Student Kappa
English 1A
Mr. Wu
2015
Norman Mailer’s journalistic piece, the “Presidential Papers” focuses around a fight for the welterweight championship, where the fighters are Emile Griffith and benny Paret. This story is written through first person experience, where the narrator could be mailer himself or an unknown character in the story. In this essay, I will be focusing on the factors that led to Griffith’s anger.
Griffith and Paret are set to fight for the welterweight championship when rumors are spread around, talking of Griffith’s ‘manhood’. While it does not specify the origin of these rumors, it is clear that people believe them. Paret seems to think they have importance and we know this because he explains to his friend that fighters have to “look and talk a certain way.” (3). By looking, talking and acting, he meant that Griffith talked, looked and acted differently to a man. Through Paret’s standards, if Griffith could not relate physically or mentally to a man then he may be more feminine, meaning that people may have been questioning his gender. Griffith’s appearance may be like Paret’s, but Paret does not see it this way because he enjoys the rumors. It is important that we know how Paret feels about these rumors because he could have a connection to them, whether he started them or passed them around.
However, it may also mean that people were questioning his gender preference because there was a gossip columnist who published an article about Griffith, making his girlfriend believe she was wrong about him and prompting her to face him and say she, “Didn’t know about [him] being that way.” (5) The narrator didn’t believe the rumors and this prompted him to defend Griffith. But maybe he did believe them as he told us that Griffith hit his girlfriend, “So he says.” (5). This tells us that the narrator was on the fence about what to believe.
Paret was insulting Griffith’s manhood because he thought he was going to lose him. He had made comments about Griffith to his friends and, during the weigh-in of the morning they were going to fight, “Paret had insulted Griffith irrevocably, touching him on the buttocks, while making a few more remarks about his manhood.” (7-8). Usually, fighters annoy each other before competitions to ‘throw them off their game’; meaning that your behavior will make them lose focus and it will be notable during their performance. Paret believed that he would win if he did this. However, the need to do this would be questionable, seeing as Paret was “a proud club fighter who had become welterweight champion because of his unusual ability to take a punch.” (13-14). While Griffith did not even hold a title. For Paret to go through the trouble of bothering his competition meant that he was already thinking something would go wrong and he would lose. The rumor about Griffith’s manhood was a good one to make because, back in the sixties, it was not common to know a lot of homosexuals. This was because homosexuals were seen as being very feminine and men wanted to be seen exactly as they were: men. Calling Griffith out about his manhood would surely raise heads.
And yet, offending Griffith did not throw him off his game, quite the opposite: it fuelled his rage. The day of the competition, “the rage in Emile was extreme.” (9). Griffith fought exceedingly well as the narrator had “never seen a fight quite like it.” (9). We can assume that rage is useful to fighters because it helped Griffith. Because the narrator took the time to explain Paret’s fighting background, we can assume he has attended various fights and so we know that there must have been few memorable fights such as this one.
During the fight, Griffith leads with punches and is rarely the one losing. On the other hand, Paret is being punched, showing his weak side, and is even caught in the ropes, where Griffith creeps up to him “like a cat ready to rip the life out of a boxed rat.” (26). And hit him eighteen times in a row at super speed. In this metaphor, Griffith is the cat while Paret is the rat. This may not have been pure talent, but rather pent-up anger. Anger from the rumors and the whispers and the insults.
“Griffith was uncontrollable.” (34) The narrator recalls about the event as the eighteen-punches were brought to a half by the referee, Griffiths trainer, manager and his cut man. If four grown men had to help stop him, what could have angered him so much that his actions were ‘uncontrollable’? Paret. He wasn’t fuelling his anger into the fight; he was fuelling his anger into Paret. If he wasn’t stopped, he would’ve “jumped Paret to the floor and whaled on him there.” (36-37).
In the end, Griffith’s anger took Paret’s life. As he took his last breath, he smiled, and the narrator felt that his smile explained, “I didn’t know I was going to die just yet.” (41). This shows that Paret’s plan had failed, and that he thought his rumors and taunts would get his championship title. Instead, however, he died. The narrator says that all that were seated close to the ring could “feel his death” and that it “reached out to us.” (39)
As the narrator describes the fall of the fighter, he compares it to a “large ship which turns on end.” (44). What ship went down on end into its grave? The titanic. The titanic took the lives of thousands, which is what the narrator is saying about Paret: he fell and took the audience with him.
In summary, this short story looks into how rumors, fights and opinions each compliment the other in order to fuel Griffith’s anger. This was done well as rumors helped start the fight, fights enticed it and opinions summarized it.
English 1A
Mr. Wu
2015
Norman Mailer’s journalistic piece, the “Presidential Papers” focuses around a fight for the welterweight championship, where the fighters are Emile Griffith and benny Paret. This story is written through first person experience, where the narrator could be mailer himself or an unknown character in the story. In this essay, I will be focusing on the factors that led to Griffith’s anger.
Griffith and Paret are set to fight for the welterweight championship when rumors are spread around, talking of Griffith’s ‘manhood’. While it does not specify the origin of these rumors, it is clear that people believe them. Paret seems to think they have importance and we know this because he explains to his friend that fighters have to “look and talk a certain way.” (3). By looking, talking and acting, he meant that Griffith talked, looked and acted differently to a man. Through Paret’s standards, if Griffith could not relate physically or mentally to a man then he may be more feminine, meaning that people may have been questioning his gender. Griffith’s appearance may be like Paret’s, but Paret does not see it this way because he enjoys the rumors. It is important that we know how Paret feels about these rumors because he could have a connection to them, whether he started them or passed them around.
However, it may also mean that people were questioning his gender preference because there was a gossip columnist who published an article about Griffith, making his girlfriend believe she was wrong about him and prompting her to face him and say she, “Didn’t know about [him] being that way.” (5) The narrator didn’t believe the rumors and this prompted him to defend Griffith. But maybe he did believe them as he told us that Griffith hit his girlfriend, “So he says.” (5). This tells us that the narrator was on the fence about what to believe.
Paret was insulting Griffith’s manhood because he thought he was going to lose him. He had made comments about Griffith to his friends and, during the weigh-in of the morning they were going to fight, “Paret had insulted Griffith irrevocably, touching him on the buttocks, while making a few more remarks about his manhood.” (7-8). Usually, fighters annoy each other before competitions to ‘throw them off their game’; meaning that your behavior will make them lose focus and it will be notable during their performance. Paret believed that he would win if he did this. However, the need to do this would be questionable, seeing as Paret was “a proud club fighter who had become welterweight champion because of his unusual ability to take a punch.” (13-14). While Griffith did not even hold a title. For Paret to go through the trouble of bothering his competition meant that he was already thinking something would go wrong and he would lose. The rumor about Griffith’s manhood was a good one to make because, back in the sixties, it was not common to know a lot of homosexuals. This was because homosexuals were seen as being very feminine and men wanted to be seen exactly as they were: men. Calling Griffith out about his manhood would surely raise heads.
And yet, offending Griffith did not throw him off his game, quite the opposite: it fuelled his rage. The day of the competition, “the rage in Emile was extreme.” (9). Griffith fought exceedingly well as the narrator had “never seen a fight quite like it.” (9). We can assume that rage is useful to fighters because it helped Griffith. Because the narrator took the time to explain Paret’s fighting background, we can assume he has attended various fights and so we know that there must have been few memorable fights such as this one.
During the fight, Griffith leads with punches and is rarely the one losing. On the other hand, Paret is being punched, showing his weak side, and is even caught in the ropes, where Griffith creeps up to him “like a cat ready to rip the life out of a boxed rat.” (26). And hit him eighteen times in a row at super speed. In this metaphor, Griffith is the cat while Paret is the rat. This may not have been pure talent, but rather pent-up anger. Anger from the rumors and the whispers and the insults.
“Griffith was uncontrollable.” (34) The narrator recalls about the event as the eighteen-punches were brought to a half by the referee, Griffiths trainer, manager and his cut man. If four grown men had to help stop him, what could have angered him so much that his actions were ‘uncontrollable’? Paret. He wasn’t fuelling his anger into the fight; he was fuelling his anger into Paret. If he wasn’t stopped, he would’ve “jumped Paret to the floor and whaled on him there.” (36-37).
In the end, Griffith’s anger took Paret’s life. As he took his last breath, he smiled, and the narrator felt that his smile explained, “I didn’t know I was going to die just yet.” (41). This shows that Paret’s plan had failed, and that he thought his rumors and taunts would get his championship title. Instead, however, he died. The narrator says that all that were seated close to the ring could “feel his death” and that it “reached out to us.” (39)
As the narrator describes the fall of the fighter, he compares it to a “large ship which turns on end.” (44). What ship went down on end into its grave? The titanic. The titanic took the lives of thousands, which is what the narrator is saying about Paret: he fell and took the audience with him.
In summary, this short story looks into how rumors, fights and opinions each compliment the other in order to fuel Griffith’s anger. This was done well as rumors helped start the fight, fights enticed it and opinions summarized it.