Jesus' Son Reaction Paper
Jesus' Son Reaction Paper
In Jesus’ Son, by Denis Johnson, there are several characters whom are fractured, disconnected, and apathetic to the world around them and often resort to violence or drugs as a means of connecting and feeling things. One example of such would be from the story “Car Crash While Hitchhiking”. (pg. 8) “Moving toward the other car I began to hear rasping, metallic snores. Somebody was flung halfway out the passenger door, which was open, in the posture of one hanging from a trapeze by his ankles. The car had been broadsided, smashed so flat that no room was left inside it even for a person’s legs, to say nothing of a driver or any other passengers. I just walked right on past.” The main character is so high on drugs and is so tired from his long trip, that he is completely disconnected from reality. If he was in a clear state of mind he might have made an attempt to help this individual, who obviously needed medical attention to save his life. At one point the main character walks past the man again, stops, and reassures himself that he will not do anything for the man. Another example of a fractured individual would be Hotel. He is another addict who is friendless, lonely and lost. (pg. 42) “As for Hotel, who was in exactly the same shape I was and carrying just as much heroin, but who didn’t have to share it with his girlfriend, because he couldn’t find her that day: he took himself to a rooming house that day at the end of Iowa avenue, and he overdosed, too. He went into a deep sleep, and to the others there he looked quite dead.” Hotels friendless drug stupor put him into a place where nobody cared for him at all. The people he was with quickly monitored him for a few minutes, but really did not care if he was alive or dead. Hotel did not care about his own life or living at all to reach a point like this. His careless decisions resulted in his own death. In the story “Dundun”, McInnes is
In Jesus’ Son, by Denis Johnson, there are several characters whom are fractured, disconnected, and apathetic to the world around them and often resort to violence or drugs as a means of connecting and feeling things. One example of such would be from the story “Car Crash While Hitchhiking”. (pg. 8) “Moving toward the other car I began to hear rasping, metallic snores. Somebody was flung halfway out the passenger door, which was open, in the posture of one hanging from a trapeze by his ankles. The car had been broadsided, smashed so flat that no room was left inside it even for a person’s legs, to say nothing of a driver or any other passengers. I just walked right on past.” The main character is so high on drugs and is so tired from his long trip, that he is completely disconnected from reality. If he was in a clear state of mind he might have made an attempt to help this individual, who obviously needed medical attention to save his life. At one point the main character walks past the man again, stops, and reassures himself that he will not do anything for the man. Another example of a fractured individual would be Hotel. He is another addict who is friendless, lonely and lost. (pg. 42) “As for Hotel, who was in exactly the same shape I was and carrying just as much heroin, but who didn’t have to share it with his girlfriend, because he couldn’t find her that day: he took himself to a rooming house that day at the end of Iowa avenue, and he overdosed, too. He went into a deep sleep, and to the others there he looked quite dead.” Hotels friendless drug stupor put him into a place where nobody cared for him at all. The people he was with quickly monitored him for a few minutes, but really did not care if he was alive or dead. Hotel did not care about his own life or living at all to reach a point like this. His careless decisions resulted in his own death. In the story “Dundun”, McInnes is