Project

When Intuition Fails

It’s Friday evening, and you’re watching that show that you and your spouse have been meaning to get to for weeks. And tonight you found yourselves with full stomachs, drying hands, and a clean kitchen by 9 pm, so you decide to watch this show. And right in the middle, your spouse gets up and rushes to the bathroom, queasy and groaning in discomfort. You, an anxious suburbanite, half-yell from the bed, “Honey, do you want me to pick you up some Pepto-Bismol from the Walgreen’s?” You hear a half-yes, and you don your coat and drive your hybrid three miles to the Walgreen’s; you buy the medicine, you drive back home, and you and your spouse squeeze under the sheets for a pleasant night’s sleep.

And here’s where intuition fails. Where’s the sin? It’s not the Pepto, although bismuth is funky stuff; it’s not the Walgreen’s, though big business oft overgrows; and it’s not that you’re watching TV and enjoy a meal on Friday night instead of helping the homeless or something, opportunity cost, if you will. The problem is the driving. David Owen’s Green Metropolis argues this claim with expert, often undermentioned data. Perhaps his best point lies in the exposition of the paradox of modern environmentalism: he affirms that in order to feel most eco-friendly and at-one with nature, “we get in cars and drive long distances,” which, perhaps obviously, is “extremely disruptive and very, very wasteful” (20). Another source, Veldkamp’s “Modelling land use change and environmental impact,” reaffirms this notion. They predict that as land use grows and spreads to less populated areas, “transportation by automobile will increase for >85% of individual adults relocating from urban centers” (Veldkamp). We seek environmentalism, and we find destruction. Owen outlines something he calls, “the Jevons Paradox,” a phenomenon wherein which a man in 1865, William Stanley Jevons, manufactured a train that needed less coal to run, and as a result, coal consumption rose (65). Owen connects this with the state of hybrid cars today; though hybrids improve emission production as compared to bigger cars, “driving a gas-electric hybrid is more environmentally benign than driving a Hummer,” they do not solve the problem by any means because they consume energy, no matter how clean (30). And that’s half of the crux of the problem, we use too much energy.

The other half is bases itself in the fact that the least triggersome part of the initial scenario was the driving, even though a six mile drive on a car with average gas mileage would require two full Coca-Cola cans of refined fuel. It’s all about image. Few see the cans of gasoline igniting and releasing burgeoning plumes into the air; they see their car, and they’re happy that it’s working. Few view the suburbs, where the far distances require driving, as the hot zones for environmental destruction that they are. Owen lauds New York City as the lowest energy consumer, “per capita in the United States of America today because driving is both scarce and unnecessary,” though, “Most Americans, including most New Yorkers, think of New York City as an ecological nightmare” (11, 9). But it’s not. In fact, the explosion of the suburbs in the 1960’s correlates strongly with a sharp upturn in fossil fuel consumption (115). Because people now had to drive. However, some affirm that suburbs and rural areas have better atmospheric domes than cities, “Paris finds higher concentrations of toxic, both cyto- and eco-, smog than the surroundings” (Dupont). But again, this logic is flawed — Paris serves many more citizens, though is may look and be a higher energy consumer.

But this preference for image over science extends. One man tried to create a plan for a utopia called Broadacre City, wherein he drew up plans for highways that would “keep traffic moving in all directions without interruption” (70). Atlanta followed suit, and they developed HOV lanes, high occupancy vehicles, that were designed to incentivize carpooling, which obviously reduces carbon emissions. Owen makes the argument that HOV lanes are not the answer, “The HOV system is a good example of a bad idea,” because they do not reward those who carpool and punish those who don’t, “the only way to make an HOV system green … to maintain both a steady reward for carpooling and a continuing source of irritation for those who resist” (88). But instead, HOV lanes reduce traffic in normal lanes and don’t encourage carpooling because there’s often one lane, wherein it’s impossible to pass. But in efforts to reduce traffic and maintain an appearance of environmental concern, many cities are starting to implement HOV lanes, including ones in Australia, aiming to better commutes and ease daily stress (Newton). The dilemma of environmentalism almost trumps the solutions themselves because no one will look for solutions if they believe them already found.

Image cannot beat truth, in the case of the environment; we have too much to lose for suburbanites, myself included, continue to buy their own appliances, heat their own homes, and drive their own cars to work, far. New York City is by no means the pinnacle of environmentalism, and there are many things that can be improved upon in the coming years. But the crucial point is to examine efforts from a standpoint of reduction of driving, increase of public transit and communal living spaces, as these both diminish energy and financial expenditure, and an overall cutback in energy use, not just dirty energy use. Living rural is not the answer if it means many extra hours of added driving, and living rural without that driving makes life quite insular. Don’t waste time with geothermal pumps and solar panels, instead, rent an apartment in Manhattan. Enjoy the plethora of culture because it’s New York, and sleep soundly because you’re doing your part.

A Trio of 5-7-1+1+3ios

High, brick smoke stacks hit

sky, bruises and pommels clouds

with burgeoning plume.

Things, products abound

Times Square, beacon of money,

spits smog into sky.

It will take much grit.

Changing lifestyles, change pushes

Buttons. T’will take grit. 

Apathy

Apathy sits at home in her basement, eating Lays potato chips and watching the same episode of The Simpsons every Friday night. It’s not like she doesn’t work; in fact, apathy refuses to even come close to Laziness. She’s afraid some will rub off on her, that she’ll be guilty by association. She goes to work at the insurance company from nine to five, and she comes home. TV dinners and bubble baths are on the menu at least four nights a week. Apathy has never volunteered for the charity across the street, even though the owner, Generosity, has canvassed her house personally many times. She has her own schedule, and it doesn’t waiver.

Her best friend is Denial, and they often have wine parties where they just get together to drink cheap, bagged wine. Denial comes over, and she lauds the wine, like it’s a 1948 Bordeaux. Apathy just kind of smiles and nods, but she knows it’s quite the opposite. They sit in the living room, and they watch old films — Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Philadelphia Story. It’s always a quiet night, and Denial always wants to stay a little too long. By the time Apathy kicks her out, it’s usually past midnight. She showers and goes to bed, prepping for a long day of magazine reading and coupon clipping.

Apathy is not a bad person, but she’s not a good one either. She won’t change anything in her life, much less the world. It’s all about her: what she likes, what she feels comfortable with. It really comes down to her not caring, never taking the time to look someone in the eye and see life — or try to — from their view. If it’s not here, now, and directly affecting her, it might as well be the Boogey Man because she’s going to write it off as illegitimate. But never aloud, no. No, she drives past a smoke stack everyday, and it’s always topped with a burgeoning plume. She presumes there’s a fire inside, but it’s daily. “That can’t be good for the environment.” But she just switches the station and keeps driving away.

The Energy Citizen

An Interview

The City	Not
I don’t give the environment much thought.
	I’m a huge environmentalist.
	I have 3 compost bins, and we just got solar panels installed. It was expensive, but it’s important to me.
I mostly just	I mostly just
go	drive
to work and	to work and
walk home.	drive home.
I use the laundry machine in downstairs.
I have a small place — 300 square feet. Barely enough room for 5 outlets.
I don’t even mind not having a car.
	We’ve been driving the Prius since it came out.
You get used to it.	You get used to it.
	Oh, to having to make sacrifices.
To the subway. It’s dirty, but it works.  (Pause)	(Pause after done)
I don’t understand. (Another pause — listening).	I don’t understand. (Another pause — listening).
	I want to be green as much as possible, but I still have to go to work and pick up the kids and take them to soccer. What do you mean driving is the problem? I can’t not drive!
I never knew that. I guess it makes sense, seeing that I don’t drive anywhere or have a ton of shit I don’t need.
	Well, we have a geothermal pump coming in next week. Should I just cancel the order? Is that what you’re telling me? That it doesn’t matter for shit. Hm?
It’s counterintuitive for sure. I mean, look around. It’s all concrete and smog and burgeoning plumes of smoke, you’d think that’s a eco-no-no.
	You’d think I’d been a better energy citizen. I did everything they said, anyhow.
I guess it’s just because I	I guess it’s just because I
don’t
drive.	drive.

Overload

Across the prairie, sun-stained flowers bloom

Slurping water from the tired soil.

Admiring the view, gas floored, we zoom.

Hot; as the stable gas levels balloon

To consume, control, they work and toil:

Across the prairie, sun-stained flowers bloom.

We speed past them, to a contracting womb

As new life comes, the family stands — loyal.

Admiring the view, gas floored, we zoom.

Pink petals, green blades decorate the room

Roofed by egg yolk sun and clouded coils

Across the prairie, sun-stained flowers bloom

Birth is a celebration, we presume

But soon us humans might it spoil.

Admiring the view, gas floored, we zoom.

Smoke stacks jab sky with a burgeoning plume

Taps will spit water at rolling boil

Across the prairie, sun-stained flowers bloom.

Admiring the view, gas floored, we zoom.

Key, Legend

Dear Reader,

I’m going to be honest here. I’m a fourth quarter senior, and so I chose a book that I’d already read the first chapter of. But I didn’t ever get around to finishing it, so I used this as an excuse to do so. Green Metropolis is a wonderful book, for the most part. I’ll start with the bad news: aside from being extremely guilt-provoking and entirely too polar at points, the book is a unique perspective on green; it’s not what you think it is. And that’s the start of my golden thread, the theme of all of my pieces is there is a paradox between the image of environmentally conscious and the reality. Now, I also knew that perhaps that wasn’t the clearest of threads and I therefore added a repeating phrase into each of the works to signify that the lush, robust picture painted was not on of responsibility but rather, harm.

My process was backward. I knew what I wanted to do for my creative pieces before I knew what I wanted to do for my essay. That’s often my tendency — to first express myself in a creative way, and if that doesn’t work or do the argument justice, I turn to logic and exposition. This project may reflect that; I feel most comfortable working within structure, like a villanelle or a haiku. The pieces that are unstructured, but still must go somewhere finite and decided, are tough for me. Anyhow, the villanelle is, I think, my strongest piece. I use the structure to amplify my meaning, anaphora, parallelism, chiasmus, all that jazz, but I don’t think I’m quite innovative enough to come up with a structure that would function to a similar success alone. The villanelle should hit from two sides strongest, that’s what makes it dynamic and powerful. The essay may be a bit one-sided, and the rest of the works are either two sided but not as effectively or one sided completely. That is certainly something that I could improve in this journey — complicating the point of view better and more. That’s essentially what your class is about, complication and looking at things from as many angles as possible. I fear I may have slipped into bad habits here, but I know for certain there is good thinking and complication, too.

Enjoy the ride!

Jordan RK

Works Cited

Dupont, E. "Comparison between the Atmospheric Boundary Layer in Paris and Its Rural Suburbs during the ECLAP Experiment."Atmospheric Environment 33.6 (1999): 979-94. Web.

Newton, Peter W. "Beyond the Greenfield and Brownfield."Ingentaconnect. Alexandrine Press, 30 Mar. 2010. Web. 14 May 2015.

Veldkamp, Tom A., and P. H. Verburg. "Modelling Land Use and Environmental Impact." Journal of Environmental Management(2004): n. pag. Science Direct. 17 June 2004. Web. 16 May 2015.

2nd Blog Post For Final Project

So I'm reading this article from the New York Times on Green Metropolis, and one of the things that occurred to me was that my family is the nearly the epitome of the energy-consuming, "green" family. We compost, we recycle, and we try and conserve energy wherever possible, but we drive to work, school, shops, all around. We have tons of appliances, and no matter how clean the energy, we're still wasting it. I could do like a meta-analysis of my household's energy consumption, and I could come to some sort of conclusion about how we could improve our energy-citizenship.

The real problem with the public view of energy is that its just wrong. Aside from the total ignorance of people who deny climate change, those who believe they are helping the environment often aren't. For example, compost is a good thing for reintroducing nitrogen and phosphorous into the soil. It takes organic matter out of landfills and puts it back into the ground. It's nature's way of recycling. However, compost generates carbon dioxide. Therefore, composting should only occur for spoiled food. Otherwise, the costs outweigh the benefits. Similarly, recycling instead of reusing has greater costs than it does benefits because there's an energy intensive process in converting that material back into usable product. Here's the gist: there are two problems with our energy usage. One is that we depend on fuels that have finite amounts -- at least in the foreseeable future. The other is that the current method of energy consumption almost universally produce carbon dioxide, a very stable gas that absorbs infrared heat. This is what heats our atmosphere to excess. But the latter problem is one less tackled because it requires a change in our current methods of living: people cannot live in suburbs with offices and shopping malls that are all miles away. The more compact lifestyle is the more eco-responsible.

Q4 In-process Post #1

This is my getting-started post. I am getting started with this fairly labor-intensive project (Ms. Oberman's class is writing letters that are turned in sealed), and I'm going to use this opportunity to pick up a book that I've been wanted to read for a while now, Green Metropolis. This book is about a man who studies the sustainability and energy consumption patterns of different types of living spaces: cities, suburbs, rural areas, etc. Because this topic bases itself in pretty scientific material, it's going to be interdisciplinary, which is so in right now. I think it'll end up writing a lot of poems, really as many poems as I possibly can because I like poetry. I'm much more a fan, in general, of the short and concentrated and powerful in the face of the lengthy, the laborious, the stretched. So that's one reason that I love poetry! (No villanelles, though).

Anyhow, this book feels almost like a utopian novel, The Giver  or 1984, which are dystopian -- so in right now. These types of books outline different types of worlds: the urban and the rural and their respective strengths and drawbacks. In an urban setting, things feel much more polluted and energy-intensive because many processes are taking place in a small area. However, New York City has the lowest energy consumption per capita of any area of similar size in the United States. This book gives me hope that I'll be able to live in a city, which is a view I have for myself of my later years, and not ruin the environment in the meantime.

There's a possibility that I make some sort of pictographic for this presentation as well because I do think that it would add to the comprehension of the topic. Much of these data, I think, are representative of trends and figures that, when portrayed visually, are even more striking. I also have to write the commencement speech for graduation which is the more important task (as opposed to this project), so I will be devoting a significant portion of my English energies to that. I hope that there might even be some intersection between that endeavor and this; the WWF recognized Evanston as one of the greenest, most habitable cities across the globe (we rock). Evanston, it feels, is a happy medium of the city's environmental efficiency and the beauty of the countryside. In Wyoming or Idaho or West Virginia, you're surrounded by trees and country roads and almost no other cars or neighbors. That can make the surroundings feel ecofriendly, but when you have to drive 20 miles to the bookstore, that negates some of the "living-in/with-nature" sentiment. I'm excited to see how my city fits in the context of this research upon which I am to embark!

Final Chosen Post

Silence teaches compassion. Danny is raised in total silence. Except for the study of Talmud, Reb Saunders does not address Danny, unless he explodes at him during a mealtime. For the majority of the book, Reuven detests Reb Saunders' silence, and his father does not understand it well enough as a method of raising a child to explain it to his son. When Reuven's father goes into the hospital, there is a silence in Reuven's house, now (See Chosen #3 for details on close reading). However, the outcome of this scenario is the Reuven gives a long lecture to his Talmud class, and his teacher reveals to him that he is living in an ideological lie: he believes in certain liberal, rebellious ways to interpret the Talmud, but the institution for which he works does not allow such practices, "you must not use this method in my class" (253). As a result of this silence, Reuven learns about a dark side that his teacher has. Reb Saunders wants his son to become a tzadik (a righteous man), and so he raises him in silence, "'That man is such an ignoramus, Father.' I was angry. 'Look into your soul and see the world through his eyes ... In the silence between us, he began to hear the world crying'" (286). Though this is stated explicitly, it is so profoundly against the reader's beliefs about how a father should raise his son, that is seems totally out of context, the exact opposite of what Potok is trying to say. However, in the end, David Malter asks him, "'Danny,' he said softly, 'when you have a son of your own, will you raise him in silence?' ... 'Yes,' he said. 'If I can't find another way," and so the reader sees that Danny himself, who used to constantly complain and underwent great agony as a result of his father's silence, proscribes a potential similar treatment his own son (290). Further, Mr. Malter, Reuven's father, is a good listener, but he does not raise his child in silence. In fact, he oft condemns Reb Saunders. And thus, the theme of silence teaching compassion and Potok's viewpoint on it are not clear.

There's an interesting contrast, as well, between sight and hearing, both of which are motifs. Reuven almost loses his sight in one eye, Billy is blind, and Danny and Reuven communicate with their eyes when they cannot speak. Danny and Reuven both experience silent households at some point, as well.  It's interesting--most people say that eyes are the window into the soul, but it appears that Potok advocates for silence being that window. However, the eyes are not to disregarded; they carry immense meaning (see Chosen #2 for details galore). Perhaps there is some reconciliation between the eyes and the ears, some contrast and connection. But I have not yet uncovered this connection. But this speaks to my diligence as a close reader; I'm not going to pull something from outside the text to explain something I don't understand. Instead, I would have to reread this book to garner its full meaning and find a plausible connection between the merits and intricacies between sight and sound.

Lastly, I would highly recommend this book. A friend told me it changed her life, and she's not even Jewish (if you read this, you'll see what kind of determination she must have had to decode all the Jewish terminology). I like to think of sentences are molecules. Potok's sentences are good, but the interactions between sentences are stellar (like water, which is a mundane molecule with extraordinary intermolecular behavior). There is a flow to his work that made the single-spaced pages feel much too short. The boys, Danny and Reuven, have a friendship that almost mimics Moses and the son of Pharaoh's, and that intertextuality is very neat to explore. Further, the book concentrates itself in a very happening historical period, and as such, all the actions are surrounded by true events (what would O'Brien say? Yikes...). Anyhow, the events are educational about the founding of the Jewish state and the Holocaust, but they also provide a somewhat symbolic, very much captivating setting for the story. Also, the symbolism and the Foster-isms abound, and they are so expertly woven into the book. Though they're not hard to find, they're hard to explain which makes this a great choice for anyone who likes a low-preparation book that yields a robust discussion. It's also intensely emotional. I cried at the end of the book, and I have no shame about that. I was practically helpless, it was written so well. It's a must-read.

Chosen #3

Francine Prose describes her reading experience as, "pondering each deceptively minor decision the writer had made," and this philosophy has really come alive with me in The Chosen by Chaim Potok (3). In the book, I started to examine every word and idea as if it had to "stand on trial for its life," to, again, quote Prose. In the beginning, there was nothing, just a blank page. And every single word that made its way onto the page had to pass a "purpose" test. When the purpose of the word isn't blatantly obvious, to advance the plot or contribute to a character, then it begs to be examined. When Reuven's dad leaves the house because of his second heart attack, I noticed "the total silence in the apartment was impossible for me to take" (243). Just as Danny Saunders had been raised in silence, Reuven was now experiencing it, and it was hard for him to swallow. But what's interesting is that Reuven's capacity in his school work improves, especially in Talmud class, to a level of Danny's ability. "It is a joy to listen to you," Rev Gershenson tells Reuven after a four day explanation of a difficult text (253). The syllogism seems to be: quiet house, extraordinary Talmud student. Though a small detail, it roped me into a much bigger picture, one full of alternate meanings for silence and the effect it has on the mind.

Vladimir Nabokov speaks to a much different facet of reading: our emotional devotion to the characters. He advices, "We ought to remain a little aloof" (3). At the end of the book, it was quite hard for me to stay aloof. "I went over to him and put my hand on his shoulder and felt him trembling and crying," that's not an easy sentence to remain aloof to, especially considering the history that Danny and Reuven share (288). From the beginning of the book, they are enemies, and in the end, they love each other. However, I stopped when I got to this part. I started to identify with one of the characters, but I stopped myself short. I actually said to myself, "Jordan, Nabokov would not approve." And I continued reading from that quoted sentence forward, not feeling much of a resemblance between myself and Reuven and Danny. Also, I remained aloof at the beginning, when Danny admits to wanting to "open your head with my bat" (67). Though his passage initially made me quite angry -- after all, Danny had come to apologize, no? -- but I controlled myself. And look at where it took me. In the end of the book, Danny and Reuven have perhaps the most relatable, sweetest, most genuine, and best intentioned friendship I have ever seen.

The Chosen #2

The Chosen by Chaim Potok incorporates no literary symbols better than sickness and eyes. Nearly everyone, at some point, gets sick.  His father looks ill when he comes to check on Reuven in the hospital, "'I hate that Danny Saunders for this. He's making you sick,'" and David Malter takes on two more instances of illness, once when he hears about Roosevelt's death, "his face ashen, his cheeks hollow, looking as he did when he visited me in the hospital," and he later gets a heart attack, "two days later, he suffered a heart attack" (49, 187, 192). This heart attack is peculiar -- it comes not two weeks after the news of the death toll from the Holocaust. It's interesting, David Malter has a heart attack, and Reb Saunders "would suddenly begin to cry," which gets back at the contrast between sickness and the heart and the eyes (193). Danny Saunders gets the flu, "Danny caught the flu in the last week of March and was in bed for more than a week," and he later contracts bronchitis, "Danny returned to school in the first week of April, apparently too soon, for he was back in bed two days later with bronchitis" (185, 185). His mom has a "heart condition," but she seems sweet enough and unimportant enough that I have no conclusions to draw (193). Danny's brother is also an invalid, and they discuss his sickness briefly, as well, "I was really concerned about his health," and he is often portrayed playing with food instead of eating it (201). In fact, the characters that Reuven gets to know while he's in the hospital, Mr. Savo and Billy are also sick. In the beginning of the book, Reuven is in the hospital as he recovers from the injury to his eye, caused by the shattered glass of his glasses that got lodged up there. Dr. Syndman lectures him that "'An eye is not thing to stop a ball with, young man'" (36). All of the sickness, at least according to Foster, shows an emotional heartache, but since humans think of physical sickness as worse than emotional plight, it yields a stronger sense of sympathy from the reader. However, that example with Danny's eye segues nicely into the other portrayed symbol: eyes. Blindness, in particular, is almost omnipresent. Reuven's incident with the baseball almost leads to scar tissue covering his eye, "'the scar tissue can grow over the pupil," but it doesn't, "I was fine, it had healed perfectly" (48, 171). his neighbor in the hospital, Billy, is blind, "I heard the blind boy ask me, and I turned to look at him"  (43). There are references to blinking, eyes, tears, and blindness layered throughout the book: "blinked," "the eye's out," "I opened my eyes," "Both Danny's and Billy's eyes are blue. But one set of eyes is blind," "the eyes dark, with pinpoints of white light playing in them," "They all seemed to be staring at Danny," "'Crazy world. Cockeyed,'" "was almost in tears," "he blinked again," "'His eyes are just plain bad, that's all.' 'Your eyes look bloodshot'"  (48, 91, 152, 114, 125, 135, 173, 185, 191, 200). They say eyes are windows in the soul, so let's see if that fits. Reuven was almost blinded by his hatred after the accident, but he forgave Danny so he can see. Danny's little brother is an invalid, and so his eyes don't work, period. Mr. Savo, who seems to have extensive knowledge about the world, describes the world as cockeyed. As Danny learns more and more disturbing topics, Freud, his eyes become more bloodshot. Reb Saunders' eyes are black with a dot of white; he is an austere man, but he has a pure core. I think that this analogy works. Potok foreshadows a character's traits via their eyes, and this gives the reader quite a visceral understanding of the characters about whom he reads. In fact, I think this subconscious understanding is stronger than anything blatant Potok could have stated about the character. "Show, don't tell."

The Chosen #1

The Chosen by Chaim Potok examines an accident that occurs when Reuven Malter is playing baseball against a boy named Danny Saunders. Reuven is pitching, and he throws two curve balls which fool Danny who becomes more and more heated. Finally, Danny smashes a fastball right into Reuven's glasses; the glasses break, and a shard of glass gets wedged in Reuven's eye. At the hospital, Mrs. Carpenter places him in a bed between a blind boy, Billy, and an ex-prizefighter, Mr. Savo. These two characters mimic the archetypical devil and angel that flank characters' shoulders, influencing them toward both good and bad. Mr. Savo gets in trouble for playing catch with a younger patron, "He tossed it lightly back to the boy ... 'Mr. Savo, you are simply impossible,'" and he  overuses the word "clopping," saying things like "It's D-Day, Bobby boy. We're clopping them good," or "A clop in the head is a rough business. I went four once and got clopped in head," for example.  (58, 55, 39). These references to mischief and violence augment the argument that he represents the Yetzer Ha'Ra (a Jewish term for the darker, sinful part of a human). In complete contrast, the blind boy on Reuven's left, Billy, embodies the Yetzer Ha'Tov (the good part of human's dualistic nature). Thomas Foster's How to Read Literature like a Professor teaches that blindness usually stands for a kind of emotional, social, or otherwise unawareness. One possible interpretation of this is ignorance of the sin and wrongdoing in the world, and as such, Billy represents an innocent, purely good child. His physicality corroborates this: "He had light blond hair and a fine face, a beautiful face" (40). He thinks that at fifteen, Reuven is a grown-up, "'Robert's a grown-up name, isn't it? How old are you?' 'Fifteen.' 'That's grown up.'" (44). This incorrect evaluation of Reuven's maturity shows his naivety. Perhaps it's not that Mr. Savo is bad and Billy is good; rather, Mr. Savo represents the body and being grounded while Billy manifests a more spiritual, lofty aspect of human nature. But dichotomy does not stop with Mr. Savo and Billy. The most notable source of the duality of disposition comes from Danny Saunders, the injurer. Though he "aimed at me [Reuven] deliberately," Reuven is "surprised at how happy I was to see him [Danny Saunders]" when he comes to the hospital ward to visit (49, 66). It appears that Saunders has double intentions: hurt Reuven and invest time in his recovery. Or perhaps this is simply a change of heart as a result of a regretfulness that falls over Danny. This could be the start of trail to one of Potok's themes. I am not entirely sure what theme it could be leading to, nor am I sure of how to detect a theme, but the trends beg to be noticed.