Assignment One
Option Two:
The authors
of the short stories Kidnapper Bell and
City of Commerce both utilize familiar
settings that are representative to the landscape of Los Angeles.
Jim Pascoe, the author of Kidnapper Bell, uses the backdrop of the
Los Angeles River as the main focal setting for his story, illustrating it as a
concrete channel laden with graffiti, “In the dim light of the riverbed, he has
trouble seeing the graffiti on the drain covers… The large painted faces hang
perpendicular to the ground. During
heavy rains they will swing up, releasing torrents of run-off into the violent
river come to life. Now they are silent,
each recessed into an individual hollow in the channel’s cement wall” (220). The author’s depiction of the Los Angeles
River wields the reader to a sense of familiarity that distinguishes it as an iconic
landmark in Los Angeles. People who are
familiar with this landmark recognize it from its distinctive features of
concrete walls that are ravaged with litter and vandalized with countless graffiti. For those people who are not familiar with it
but have seen or heard of it, be it through numerous Hollywood films or the
news, they are able to identify it as a unique landmark that separates it as
being solely Los Angeles.
In City of Commerce, the author Neal Pollack distinguishes the Los
Angeles area by centering his story mainly on the City of Commerce and by
utilizing various locations throughout Los Angeles area, mentioning multiple
known freeways. “I prepared for my
meeting, in my mind, as I whipped the Acura down the 110, and then onto I-5 as
I moved through Downtown” (231). He goes
onto describing Commerce as “This town, to me isn’t most notable for its
candlelit, leather-bound nightclubs or fancy Valley gallerias. Like anywhere else, it’s the outlet malls and
truck-stop Arby’s, pathetic little trees dwarfed by ten-foot freeway sound
wall” (231-232). The author’s use of
various locations and freeways represents the vastness of the Los Angeles area
and his illustration of the city portrays a simple visualization for people who
are familiar with the region.
Assignment Two
Out of the
four short stories in “The Gold Coast” section, the story that I felt to
exemplify the best example of noir would be The
Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones while on
the other hand, the story that I found to be the most difficult to classify as
noir is Kinship.
In The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones by Scott Phillips, we are
introduced to a male protagonist named Tate, who is influenced with lustful
feelings towards the story’s femme fatale, Cherie. She is portrayed as an attractive middle-aged
unsuccessful actress who is working as a waitress, “We get guys all the time
with crushes on her, some of them very young;” (289). Tate is driven by his sexual desire towards
Cherie and states that he will do anything she asked from him, “like half the
guys who walk into Burberry’s, though, I have a great big boner with Cherie’s
name on it, and if she asked me to shovel shit I’d ask her how fast she needed
it shoveled” (287). Cherie uses her
seductiveness to lure in Tate and once she has him in her hook, she then
exposes the truth to him, in which he does not consent to, wanting nothing to
do with her scheme. This story, overall,
encompasses the basic elements of noir, in which we have the protagonist who is
seduced by the femme fatale and though ironically he does not fall for her felonious
plot, she in the end is responsible for his downfall.
In Kinship by Brian Ascalon Roley, we are
introduced to the main character named Tomas, who throughout the story was, as
if he was in a mission to uncover the truth to why his nephew, Emerson was
being bullied. Though, in my opinion,
his character can be portrayed as almost a detective-like persona, his
character was not detailed enough to a point where I can clearly view him as a
noir type detective. This short story,
in a way, is difficult to classify it as noir as it does not have merely enough
noir elements. The story overall, in my
opinion had a decent theme that was based mostly on vengeance, in which Tomas
was seeking retribution for the hurt that was placed upon his family.
