Flame Alphabet - Selection 2

Perhaps it is better now to liken a father to an animal parent. Certain caretaking is observed, but when the offspring matures, alienation and estrangement set in. Rivalry. The youngster grows preternaturally angry at the father, for some reason angrier at the father than at any other creature and the father opens a small hole in his chest to accommodate this anger which flows in rapidly. An emotional ecology is observed, with the energy composted and renewed in the chest of the man. A deep, circular structure is satisfied with the anger returning to its creator, who is probably not equipped to hold it anymore. He must release it through new activities to the world.

Page 256

I think that this passage is an excellent example of where Ben Marcus practically explicitly states his belief about the nature of gratitude: cutthroat and almost animalistic. The father here gives everything to his child and gets little else than malice in return. This is certainly a bit of an exaggeration in many cases, but in a general context, it is hard to disagree that it is not uncommon for the reciprocation of a favor to be somewhat weaker or nonexistent. I believe that a person loses value in our eyes when we fail to acknowledge the things they do for us; certainly as much is evident in the relationship between Esther and Samuel. Esther (to my memory) doesn't once recognize the many things that he does for her and her animosity towards him grows progressively worse, culminating in what I find to be one of the most hateful departures I could imagine. Perhaps it is simply hardwired in us all to bite the hand that feeds us, but I think that Marcus tries to highlight this point as a small lesson in thankfulness. 

Flame Alphabet - Second selection

"Through medicine I brought myself back to the language and those tones of Claire went, what's the word for it? They were gone. I do not hear them anymore. For that I blame the craven desire to speak, to write, to be heard." (277)

To me, this is a perfect description of the values and respective pitfalls of communication. In some ways it seems that humans would be able to get along much better if they were unable to communicate. It is far easier to feel compassion towards someone who cannot berate you. It is difficult to judge when the specifics of that judgement cannot be expressed, and similarly it is difficult to feel judged for the same reason. It seems that when there is no speech, there is no deliberation over the trials of the world. Though there is much that must be sacrificed when communication is no longer possible, it seems at least to me, that humanity is preserved and even made more prominent.

Part 2: Flame Alphabet

I am choosing the following passage which is right from the beginning of part two.

"I caught one last sight of Claire. She seemed confused. No one told her she'd come up short in the field and collapsed. No one told her she had not escaped. They stuffed me in my car, shut the door, then banged a hand on the roof to tell me it was okay to go now. Join the procession out of her. Get going. Without her. But it was not okay.......when I kicked on the doors they were blocked from the outside. It was like my car was underwater and I could not get out."

Even though this quote comes very early in part two, it stuck with me because it shows true desperation. This quote refers to when Sam and Claire were getting out of town and how Claire decided to go back to the house. However before she even made it to the house, her legs 'faltered' and she lay motionless on the field. When Sam tried to go and get her the men of the quarantine pinned him and stuffed him back in his car, and instructed to leave. Sam was bewildered and tried to go out again to get his wife but was again pinned down and he felt like his car was underwater and he was drowning in it. I found this passage to be very powerful because it reveals true helplessness and how a man has to leave behind his potentially deceased wife because people won't let him get her. I thought about what Sam could have done or what I would do to get Claire, but when you think about it he really could do nothing and was helpless. Even though he is eventually reunited with Claire, I hope no one ever has to go through this type of traumatic  of experience, because it is frightening to think about.

Flame Alphabet Part 2

"These were the mercy tents. Inside people heard some last song, whatever they chose to dial up, and then down they went to those sounds. A strategy of acoustical expiration. Suicide by language. Mercy was right. The tents were clearly a kindness to those who remained. No one was forced in. On the contrary, people fought to get inside first. And when a funeral field had filled, the mercy tents were struck and dragged away. Audio equipment pulled alongside by wagon. A jukebox of words to die to" (179).

This passage struck me right away as something unthinkable. In this passage, two ideas combined together truly grabbed my attention. First off was the fact that these people would choose to die by listening to music. It seems unthinkable in a world that we live in today, which makes this book so much more creative. In today's world, music brings happiness and joy to so many people, and in The Flame Alphabet, the juxtaposition between being happy while listening to music as it slowly kills you is remarkable. Combine this with the second part, being that people would line up and rush to get into these suicide tents, and the outcome is truly appalling. The fact that people line up for their death shows the loss of hope in this society. It also illustrates the lack of enjoyment in life without human interaction through language. People are so lonely that they don't want to even live any longer and they decide to kill themselves by something that used to bring them so much joy, before it brought them so much pain. Overall, the juxtaposition between what sound is bringing now in the novel, compared to what it used to do before the disease outbreak began is remarkably contradicting, and its use in the novel makes the plotline even more interesting.

The Flame Alphabet Pt. 2

"I did my work and fed the material to the technicians, who came to my office with a bucket to collect what I'd done.  That's what the work I gave them amounted to: slops.  In the courtyard men and women fell unconsciousness, turned into gaze less creatures.  Some of them were sick because of alphabets I made.  I raised a sparse beard on my face and I learned to stare between the people I saw." (183)

I thought this passage really embodied how much an apocalyptic event can impact individuals.  The tone of the passage was dull and lifeless, reflecting the nature of Sam and the "creatures."  It was frightful how little emotion the subjects had.  As a result, I thought it was appropriate and clever how the passage mentioned the men and women were turned into "gaze less creatures."  The complexity of human motion is a well known trait that distinguishes humans from other animals.  If people were to adopt emotionless states, what would set them apart from any other creature?  Another part of the passage that intrigued me was the emotional distant enforced by Sam.  I thought the last sentence was particularly powerful.  This reminded me of Rabab's reference to people with depression and post traumatic stress disorder.  All of Sam's traumatic and painful experiences had hardened him.  The contrast between how he was in the beginning of the book and now is so different it's difficult to imagine that these two personas were ever the same person.  

Flame Alphabet part 2

"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."

As I was looking at others' blog posts, I did notice that I picked the same passage as Alex, however, I had a few other reasons for picking this passage. Alex pointed out that Marcus has this way of describing scenes and feelings in a way that really puts you in the story, and I agree with this wholeheartedly. However, the main reason I picked this passage was because I think it reflects on relationships, and the way people view their partners. Sam sees Marta giving her this look, and he's surprised by the fact that it's the same as a look that Claire has given him, and that they can make the same facial expression in response to what he's done. I feel like a lot of times, when we have a relationship with someone, whether it's a friend or a significant other, we want that person for ourselves, and think that the way they act is special to your relationship and no one else can mimic it. This isn't true of course-- we're all much more similar than we think in respect to our body language and facial expressions, and this passage exemplifies that. It's a very truthful passage.

Flame Alphabet Part 2

"Even in the sunshine my mood did not ease. It pulled at my breath, drew my sight into a darkened hole. It was a wordless despair I felt, a final sense of certainty that one's maneuverings were all tethered to some vector of, not even folly, but something far worse. Something much more terrible than folly." (282)

I picked this package because it undoubtedly emphasizes the difficulties of describing a feeling through language. Our thoughts are so complex that when we relay them through language, it's almost restricting or limiting to the bounds of our mind. Ben Marcus does an incredible job by highlighting it in this passage and others that words cannot describe the full effect of a feeling or action. Sometimes we don't have the right words to translate what we feel. It's like when a person just overcame a calamity or a traumatic situation and he/she don't know how to describe it because it's much more than the words he/she can say or know. This also can be compared to the beginning of the book where Claire would say "really" to emphasize an emotion or an idea and how it was "a desperate little adjective" (28). It comes to a moment where we cannot effectively transmit our thoughts and ideas to concrete language.

The Flame Alphabet (2)

                “You have commanded us not to know you and we have obeyed. When we have known you we have looked away …

                Whatever this was, it was no real prayer. It sounded like an apology for something that had never happened. I could not bear the sound, particularly in my own voice, and so I put away my wires and did not eavesdrop on the cable again.” (274)

I view this passage as a commentary on religion and the influence it has over society. Sam describes "an apology for something that had never happened," which is something that Christianity deals a lot in with the original sin; people must repent for something they didn't do wrong, something that didn't happen to them or because of them. This idea can be used to guilt people into praying to a deity to cleanse them of something innate to their biology, something they were born with. 

The Flame Alphabet Part 2

"I'd unleashed something and I wondered what more words might do, a sentence, several sentence, if I managed to lock the door and bar her at the exit while I held forth on some topic that might have concerned me, or even addressed the growing bond between us, since we had never once spoken about our relationship.
     I had all the power of a child" 226

This passage is from when Sam is with Marta and he has the serum so he is able to speak. He says a word to her and she starts to feel sick so she gets up and leaves. I think this shift in power is really interesting because Sam has felt the pain that he is now trying to inflict, and yet he is still tempted to use it. I think that's something that mirrors what some people do in real life, which is sad.

For example, sometimes when people have been hurt or bullied, their reaction is to bully other people around them so that they can feel what it's like to be on the other side. Personally, when someone does something that I don't like, I try to make sure I don't do the same thing to other people. I'm not saying that I've never hurt anyone by mistake, but some people hurt others purposely. I feel like you'd have to be really broken to get to that point.

Also I thought it was strange that after seeing that Claire was alive he would still go back to Marta. He obviously still wanted to protect Claire and he did a lot to do so, but this just seemed like an unnecessary plot point. Authors often have their main character be somewhat moral, but with some flaws to make them more relatable, but I don't really find Sam relatable personally. I think I identified more with Claire, but that's just me.