Losing Matt Shepard Analysis
David Mattera
Professor Boemo
Expository Writing 101: LP
December 2, 2008
The Complexity of Simply Dying
At first glance, the concept of death seems simple; one tries to live as long as possible, and when the time comes, he goes. However, there is much more to it than that. There is everything that leads to a person’s death and there is the aftermath. In her article “Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder,” Beth Loffreda talks about the outcome of a gay young man named Matt Shepard being murdered, and how he became lost in the wake of the movement that followed. Similarly, Jon Krakauer retraces the story of a young man named Chris McCandless who died in the Alaskan wilderness in his piece “Into the Wild.” The death of a person can become gradually more complex based on if it was natural, accidental or murder, if it was sudden, or slow, or if it was intentional. These are things that are easy to tell people, but make a big difference in the story. When writing or reading about a person’s death there are certain limits one comes across where it becomes very complicated to get the right story across. There is a great deal of limitation in writing about a person’s death because it is challenging to get all the correct details. Communicating the story of someone’s death can be complicated because many people lack the experiences to understand the events one goes through before dying and the true story often gets obscured by a shroud of drivel. The problem in assembling all of the facts and details regarding someone’s death lies in the fact that the only person who truly knows all of them is the person who died. The person who died had the best perspective and knew everything that was going on. No one else knows the pain the deceased was experiencing or what was going through his head. Many questions can arise pertaining to how the person ended up in the situation which led to his death. In Matt Shepard’s case, one might question
Professor Boemo
Expository Writing 101: LP
December 2, 2008
The Complexity of Simply Dying
At first glance, the concept of death seems simple; one tries to live as long as possible, and when the time comes, he goes. However, there is much more to it than that. There is everything that leads to a person’s death and there is the aftermath. In her article “Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder,” Beth Loffreda talks about the outcome of a gay young man named Matt Shepard being murdered, and how he became lost in the wake of the movement that followed. Similarly, Jon Krakauer retraces the story of a young man named Chris McCandless who died in the Alaskan wilderness in his piece “Into the Wild.” The death of a person can become gradually more complex based on if it was natural, accidental or murder, if it was sudden, or slow, or if it was intentional. These are things that are easy to tell people, but make a big difference in the story. When writing or reading about a person’s death there are certain limits one comes across where it becomes very complicated to get the right story across. There is a great deal of limitation in writing about a person’s death because it is challenging to get all the correct details. Communicating the story of someone’s death can be complicated because many people lack the experiences to understand the events one goes through before dying and the true story often gets obscured by a shroud of drivel. The problem in assembling all of the facts and details regarding someone’s death lies in the fact that the only person who truly knows all of them is the person who died. The person who died had the best perspective and knew everything that was going on. No one else knows the pain the deceased was experiencing or what was going through his head. Many questions can arise pertaining to how the person ended up in the situation which led to his death. In Matt Shepard’s case, one might question
Cited: Krakauer, Jon. “Into the Wild” The New Humanities Reader. Third ed. Eds. Miller, Richard E., and Kurt Spellmeyer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2009. 343-366 Loffreda, Beth. “Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder” The New Humanities Reader. Third ed. Eds. Miller, Richard E., and Kurt Spellmeyer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2009. 368-391