Student Alpha
English A Literature
Mr. Wu
11Z
PAPER 1
Through the eyes of Norman Mailer, the fight between Benny Paret and Emile Griffith was perceived as a fight between a hero and a villain, reminiscent of an epic battle. The masculine boxing match is juxtaposed with Mailer’s feminine writing style.
Boxing is the epitome of masculinity, as Paret had said to Hamill, “A fighter’s got to look and talk and act like a man.” Masculinity is stereotypically defined as being more dominant and muscular. A masculine man would archetypally look strong, talk with arrogance and act as animals. In boxing, there are but a few rules to follow, but only their fists and grit that lead to victories. With these rules, it is only the ‘masculine’ that succeeds. A simple punch, and a ring of a bell settle the fate of the fighters. In this case, however, settled with Paret’s life.
Paret, the Cuban fighter, written to be the underdog of the fight, had his life taken away. For merely teasing Griffith, “touching him on the buttocks, while making a few more remarks about his manhood”, Paret died. The conceptual ideas of boxing has seem to have distorted society’s take on the sport as the “Broadway gossip columnists had run an item about Griffith” and his manhood. The fight was not just about winning for Paret and Griffith, but rather a fight for manhood
The fight began with Paret, the masculine, the hero and the favorite against Griffith, the feminine, the villain and the weaker. Paret was initially known to be able to “take a punch”, but the past two years have not been very bright for Paret as he had “bad mauling’s”. These remarks began the buildup for the fight, the climax of it all. The fight. The fight went on intensely, where “Griffith was in like a sat ready to rip the life out of a huge boxed rat” (26). A simile used to show the violence, and animal-like behavior from Griffith, as men typically act.
The battle inverted, where the villain triumphs. How ironic that it was the one who was supposedly perceived as the stronger and the manlier who was the one to fail. It seems to be that just because one may be more masculine, does not mean that they are the better fighter, as clearly, Paret was unable to handle “the eighteen right hands in a row”(27).
Mailer’s sentence structure forces readers to pace themselves moving through clauses like the speed of the events in the match, this allows Mailer to express the chaos that was experienced at the match. However near the end of the fight, once “Paret died on his feet”, the syntax begins to slow down, by using schemes such as repeating the first phrase in a series of clauses, “he went down more slowly…he went down like a large ship…As he went down…”(44-46). This was down deliberately to allow the reader to experience how surreal the whole situation was when “something happened to everyone who was in psychic range of the event”. Mailer adjusted the pace in order to control the emotion he hoped to portray.
Women stereotypically write with more metaphors and details towards the perceptions and emotions, whereas the men write with more spare prose with the focus more on the plot and the objects rather than the people themselves. Mailer’s diction and style was put in a rather feminine matter to help portray this irony. He often adjusts his syntax to reflect the emotion that he hopes to construct. This is seen through Mailer’s writing as he used a variety of pronouns, and metaphors, and focused on the emotion based point of view on the fight, describing things such as being “hypnotized” and having “something [happen] to everyone who was in psychic range of the event” during the death of Paret. Additionally, Mailer wrote with words such as “buttocks” which is perceived as very feminine and pretentious.
Mailer’s passage leaves readers to mourn for the loss of Paret, through his syntax and diction to help give the readers an emotional impact. Additionally the passage seems to mock the masculinity of the sport, boxing. With the remarks of masculinity, to the touching of buttocks and finally to the masculine opponent losing the match.
English A Literature
Mr. Wu
11Z
PAPER 1
Through the eyes of Norman Mailer, the fight between Benny Paret and Emile Griffith was perceived as a fight between a hero and a villain, reminiscent of an epic battle. The masculine boxing match is juxtaposed with Mailer’s feminine writing style.
Boxing is the epitome of masculinity, as Paret had said to Hamill, “A fighter’s got to look and talk and act like a man.” Masculinity is stereotypically defined as being more dominant and muscular. A masculine man would archetypally look strong, talk with arrogance and act as animals. In boxing, there are but a few rules to follow, but only their fists and grit that lead to victories. With these rules, it is only the ‘masculine’ that succeeds. A simple punch, and a ring of a bell settle the fate of the fighters. In this case, however, settled with Paret’s life.
Paret, the Cuban fighter, written to be the underdog of the fight, had his life taken away. For merely teasing Griffith, “touching him on the buttocks, while making a few more remarks about his manhood”, Paret died. The conceptual ideas of boxing has seem to have distorted society’s take on the sport as the “Broadway gossip columnists had run an item about Griffith” and his manhood. The fight was not just about winning for Paret and Griffith, but rather a fight for manhood
The fight began with Paret, the masculine, the hero and the favorite against Griffith, the feminine, the villain and the weaker. Paret was initially known to be able to “take a punch”, but the past two years have not been very bright for Paret as he had “bad mauling’s”. These remarks began the buildup for the fight, the climax of it all. The fight. The fight went on intensely, where “Griffith was in like a sat ready to rip the life out of a huge boxed rat” (26). A simile used to show the violence, and animal-like behavior from Griffith, as men typically act.
The battle inverted, where the villain triumphs. How ironic that it was the one who was supposedly perceived as the stronger and the manlier who was the one to fail. It seems to be that just because one may be more masculine, does not mean that they are the better fighter, as clearly, Paret was unable to handle “the eighteen right hands in a row”(27).
Mailer’s sentence structure forces readers to pace themselves moving through clauses like the speed of the events in the match, this allows Mailer to express the chaos that was experienced at the match. However near the end of the fight, once “Paret died on his feet”, the syntax begins to slow down, by using schemes such as repeating the first phrase in a series of clauses, “he went down more slowly…he went down like a large ship…As he went down…”(44-46). This was down deliberately to allow the reader to experience how surreal the whole situation was when “something happened to everyone who was in psychic range of the event”. Mailer adjusted the pace in order to control the emotion he hoped to portray.
Women stereotypically write with more metaphors and details towards the perceptions and emotions, whereas the men write with more spare prose with the focus more on the plot and the objects rather than the people themselves. Mailer’s diction and style was put in a rather feminine matter to help portray this irony. He often adjusts his syntax to reflect the emotion that he hopes to construct. This is seen through Mailer’s writing as he used a variety of pronouns, and metaphors, and focused on the emotion based point of view on the fight, describing things such as being “hypnotized” and having “something [happen] to everyone who was in psychic range of the event” during the death of Paret. Additionally, Mailer wrote with words such as “buttocks” which is perceived as very feminine and pretentious.
Mailer’s passage leaves readers to mourn for the loss of Paret, through his syntax and diction to help give the readers an emotional impact. Additionally the passage seems to mock the masculinity of the sport, boxing. With the remarks of masculinity, to the touching of buttocks and finally to the masculine opponent losing the match.