This selection is taken from page 227 of "The Flame Alphabet" by Ben Marcus:
"As she got dressed and made her way out of my room, Marta looked at me plainly, as if she was curious, in the detached, scientific sense, why I would have any interest in hurting her. I'd seen that face before, and I hadn't realized it was a face that could be shared, used by more than one person, but it had appeared on Claire, and I had always thought that it was hers alone, to use only on those special occasions when I had disappointed her. But apparently this was a face that Marta had access to as well."
I chose this passage because it directly relates to the conversation we had about body language in class today. Body language seems relatively objective on the surface, but in fact, it is a highly subjective means of communication because one's intentions may not easily be transferred into a non-verbal display of gestures. Even though Marta may not have been thinking anything out of the ordinary when she looked at Sam in this passage, he perceives her gestures as signals, nonetheless. Marcus does a great job of putting the reader into Sam's mind as he thinks these thoughts, which allows the reader to more effectively step into his shoes and witness his experiences firsthand. As stated in class, body language is a universal means of communication, which is interesting because it does not harm anyone in the book. If it is the act of understanding something through communication that triggers the sickness, then body language must be too abstract of a concept to create fever-inducing comprehension. If this fact is purposeful in the book, then Marcus may be alluding to the fact that body language should not be understood as a concrete expression in our everyday interactions with other people, because misconceptions may have harmful effects on the giver and receiver of body language signals. I find this to be a very compelling thought, and I applaud Ben Marcus for his ability to make his readers think critically about the issues he presents in his book.
I actually chose a passage before this, but still in the same incident with Marta. I think that the body language in this part was definitely very important because that's the only way we would know how Marta reacted. Also, the fact that this is still a viable means of communication is also very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with what you said about the body language being too abstract a concept to stir the reaction that might come of words. I think that was such an interesting thing to talk about. As far as the writing of Marcus goes, I was so impressed with how he made me feel as if I was in every single scene and moment with Sam experiencing the same things he was experiencing. The book is so brilliantly crafted in that sense, that the readers feel explicitly what is happening to Sam,
ReplyDeleteI agree also with the point you made. It is very interesting to ponder the possibility that Marta was not disappointed in Sam as he thought, but that he interpreted her body language that way because the only other time he had come into contact with that facial expression was when Claire was disappointed. This shows the difficulty in interpreting body language, as we talked about in class.
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