the flu? He needs what? Also see 210. He needs warmth, love, affection, companionship. He's been living in total darkness and an arctic freeze. A taste of tenderness awakens him from his blindness. He can't go back.
5. Defend or refute the choice at the end of the story. It seems like the first step in fighting the enemy and the enemy within, learned helplessness.
“A Good Fall” (221)
1. Compare the theme of imprisonment in “A Good Fall” with “The House Behind a Weeping Cherry.” Two characters who suffer from learned helplessness. And in both cases identify the Third Eye that frees them. For Ganchin, the fall brings him to his Third Eye. So does his girlfriend.
2. How is the story a re-telling of David and Goliath?
3. What details paint Master Zong as the quintessential hypocrite? 222
4. Why do you think Master Zong feels compelled to fire Ganchin?
5. What evidence is there that Cindy has affection for Ganchin and that he is too naïve and blind to be aware of such enticing affection? Yes, he is aware that she is fond of him but does he know HOW fond she is of him?
6. How is Ganchin’s identity as a monk a hurdle for him in the story? In other words, how does his being a monk create internal conflict? (Is the hacking cough a metaphor of Ganchin dying to his old self?) Being a monk has become for him about self-denial and self-limits; also it has been a source of a martyr complex, which makes him an intractable or perpetual victim.
7. How is the theme of learned helplessness common throughout this story and other stories in the collection? 225, 231 Time and time again, Ganchin convinces himself that he is helpless and believing he is, he becomes in fact helpless, like Huong and her co-workers in a previous story. Learned helplessness is a form of blindness.
8. Ganchin says he’s been pushed to the edge of a cliff on page 229. How does this pertain to the story’s title? What does the title mean? He needs to let go of his old self, his old life and fall, die to his old self and become someone new in America.
9. How is Ganchin’s robe a metaphor on page 234?
10. What is the public’s reaction to Ganchin’s suicide?
11. What lesson is Ganchin slowly learning at the story’s end?
Review Learned Helplessness
In "The Beauty"
It is evidenced by Dan's frustration over his perpetual lack of connection with his wife, Dan's irrational, psychotic jealousy, and Dan's confusion over the disparity between his wife's beauty and his daughter's lack of beauty (he says she's ugly).
It is evidenced by the inability to accept reality, however harsh; premonition of bad events in the future, which become fulfilled from negative attitude resulting in reinforced paranoia; and an incapacity to strive for a better life due to the mindless habits of repeated failure.
We've been talking about the existence of freedom (brought about by The Third Eye) or its absence in the form of mental imprisonment (determinism) in the stories by Ha Jin and how our essay must address this conflict.
One threat to free will is a mental condition called learned helplessness.
Learned Helplessness in "A Good Fall"
Learned helplessness is a disease in which you close your heart and mind to your strong self and settle for your weak self resulting in shame, which reinforces your identity with your weak self, resulting in more shame, and so on.
You exercise your strong and weak selves like muscles getting them stronger and stronger depending on which one you exercise more.
When you do your homework or any discipline you have your strong voice telling you to focus and your weak voice telling you to take a break, a nap, an internet check on your social media, etc.
Learned helplessness is a vicious cycle. The more you become helpless, the more you become ashamed; the more you become ashamed, the more you feel helpless and so on and so on.
Here's another definition of learned helplessness:
Learned helplessness is the paralysis that results when you convince yourself that you are helpless to overcome a predicament when in fact, objectively speaking, you have the means to solve your problem. For example, the baby elephant grows up chained to a pole and its owner eventually removes the chain but the elephant, as an adult, never leaves the pole because he’s convinced that he’s chained to it.
Once we sink into learned helplessness, can we change?
You can't change unless you recognize you're in a vicious cycle and feel motivated to change.
You can't feel motivated to change unless you feel genuine shame, the kind that comes from you, not from others, and have a vision of a stronger self to aspire to.
There are two kinds of shame, Real Shame and BS Shame.
There is genuine self-induced shame, which leads to positive change.
Example: A man stops eating the leftovers for lunch because his children who are napping need to eat some. If he eats all the food, he will feel ashamed, so he stops.
But what about the husband who stops, not because of his own shame, but the shame of getting caught by his wife?
We can call this type of shame BS shame, the kind in which you're ashamed you "got caught." You're more interested in your image than your "content."
Kids will behave nicely at other families' homes but be brats at their own home, for example.
A husband will be nice and mature around his wife when other couples are around but be a fussy bully child in their absence.
He's ashamed to be seen as a jerk to others but not himself.
Real shame for our lives as helpless victims is the only way to change. I don't know if this change is the result of a choice or not.
Can we choose to experience real shame? What about the people who gorge at HomeTown Buffet?
We have to feel ashamed of our helpless state and motivated to change, but I don't know how we reach that point.
Examples of Failed and Successful Thesis Statements
A Failed Thesis That Is Too General Or Obvious: Examples:
The characters in Ha Jin's short story collection suffer from blindness and therefore they are not free.
The characters need to see reality for what it truly is.
The characters in Ha Jin's stories are usually well-intentioned but desparate for change.
Better, More Specific Thesis Statements:
The intersection of Chinese traditional culture and American post-modern culture afflict the characters with a tension between American freedom and Chinese restraint evidenced by _______________, ____________, ________________, and ________________.
No matter how "free" America may be, learned helplessness impedes the characters of Ha Jin's short story collection from ever being free until they can _____________, _____________, ______________, and _____________.
Ha Jin's stories masterfully render the dangers of learned helplessness, which include ________, _________, _________, __________, and __________.
Review Theme As It Pertains to Your Essay
For your essay you must develop a thesis, perhaps an argument, about the topic of freedom as it pertains to Ha Jin's stories.
McMahon argues, in part, that freedom is an illusion. We are in fact motivated by things we cannot control such as fear, vanity, disgust, hunger for social status, the desire to be superior to others, greed, avoiding family shame and rejection, desire to please others, desire to conform to culture and/or family.
Now if you don't have the above motivations, what happens to you? You become lazy. You have no motivation.
McMahon has a problem. His list of motivations is only only bad motivations. Did McMahon have an agenda? Yes, McMahon was being dishonest. He was hiding good motivations in order to support an argument and to persuade you to "his side."
In reality, however, McMahon was tricking you, showing you how easily you can be manipulated and deceived.
What does McMahon really believe? Ninety-nine percent of us have no freedom. We are indeed driven by the above stated motivations.
However, if you look at history's heroes like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, what you'll find is that success, meaning, courage, nobility, heroism can be found without being slaves to our lower passions. A few people are free and they always want to free the rest of us. However, the overwhelming majority of us, including most of the characters in Ha Jin's short story collection, are not free. They are slaves to irrational fear, desire, and incurable delusions evidenced by ________________, _________________, _______________, ________________, and __________________. In contrast, the Third Eye is evident in the stories ___________evidenced by __________, _____________, and _____________.
Very few people enjoy freedom in Ha Jin's stories. With one or two exceptions, they suffer from the prison of learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, ______________, _______________, and _______________. Only the stories _______show the hope of freedom evidenced by _________, _____________, and ________________.
Sample 2-Part Thesis Template for Essay Assignment
The darkest stories in Ha Jin's collection render characters crippled by learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, ___________, _____________, and _________________. In contrast, those characters who experience freedom possess The Third Eye evidenced by ___________, ____________, ______________, ______________, and _________________.
The darkest stories in Ha Jin's collection, including ____________, ________________, and ________________ render characters imprisoned by learned helplessness evidenced by _________________, _______________, and _________________. In contrast, the more optimistic stories, including ______________and _____________, show characters who enjoy signficant freedom as a result of The Third Eye evidenced by ____________, ______________, and _________________
See Literary Devices in Pop Culture
Causes of learned helplessness (Review)
One. Denial of being in a condition of learned helplessness. Does Wanping have to work as a lowly garment slave without any love in his life? Or is this a choice he makes? He says his job is like a prostitute's because he is "selling himself."
Two. Playing the life of a victim until you sincerely believe you are a victim. I had a student whose fiance left her 3 days before the wedding and she was pregnant. She never dated again. She was "protecting" herself but in reality she destroyed herself, killing an important part of who she was.
Three. We prefer the devil we know more than the devil we don't know (change). Wanping is not ignorant about his horrible job but he is ignorant when it comes to looking at better alternatives. So is Ganchin.
We can call Number 3 "The Adam 12 Effect": We prefer the pain of helplessness to the terror and suffering of change.
Four. We become dependent on people helping us because we're so helpless: We learn to enjoy the self-pity of believing that we're helpless more than the enjoyment that results from growing stronger. Here's the irony that we'll repeat later: We have to work hard for people to pity us and take care of us MORE THAN DOING THE WORK OURSELVES AND MORE THAN BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN LIVES. I received this wisdom from a student, a male nurse, who described some dead weight nurses he worked with.
Five. We love the attention of being helpless. Learned helplessness is the identity of the helpless victim. This identity is a form of self-pity, egotism and in worst cases narcissism because you expect everyone to stop and focus their attention on your needs, your helplessness, your victimhood, which you use as a banner of glory and entitlement.
Six. Self-Reinforcement Or Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
You have inculcated (taught through endless repitition) yourself with the belief of your helplessness so that your condition becomes true, but this truth isn't the result of the real world; rather, it's the result of your interior world: what's inside your head.
Seven. Solipsism
When you live only inside your head without being connected to the real world you suffer from a mental disease called solipsism.
A skinny anorexic who thinks she's fat suffers from solipsism.
An obnoxious, arrogant charlatan who thinks he's a gift to the world suffers from solipsism.
An able person who doesn't look for work or try to excel in life suffers from solipsism.
Eight. Vindication
How does this happen? A sense of helplessness or futility becomes your identity.
Second, because failure is your identity, you compulsively invest enormous amounts of time and energy in your identity of futility and failure and you reach a point in which you NEED your life to be a failure.
Why? Because then you're proven right. To be proven right is to enjoy something called vindication.
And vindication feeds the ego.
Of course, this whole cycle of invested failure and vindication exists inside your head.
Nine. Learned Helplessness Is Addictive Because It's All About You
It promises victimization, which makes you think others will make decisions for you and perform your hard work.
The irony is that to play the role of helpless victim, you have to constantly manufacture so much BS you actually do MORE work than if you would not be a victim and simply be your responsible self.
To play the victim is to live a selfish existence, which means you live as if your life is yours and yours alone. This is a lie and a delusion.
The comedian Louis C.K. says in one of his TV episodes in which he is trying to talk a friend out of committing suicide: "Your life isn't yours. It's bigger than that. It belongs to your friend, your family, the community, to the world."
Ten. Getting Lost Inside Your Head
Your interior thoughts are full of fiction, fantasy, exaggeration, delusion on such a grand scheme that living inside your head is like getting lost in a mansion with many rooms and eventually falling down a spiral staircase from which there is no bottom. We call this madness.
To get out of your head, you need something that Jerry Seinfeld calls "The Third Eye," the ability to detach from yourself and watch with a certain objectivity your thoughts and actions.
Psychologists call The Third Eye something else: metacognition. Another way of defining this: You think about thinking.
This is a technique discussed at some length in a best-selling book The Power of Now (I've read it; its teachings seem to be derived from Eastern religions).
Examples of "living inside your head" without the Third Eye to stop you:
You obsess over a girl whom you're angry at because she's "ignoring" you or she's "cheating" on you when in reality this woman doesn't even know you. Your "relationship" with her is all in your head.
You obsess with worry over a speech you have to give in a college class and while obsessing you become paralyzed with breathless terror so that you almost die of a heart attack just before you go onto the stage. This near death reinforces your fear of public speaking.
You teach yourself, like Ganchin, that your fate is suffering, to be poor and to be exploited by your employees because you don't know anything else.
Symptoms of Learned Helplessness
- A lack of belonging and feeling marginalized to the point of feeling like a “misfit.”
- A habit of repeated failure that reinforces your feelings of impotence.
- A defeatist, pessimistic attitude that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. "No one is going to go out with me to the Senior Ball. No one is going to like me. You watch."
- Defining yourself as a victim and making yourself dependent on others.
- An unconscious determination to fail because you’re afraid of success, which will force you to grow up and assume adult responsibilities.
- A determination to see yourself as a tragic figure who has no control of what happens to you.
- A fearfulness of life that compels you to hide in the psychological womb of self-pity.
- You're a contradiction: Stupid enough to be weak but smart enough to manipulate others to bail you out every time.
- Even when you know the right steps and can do something on your own, you wear out people so that they carry your weight up the mountain. They decide it’s easy to carry you on their shoulders than it is to help you because you resist being helped.
- You procrastinate long enough so that you always need an excuse or an extension, reinforcing your self-image as a flake, a slouch, and lazy bum.
- You create drama and crises out of nothing and enjoy watching other people put your fires out.
Major Causes of Learned Helplessness
One. Self-Reinforcement
You have inculcated (taught through endless repitition) yourself with the belief of your helplessness so that your condition becomes true, but this truth isn't the result of the real world; rather, it's the result of your interior world: what's inside your head.
Two. Solipsism
When you live only inside your head without being connected to the real world you suffer from a mental disease called solipsism.
A skinny anorexic who thinks she's fat suffers from solipsism.
An obnoxious, arrogant charlatan who thinks he's a gift to the world suffers from solipsism.
An able person who doesn't look for work or try to excel in life suffers from solipsism.
Three. Helplessness, futility, a sense of failure all become addictive.
How does this happen? A sense of helplessness or futility becomes your identity.
Second, because failure is your identity, you compulsively invest enormous amounts of time and energy in your identity of futility and failure and you reach a point in which you NEED your life to be a failure.
Why? Because then you're proven right. To be proven right is to enjoy something called vindication.
And vindication feeds the ego.
Of course, this whole cycle of invested failure and vindication exists inside your head.
Four. Learned Helplessness Is Seductive
It promises victimization, which makes you think others will make decisions for you and perform your hard work.
The irony is that to play the role of helpless victim, you have to constantly manufacture so much BS you actually do MORE work than if you would not be a victim and simply be your responsible self.
To play the victim is to live a selfish existence, which means you live as if your life is yours and yours alone. This is a lie and a delusion.
The comedian Louis C.K. says in one of his TV episodes in which he is trying to talk a friend out of committing suicide: "Your life isn't yours. It's bigger than that. It belongs to your friend, your family, the community, to the world."
Five. Getting Lost Inside Your Head
Your interior thoughts are full of fiction, fantasy, exaggeration, delusion on such a grand scheme that living inside your head is like getting lost in a mansion with many rooms and eventually falling down a spiral staircase from which there is no bottom. We call this madness.
To get out of your head, you need something that Jerry Seinfeld calls "The Third Eye," the ability to detach from yourself and watch with a certain objectivity your thoughts and actions.
Psychologists call The Third Eye something else: metacognition. Another way of defining this: You think about thinking.
This is a technique discussed at some length in a best-selling book The Power of Now (I've read it; its teachings seem to be derived from Eastern religions).
Examples of "living inside your head" without the Third Eye to stop you:
You obsess over a girl whom you're angry at because she's "ignoring" you or she's "cheating" on you when in reality this woman doesn't even know you. Your "relationship" with her is all in your head.
You obsess with worry over a speech you have to give in a college class and while obsessing you become paralyzed with breathless terror so that you almost die of a heart attack just before you go onto the stage. This near death reinforces your fear of public speaking.
You teach yourself, like Ganchin, that your fate is suffering, to be poor and to be exploited by your employees because you don't know anything else.
Your interior thoughts create a self-fulfilling prophecy loop:
You believe a negative outcome will happen; the negative outcome occurs and you now are convinced of your "prophetic powers."
"She's going to leave me."
"I'm not attractive enough. No one will ever love me."
"I'm going to fail."
"I'm too damn scared to do this properly."
"Tonight at the Senior Prom I'm sure I'll have a horrible time and make an ass of myself."
How do you free yourself from the self-fulfilling prophecy loop?
You need the Third Eye; otherwise, you won't even know you're trapped in the loop.
You need successful experiences to contradict the "failures" that live inside your head.
The second cause of learned helplessness:
The grief and self-pity you feel over your perceived learned helplessness convince you that your suffering is deeper than everyone else's and this belief that you are a Special Victim of Intense Suffering makes you feel, in a perverse way, superior to everyone else. Therefore, your learned helplessness is a form of egotism and narcissism.
Again, you need the Third Eye to see how narcissistic you've become.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Comma Rules (based in part by Diana Hacker’s Rules for Writers)
Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.
If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)
While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)
Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.
Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.
Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.
We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.
The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:
The plane took off and we were on our way.
Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.
When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.
In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.
Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.
The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:
In no time we were at 2,800 feet.
Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.
Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.
Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.
Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.
The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:
Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.
The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.
Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.
Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.
Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.
Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.
Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:
For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.
Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.
Nonrestrictive:
For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.
Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.
My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.
Comma Rule 6: Use commas to set off transitional and parenthetical expressions, absolute phrases, and elements expressing contrast. (For the most part, we’re referring to conjunctive adverbs such as however, as a matter of fact, in contrast, in other words, etc.)
As a matter of fact, Jeff Henderson found life after prison even more difficult than life in prison.
Jeff Henderson struggled in prison. However, his life after prison proved even more excruciating.
Life after prison for Henderson was a constant grind; kitchen sabotage from hateful co-workers, for example, was commonplace.
Jeff Henderson, as far as we know, climbed the restaurant ladder without the help of special connections.
Jeff Henderson served 500 dishes a night, give or take a dozen.
Jeff Henderson appearing outside his restaurant for the first time in a week, we were able to get a good photograph of him.
After climbing the restaurant ladder, Jeff Henderson sought spiritual, not material, success.
Comma Rule 7: Use commas to set off nouns of direct address, the words yes and no, and mild interjections.
“Mom, please pass me the potato chips.”
“Will you please pass the potato chips, Mom?”
Yes, Jeff Henderson was a man who needed to give back to his community to feel fulfilled.
Jeff Henderson’s book was a compelling read, wasn’t it?
Well, I for one read Henderson’s book over a period of two days.
Comma Rule 8: Use commas with expressions such as he said and other signal phrases to set off direct quotations.
Naturalist Arthur Cleveland Brent remarked, “In part the peregrine declined unnoticed because it is not adorable.”
“Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche.
Comma Rule 9: Use commas with dates, addresses, titles, and numbers.
On August 14, 2014, the second summer session will have come to an end.
However, we have an exception to the date rule if the date is inverted or if only the month and year are given.
The second summer session ends on 14 August 2014.
August 2014 is the first month of the Fall Semester.
John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England, in 1940.
Please send the package to Greg Tarvin at 708 Spring Street, Washington, IL 61571.
Sandra Belinsky, MD, has been appointed to the board.
3,500 100,000, 5,000,000
Comma Rule 10: Use a comma to prevent confusion.
To err is human; to forgive, divine. (Writer omitted verb is)
All of the crises Jeff Henderson feared might happen, happened.
Students who can, stand up and do a hundred jumping jacks before we do our comma rule lecture.
Find comma rules in these passages:
It was already ninety minutes past his normal lunchtime when Merrickel T. Pettibone reached for the party tray featuring a dazzling display of assorted “stoneground” crackers and dips made of pesto, spinach, olives, chives, and cream cheese. He had almost decided on a cracker when he recoiled because he thought, perhaps mistakenly, that the caterer, a fortyish woman in khaki safari shorts, yellow spaghetti-strap tank top, and a mannish face half covered with dark straight bangs had slapped his hand. Loud enough so the other partygoers inside the kitchen could hear her scolding, she told Merrickel that the appetizers would not be served for another two hours because she was still in “prep mode” and he needed to leave her work space.
He was chastened by the caterer’s admonishment on the one hand, but on the other he was irate that the birthday party, which started at one P.M., wasn’t serving appetizers until three. The time disparity struck him as perplexing and trying to wrap his brain around this gap only served to make him hungrier, and suddenly he was annoyed with his wife Aubrey for telling him to skip lunch so he could save his appetite for the party.
Apologizing to the caterer for his impropriety, he then navigated his stout physique (his doctor told him to lose thirty pounds) with the surprising nimbleness of a ballerina through a crowd of people, first in the living room and then in the backyard, and noticed with some resentment that most of the visitors were contentedly drinking beverages, some alcoholic, in the absence of any food. The thought of drinking on an empty stomach made him lightheaded and nauseous.
He found Aubrey in the back patio deck talking to her twenty-two-year-old cousin Madison, a nanny from San Francisco, about childrearing, a subject he, the father of twin four-year-olds, found tedious. He said, “The appetizers are under lock and key for another ninety minutes so I have taken it upon myself to go to a nearby store and purchase some snacks.”
His wife and cousin had long ago taught themselves to tune out Merrickel’s frequent interruptions, so they continued their conversation as if he weren’t there at all. He inferred their indifference was a green light for him to exit the premises and buy something to sustain him till the appetizers were served. Before leaving, he observed his two daughters Diana and Rigley playing on a jungle gym with their older cousins, evidencing they were in good hands, and he was now fully satisfied he could briefly disappear from the birthday party and buy some snacks without suffering his wife’s castigation.
He drove to the nearby Bazaar Club, one of those giant warehouse markets where an annual membership gives you “club privileges” to load an SUV full of provisions, clothes, and appliances that you can hoard inside your suburban cave as if hunkering down for the Apocalypse. He went on the hunt for some multigrain chips and hummus. At the aisle where there were freshly bagged whole coffee beans stacked to the ceiling like towering, magical bean stalks, a gaunt man with an old-fashioned, shiny, black mustachio, a red three-piece velveteen suit, and a cheap oversized fake gold watch was giving out free samples of spicy multigrain chips, “all organic with quinoa, brown rice, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, lentils, and amaranth.” A heavy woman with damp hair and a shapeless dress observing the “healthy” chips with a doubtful expression asked the salesman, “What the hell is amaranth?” upon which the mustachioed man was gleeful to explain that it is a “healthy, high-protein ancient grain once enjoyed by the pre-Columbian Aztecs until it was almost wiped out by the Spanish conquistadors.”
Merrickel espied the chips with a force of lust that almost made him blush and he took a sample plastic cup that held exactly three tannish red chips before biting into one and hearing the satisfying crackle. The strong kick of chili, curry, and cumin exhilarated him in a manner that caused his nose to twitch like a rabbit’s. Observing the beaming expression of the mustachioed man, Merrickel grabbed five bags of the multigrain chips and three nearby tubs of hummus before paying with the other embattled customers jockeying for position at the registers.
When he returned to the party, he placed the tubs of hummus and bags of chips on one of the backyard’s picnic tables and the partygoers descended on the food with the aggression of vultures on a carcass. There was much talk about the chips’ tastiness and everyone asked the hostess, Aunt Barbara, where she had bought the chips. She looked hopelessly at Merrickel who announced to everyone that the chips were not “official party fare” but that he had bought them, without her consent, at Bazaar Club.
After he explained the history of amaranth and the other organic ingredients that made the chips so healthy and savory, the caterer popped out of the rear house entry and scowled at him. Convinced that the dozens of people munching on the chips he purchased were vindication of his good taste, he felt emboldened and he scowled back at the caterer as if to say, “Take that, you little shit.”
Looking at him as if he were a predatory carnivore who had just eviscerated her innards, her bottom lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears before she ran back into the house.
Everyone at the party was now silent. Merrickel looked down at the empty multigrain chip bags and tubs of hummus. He feebly tried to break the tension by announcing that the snacks had proven to be a “great hit” because they were all gone, but his words were like a padded fist slamming against a solid steel wall with a pathetic thunk and the dark cloud he had brought to the party grew only heavier.
Seconds later, the party host Aunt Barbara came out and walked close to Merrickel, putting her face close to his. Barbara had short-cropped silver hair and thin lips. She was a proud woman, a former FBI agent who spent her last ten years working as a security supervisor at a pricey department store before retiring with top honors. She looked at Merrickel sorrowfully and said, “Do you know anything about the life you just ruined?”
That’s rather dramatic, Merrickel thought, but then Barbara explained the caterer Becky. Forty-year-old single mother. Six months ago her abusive husband left her for a younger woman. Her three teenage kids needed dental work their mother couldn’t afford. She was recently laid off at the ports where she struggled with part-time work as a longshoreman. “This job gave her pride and dignity,” Barbara said. “And you took that away from her.”
“I just bought some chips.”
“But we have plenty of food here.”
“Which wasn’t to be served for another two hours after we got to the party. I was feeling faint for God’s sake.”
“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You could learn to space two hour intervals between your feedings, Merrickel.”
“I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.”
Hearing the conversation, Merrickel’s wife Aubrey said, “That’s bullshit, Merrickel. You had almonds and blueberries with your second cup of coffee after breakfast. And that’s only what I saw you eat. God knows what else you shoved down your throat while I was giving the girls a bath.”
In fact while his wife was bathing the twins, he had snuck a little snack of two hard-boiled eggs doused with Tabasco sauce followed by an oversized red apple sporting an unsightly bruise. But he remained silent on that matter.
“Merrickel’s eating habits aren’t the issue here,” Barbara said. Turning to him, she continued, “You called Becky a little shit.”
He had never called her that. He had thought it. Or did he indeed say it? He could no longer be sure and his doubts deflated any chances of standing up to the party’s silver-haired matriarch. It was at this point that Merrickel’s wife stepped in. She offered to take over the catering because Becky was, thanks to Merrickel, too demoralized to show her face any more. Aubrey turned to Merrickel and said, “And you’ll watch the kids for the rest of the party.” She knew her husband well enough that having to watch the kids for two full hours was a punishment, a prison sentence of managing what Merrickel called “The Traveling Fusstropolis.” And she added, “When we get home, you’re going to have a time-out.”
He spent his time-outs in the garage where he’d read books, listen to sports talk on the radio, do a kettlebell workout. But this time-out had been announced at a party. It amounted to public humiliation. He found himself too angry and too forlorn this time to do anything. He closed the garage door, turned on the industrial fan full blast and curled up on the floor.
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