Bowden Response
FAHAD RAFIQUE
BETH ANN BRYANT-RICHARDS
WRD 103
01/17/2013
“ TORCH SONG” “ Torch Song” by Charles Bowden was one of the best things I have ever read. The text of the reading was very much disturbed and mortifying which made me uncomfortable at first but then as he proceed he was really putting some magic in his text. At first I thought He is going to discuss about the child who was murdered in a cheap hotel but then he was discussing deeply about the molestation and rape happening in the city. I was getting distressed every moment he was sharing his experience or horror story. He was a good and sincere husband to his wife and was living a normal life but then the decline of his life started as his wife was raped.
According to me, Bowden's thesis is that we have become numb to the brutality of the society and we live in a world where killing a human being is normal for all of us “ a place of violence and danger, where the sexual impulses that course through our veins have created carnage” (17) because we fear from the consequences we are going o face after that. We see cruelty and brutality every day and night but we don’t take a stand against it “ The people inside feared her pounding in the night and did not want to open up the door” (17). As he was proceeding, he was so stoical about the happenings that he always wanted to forget the memories and bury down the stories like it has never happened “ bury the memories and go on pretty much as if nothing had ever happened.” (18). In the last line as well as through out the reading Bowden use to say “ Don’t talk about it; no one wants to hear these things” which I don’t know he got numb to the situations or he is purposely attraction the attention of the audience towards the brutality of the society.
Bowden has changed a bit by the end of the narrative. Going back to the beginning, he was staying in a cheap motel which according to him was “ hot-sheet joint” (13) and he also explained the
BETH ANN BRYANT-RICHARDS
WRD 103
01/17/2013
“ TORCH SONG” “ Torch Song” by Charles Bowden was one of the best things I have ever read. The text of the reading was very much disturbed and mortifying which made me uncomfortable at first but then as he proceed he was really putting some magic in his text. At first I thought He is going to discuss about the child who was murdered in a cheap hotel but then he was discussing deeply about the molestation and rape happening in the city. I was getting distressed every moment he was sharing his experience or horror story. He was a good and sincere husband to his wife and was living a normal life but then the decline of his life started as his wife was raped.
According to me, Bowden's thesis is that we have become numb to the brutality of the society and we live in a world where killing a human being is normal for all of us “ a place of violence and danger, where the sexual impulses that course through our veins have created carnage” (17) because we fear from the consequences we are going o face after that. We see cruelty and brutality every day and night but we don’t take a stand against it “ The people inside feared her pounding in the night and did not want to open up the door” (17). As he was proceeding, he was so stoical about the happenings that he always wanted to forget the memories and bury down the stories like it has never happened “ bury the memories and go on pretty much as if nothing had ever happened.” (18). In the last line as well as through out the reading Bowden use to say “ Don’t talk about it; no one wants to hear these things” which I don’t know he got numb to the situations or he is purposely attraction the attention of the audience towards the brutality of the society.
Bowden has changed a bit by the end of the narrative. Going back to the beginning, he was staying in a cheap motel which according to him was “ hot-sheet joint” (13) and he also explained the