Just Walk On By: Questions and Response

Comprehension:
1. Staples characterizes the woman he encounters in paragraph 1 as a "victim" of the way she acts. She appears to be worried and moves to cross the street, making it clear that she feels she is a victim and finds him intimidating, even though the author is completely harmless.

2. Staples can alter public space because of his appearance. He writes this from personal experience, has noticed the way people lock their car doors and cross to the opposite side of the street. He knows he can alter just by walking through.

3. He has insomnia, so he walks the streets at night.

4. The "making of a young thug" are those where a young man is seduced by the violence, "by the perception of themselves as tough guys." (Para. 8)  Staples also states that men are supposed to be fighters, to be hostile and have the "fighter's edge" in everything they do.

5. Staples moves with care, gives people more space, and whistles relaxing tunes while he walks places. He pays attention to how closely he is to people, makes it apparent that he is not following them, and is generally very cautious.

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Purpose and Audience:
1. Thesis: It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into- the ability to alter public space in ugly ways.

2. He uses personal examples throughout the essay, and throws in a few direct quotes from essays he's read that relate. His personal examples make it a strong essay because it is from his viewpoint, and he uses so many stories to back up his point that it is difficult to argue against him at all.

3. He assumes that women are always "victim" and that they all would move across the street and show fear. He also assumes everyone is scared of him.

4. He is trying to induce the fear that people feel around him, and uses that as a hook to bring people in. It works because it draws you in: you worry about what he is doing wrong from the beginning.

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Style and Structure:
1. Staples mentions Podhoretz because it shows that he is not the only one with the viewpoint. He uses it for a concrete example to display that others have experienced it as well.

2. The anecdote is a great strategy because most of his examples are personal. Another opening strategy would not do the essay justice.

3. If he had more concrete examples woven into his personal examples, he would make a better argument. More concrete examples would add a more brutally honest side to the essay, and make it more apparent that it is not just his perspective.

4. He uses mostly personal examples with no clear order, weaving the few outside examples he has through his experiences throughout the essay.

5. Thug- Synonyms: criminal, gangster, villain, hoodlum. Thug, to me, describes a poorer person with a lack of character and a need to cause trouble. Those other synonyms are not as strong in showing what Staples means.
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Journal Entry:

Tim: When I first started going to the gym, there were some guys I found intimidating that were using the punching bags, bodies covered in tattoos, that are some of the nicest people I know now.

Devon: I've been in a ton of situations where someone came across threatening, and used to run scared, but now I stand my ground and try to brave through the situation.
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Staples observation concerning the "male romance with the power to intimidate" is accurate. It's seen everywhere you turn, from television to daily life; men are consistently trying to intimidate other men, and to outperform those around them. In his essay he means that this power to intimidate is alluring, and that it took some of the men he grew up around. They became lesser versions of their non-intimidating selves. They became thugs.


-Devon, Tim