I used to enjoy the city. I was a baron. A master of the universe. I snapped my fingers and industry would grind, and pour, and stamp. I was born there in that world. Either it was designed for me, or I for it. I couldn't say which ones the truth. I loved it. I was making something. It wasn't always an important something, sometimes just the piece of metal that holds something bigger in place.
If the rivet in the floor of a locomotive isn't there, the engineer can still steam along the track as usual. When I came here, I learned that I am a rivet. A small part of a whole, that can continue steaming along without even noticing that I have fallen onto the tracks.
I'm a spent firework, but at least I've been a firework. -David Mitchell
The overall usage of a rivet being a metaphor was interesting. Using short, complicated question in the beginning paragraph sets up nicely for the topic of the rest of the blog. The hyperlink to “23” in the Cloud Atlas soundtrack created a lonely, hopeless vibe that was the overall theme throughout the entire blog post. I enjoyed the stream of consciousness narrative. It was a great way to display exactly how alone the narrator felt and how he or she evolved in the way that they thought about being a “rivet”. The comparison to a rivet on a train track also intrigued me. While the narrator originally thought the rivet was so important to the overall function of the track, they come to realize that a rivet isn’t as imperative as they once thought it was. The last paragraph really summed up the entire theme of being lonely and helpless. The ending quote was perfect too: “I’m a spent firework, but at least I’ve been a firework”. It reflects how being a rivet in society is like being a spent firework: you served your purpose and after that, you’re useless.
ReplyDeleteThe photo was a great addition. It captured the desolate, hopeless vibe throughout the entire blog post. I liked the use of dark colors in the background to give off almost a depressed vibe. I would, however, made the blog post background black to contrast the white type so that the words stood out more. I might have moved the quote by David Mitchell to the beginning so that the reader has some sort of idea about what the post is about. The beginning starts out with some very ambiguous questions so having some sort of focus as to what it’s about makes it easier for the reader to understand.