"Prime Directive" Analysis Essay

Brandon Pashby
9/24/07
Analysis Essay of “Prime Directive” by David Griffith
What does it take to properly analyze an essay? To properly analyze an essay you must dig deep and read between the lines. You have to figure out what it is that the writer is really trying to tell you. I believe that Griffith wants us to see a lot of things that doesn‘t actually print. To show us these things he uses symbols and figurative language.
“Prime Directive” illustrates connections between Griffith’s experience around Halloween and the war. It is an essay that uses a vast amount of symbols to create the theme. The theme shows us that we are responsible for making sure that political issues are not forgotten or accepted. The tone of the essay is somewhat depressed and remorseful. Griffith is constantly wanting to be surrounded by people and is reminded of his wife by nearly everything he sees. He is very descriptive and makes you feel like you are there with him. Griffith paints a clear picture of what he is seeing and experiencing. The essay jumps around and seems a little confusing at first. The writer uses some figures of speech that might offend some readers. At one point he describes some of the soldiers as “hicks from the sticks”. The writer is commenting on how brutal and relentless some of the soldiers have become.
In the essay Griffith is a school teacher that is waiting to move so he can be with his wife. In the meantime he is stuck at his house trying to find anything to keep his mind off of his wife and his loneliness. To keep himself occupied he travels with his friends, to different Halloween parties dressed as Captain James T. Kirk. No matter how many parties he goes to or how many people he sees he still never seems to be content. At the last party he has violent thoughts running through his head that he says no reasonable person would have. He finally runs into one of his old friends and ends up taking a picture with the man that is dressed as Charles Graner. In the picture, Graner gets a boy to put a bag over his head and pose while Griffith and Graner give the thumbs up. The next morning he remembers what he did and is ashamed of it. The next night he passes out candy with his neighbor to make himself feel better. He says that his neighbor gets pleasure out of scaring the little kids.
Griffith uses symbols throughout the entire essay. The fact that he is a captain and keeps moving around symbolizes a captain that is in war and moves from place to place. He moves from party to party just like soldiers do in the war. He is confused about what is right and what he should really be doing. At times he is ashamed of his actions and tries to forget them. He puts the picture out of sight so he will not be reminded of it. This is the same thing that happened with Abu Ghraib. People stopped talking about it and eventually it was almost forgotten. Halloween is another important symbol used in this essay. It symbolizes death and pranks. It makes us think of the devil and parties. These are all things that are associated with war. Catholicism is used to make us think of corruption and fundamentalism. These are two of the main things that cause war and anarchy. At one point Griffith sees a homeless man and avoids speaking to him. This represents the soldiers at war that have no home and no family to talk to. Loneliness is also shown by his being away from his wife just as a soldier is.
This essay gives us a better idea of what it is like for soldiers. It makes us realize that we need to talk about political issues and not let them be forgotten. It demonstrates how things can be forgotten or even accepted if we don’t bring them up and state our opinions on them. It reminds us that we are all responsible for what is talked about and what isn’t. It is our responsibility to make others understand the importance of political affairs.
I think that Griffith did a good job of demonstrating how corrupt the government and media can be. He used characters and costumes to paint this picture for it. Before reading this essay I couldn’t even tell you who Captain James T. Kirk was. After reading Griffith’s essay I not only know that he is a main character on Star Trek , but I know how he dresses and I can recognize him as a symbol for a leader. I believe Griffith was successful in presenting the material in a way that was easy to understand and he did a good job of giving us clues to figure out what was really going on in the essay. I also learned who Charles Graner is and learned of the incidents that took place at Abu Ghraib. I strongly believe that the incidents that took place should not be forgotten and should not be taken lightly. Overall Griffith did a great job of telling two stories at once while getting his point across.

A Good War is Hard to Find

The essay I read in English is called A Good War is Hard to Find. In the story a man

describes his life and his situation with his wife. In the story it is Halloween and the main

character is moving from party to party with his friends. He is dressed as a Star Trek captain,

but seems to be depressed at each party that he goes to. This has a lot to do with him being

away from his wife.

At the beginning he comments on a homeless man and says that he doesn't want the man

to see him. The main character makes sure to speak to a wealthy couple and makes himself

stand out. After this his friend picked him up and they headed to the first party. At the party he

comments on rap and says how it humiliates women.

This essay is very symbolic. The captain symbolizes a captain in war and the moving from

party to party symbolizes the troops in war. The Catholicism symbolizes corruption in the

country. The main character is lonely and separated from his wife the same way a soldier would

be. These are all symbols that help tell the story.

Family Addictions

Substance abuse is an epidemic in our country affecting people from all walks of life. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 17,602 people were killed by drunk drivers in 2006. It also states that 43% of Americans have been exposed to alcoholism in their families, and over 15 million Americans are dependent on alcohol. Substance abuse is commonly found among dysfunctional families. Here are three stories dealing with the effects of substance abuse in different people’s lives. When I was little my uncle and aunt came to visit my family for Thanksgiving. I had seen them before, or rather they had seen me before, but I was still pretty shy of them. Most of my extended family lives in East Tennessee so I never got to see them much. What I remember most about that visit happened that night. After we had all stuffed our faces with turkey and stuffing, my mom made me and my brother’s go take our baths, and then she put us to bed. But I couldn’t sleep, so I sneaked past my brothers’ bunk bed, and quietly went downstairs. I had to stop though, because the dining room light was on. You see the dining room was right in front of the part of the staircase you can see. So I tip-toed around the parts of the stairs that squeaked, I prided myself on being able to get down the stairs without making a noise, and peeked under the banister. My uncle and my dad were sitting at the table talking. My dad seemed really upset, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Seeing my dad like that, almost angry at my uncle but teary eyed, it really scared me. So I tip-toed back up the stairs, maybe making a few squeaks this time, and tried to wake up my older brother. Jonathan was dead asleep though, probably all that food, so I got a blanket and my pillow, and I slept on the floor in a little corner near the front of their bed. I found out later that my uncle was an alcoholic, and he smoked pot, and my mom would say he did “lots of other drugs”. I still don’t know what those “lots of other drugs” he did were. That’s why he and my dad had stayed up talking. My uncle lost a bunch of money, and my dad was “loaning” him some on the one condition that my uncle got help. That’s why he and my aunt came to Thanksgiving dinner, they needed money. He would tell my dad that he was going to meetings, but then my grandmother, who lived in the same town as my aunt and uncle, would call and ask my dad to come help, because “he was in trouble”. I’m still not really sure what that ever meant either. Sometimes it’s not just that one friend or family member, other times substance abuse runs amongst the whole family.When I was younger I was always aware that my family was dysfunctional due to arguments and domestic physical violence. However I was not aware that drugs and alcohol were involved. My mother was a hard working woman who always tried to put her kids before anyone else, her side of the family were all hard workers that showed my sister and I a vast amount of love and affection. My father on the other hand did not love us. He would always judge us and criticize everyone around him. His side of the family however was drug addicts and alcoholics, who despised my mother and her side of the family. “They” being my father’s side of the family always made us choose between them and my mother. Various cousins, aunts, and uncles are or have done time in jail for either possession of drugs, or selling drugs. My father was diagnosed as a diabetic back in ’97 and he has used his medication for money. In other words he would sell his medication to drug addicts to receive money. The sad thing was we were all aware of this situation, nobody ever said anything because my father was a psychopath. However I do have a cousin that is facing life in prison for drug related actions. I also have an uncle that is always in and out of jail for drug and alcohol related actions.I also have an aunt who was once married with a good husband and a well paying job, with two wonderful kids. She also began to experiment with drugs and she soon became addicted to them. She lost her husband and her kids, she only prostitutes for drugs. Back in 1997 she was tested positive for AIDS. And now nobody is aware of where she is the last we heard from her was about 4 years ago. And she was locked up in prison.Sometime I believe that god put us in these situations for a reason. Everybody is not born with the perfect family however when we have those tough situations we have to find a way to deal with the problems that are given to us on an everyday basis. I can honestly say that I am not embarrassed by the alcoholics and drug addicts in my family because it’s their life and it’s not me. Alcoholics don’t just affect their family; they can have devastating effects on friends as well. During the last year of my life I had to attend a funeral for a close friend of mine. He was killed in a tragic accident. This was a guy I went to high school and hung out with. He was killed by a drunk driver. The week before he died we had spent the week in Panama City for our senior trip. On the way back from Panama City the truck he was in got cut off by another vehicle. When they swerved to miss the vehicle their truck rolled and they hit a pole. My friend was asleep when the accident took place. He never regained consciousness. Three other people were injured in the accident. The drunk driver never stopped or did anything, but fled the scene. My friend’s death was sudden and unexpected. This accident is a very strong reminder of how one bad choice can affect many lives, and how precious life really is. Alcoholism is affecting everyone everyday, and the problem continues to spread. Perhaps these stories will remind you to think twice about the choices you make, and make you decide whether you will do something about the problem or ignore it.

Writing Themes

Group Themes- Brandon, Catherine, Krystal
1. family addictions
2. religion


Independent Themes
-sports
-school
-friends
-family
-interests
-jobs
-teams
-highschool
-middle school
-driving
-college
-time management
-free time
-homework
-deaths

btpashbyUofMblog

The article that I read came from a magazine called The New Yorker.The title of the article was "Nathan Englander's Novel of Political Terror". The article is located on page eighty-two and was written by Wyatt Mason. In the article he was telling us about a novel that he had read by Nathan Englander. This was the first novel that Nathan Englander had ever written. The title of the novel was The Ministry of Special Cases. The novel was set in Buenos Aires in 1976. After reading the article I felt like I had read the novel myself. The article includes quotes from the novel and has a portrait of Nathan Englander to go with the text.
The article had a positive tone throughout the entire passage. He communicated the idea of the novel very well in the article. Wyatt seemed to have enjoyed the novel from what he wrote about it in the article. He describes some of the characters as "vivid and resourceful". He also tells us that the novel deals with emotional situations. Wyatt says that there is sarcasm and irony in many parts of the novel.
The structure of the article was very well organized. It broke the novel down in to sections and went over some of the highlights of the novel. Wyatt did a good job of placing the quotes from the novel. He starts off by giving the setting and time frame of the novel. Wyatt used tons of descriptive details to describe the novel to us. Wyatt broke the article down in to eight paragraphs and placed important quotes throughtout the entire article.
Wyatt's choice of words could not have been better for describing the novel. He used tons of descriptive adjectives to describe the novel. He did a good job of constructing the article and it flew well from start to finish.
The point of the article was to give a complete review of the novel and credit Englander for a well written novel. Wyatt recommends this article to anyone that enjoys reading about history and politics.