As many people know, a college degree can allow people to gain many skills that help set them up for the future. Some of these skills that are essential include social and critical thinking skills. These skills are crucial in obtaining degrees in the humanities and for the fields themselves. However, these skills continue to find value after the degree is obtained within the professional world. For this reason, despite what some may say about the value of perusing a degree in the humanities, there is great social value in pursuing and obtaining a degree in the humanities. As stated by the article from Worklife, “When asked to drill the most job market-ready skills of a humanities graduate down to three, Anders doesn’t hesitate. “Creativity, curiosity and empathy,” he says” (Worklife-Why ‘worthless’ humanities degrees may set you up for life). As one can see from these skills, they are incredibly crucial for many different occupations and for life in general. The article from Worklife further states “the benefit of a humanities degree is the emphasis it puts on teaching students to think, critique and persuade – often in the grey areas where there isn’t much data available or you need to work out what to believe” (Worklife-Why ‘worthless’ humanities degrees may set you up for life). While some may say that pursuing a degree in the humanities is not as fruitful as pursuing a different type of degree, this is not true. Pursuing a degree in the humanities can teach students many different skills regarding critical thinking, social skills and many more, which can not only prove highly beneficial to one’s own personal life but also one’s professional life. These skills taught through the studying of the humanities have many functions in life, as one can infer, and because of this there is high demand in the professional market for those who are adept in these skills. From these skills, one can see that there is great social value in studying the humanities that can both be applied to one’s own life and professional occupation along with the reasons that these skills are in high demand within the marketplace of jobs.

After reading the assigned sections of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Johnathan Culler’s Literary Theory, and the Dracula Context Lectures, I was able to find some connections between the three. One such connection was regarding the distinctive voices featured within a narrative. In Chapter 6 of Culler’s Literary Theory, it states that “the essence of the novel is the staging of different voices or discourses and, thus, of the clash of social perspectives and points of view” (Culler Page 88). I find that this can be greatly seen with the character of Quincy Morris within Dracula. In the novel when the party was discussing what to do to defeat Dracula, Quincy Morris sees something out of the window and leaves the room and after noticing it was a bat, shoots at it, stating after the incident regarding if he had hit it that “I don’t know, I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood” (Stoker Page 281). From this quote, the dialogue and actions of Quincy Morris differs from that of the other characters as it serves as a contrast to show that he is from Texas and because of this has a much different point of view as well as different mannerisms of speech. I find this to show that he both has a different point of view and social perspectives from the other characters who are native to Europe. I find this to relate to the Dracula Context Lectures as it is shown within the First Contexts Lecture that Stoker toured the United States with Henry Irving and would have thus been more familiar with Americans and American culture (Dracula Contexts Part 1). Because of this, Stoker was made more prone to add in this contrasting point of view and social perspectives due to the experiences that he had within the United States making him more familiar with the culture. In this way, I find that there is a connection between all three as it highlights the inclusion of different perspectives and point of views within the novel Dracula and the reasons for its inclusion. In conclusion, after closely examining Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Johnathan Culler’s Literary Theory, and the Dracula Contexts Lecture, I found this to be the strongest connection that could be made from all three.

 After having read the assigned section in Tara Westover’s “Educated,” one pattern that I noticed about the theme was regarding the type of life that the Westover’s lived. In this, a combination of self-reliance and a rural, off the grid lifestyle seem to be key patterns within the theme of the narrative. This struck me as being particularly interesting because it is incredibly different from the way of life that I am accustomed to, even though the author was only born almost ten years before me to the date. This notion itself highlights how the lifestyle of the Westover’s differed from my own, as Tara Westover states, “Shawn and Tyler, the next oldest after Tony, had birth certificates; it was only the youngest four-Luke, Audrey, Richard and me-who didn’t” (Westover 18-19). Because of this, when getting her birth certificate, complications arose because there was question to exactly what the date was. Another instance of this can be seen when after Tara Westover’s Grandma came back from a medical consultation about the cancer she had, her Father stated “Those doctors will just kill you quicker” and instead suggested that she receive herbal treatments instead of that from doctors and hospitals (Westover 92). This is extremely different from what I have experienced in my own life and because of this it is hard for me to relate to the reality of what life was like in this family. In my own family, my birthday was never forgotten and my family always trusted doctors and medical staff and went to get me treatment from them whenever it was believed that I needed it, never opting for herbal treatment. There are many other instances of these differences within the assigned section of this narrative that there are far too many to mention them all. However, it is how these life experiences are so different than my own that I found this pattern within the theme to be as interesting as I did and greatly makes me want to continue reading the rest of this narrative.

In this week’s two readings of Brin-Jonathan Butler’s “The Ghost of Capablanca” and Camille Dungy’s “Traveling While Black” both share a key pattern on focusing on the legacy of the past that still lingers within the present. Within Brin-Jonathan Butler’s “The Ghost of Capablanca” this is done through examining the legacy that the game of chess has left, and still has, within Cuba. This is shown through Butler’s travels through Cuba with his focus on the game’s history in the country, largely focusing on what is referred to as “Cuba’s greatest chess champion” José Raúl Capablanca (Butler/Strayed 44). From this, Butler examined the legend that surrounds this legendary chess player in Cuba, how he was renowned around the world for his skills in chess, and how his legacy has impacted Cuba long after his death and during the Cuban Revolution. As Butler explains through what is told to him through his friend Fernando on the impact that Capablanca had upon Che Guevara, “Che’s father took him to a tournament when he was a boy growing up in Buenos Aires, and he saw Capablanca playing. That’s where he first got addicted to chess and also where he first learned about the country that Capablanca came from. Che and the Cuban government invested huge amounts of money to support the game” (Butler/Strayed 48). Through examining the famous chess player Capablanca and the influence that he brought about, as can be seen through the various anecdotes such as the one on Che Guevara, Butler was able to examine the greater legacy of chess within Cuba that was largely brought about by this man within his travel narrative. However, within Camille Dungy’s “Traveling While Black,” a very different aspect is focused on regarding the legacy of the past that still lingers within the present. Instead of a positive legacy such as the passion for chess that was examined within the other travel narrative, this travel narrative focuses on the legacy of racism within America towards those whom are African American. Dungy shows this legacy through her travels through Minnesota. One part of the legacy that she shows was her visiting of a memorial to an event that had happened “Ninety-four years and fourteen days earlier” where “the mutilated bodies of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie hung from a streetlight” (Dungy/Strayed 76). These men were killed because of the pure hatred that formed from racism due to the fact that they had simply been African American. Despite this event, and many others like it, that happened nearly a hundred years prior the legacy of the hatred within racism still lingers on today just as the memorial to the slayings is also ever present. This is shown by Dungy when her and her group are pulled over by the police, and in fear of what may happen, when the police officer approached the “window, he found two black men prepared for the worst. Sean’s hands were open and positioned on the dashboard. Ray’s arms were in the air, the wallet in his hand already open to his ID” (Dungy/Strayed 78). The recollection of this event was followed by the description of other events in today’s times where African Americans were unjustly killed by the police or other individuals because they were African American. Thus, Dungy shows in her travel narrative that the legacy of racism is still present in American society and continues to linger. In the end, although both travel narratives focus on vastly different topics, the both share the key pattern of focusing on a particular legacy of the past that still lingers within the present.

After reading Ian Frazier’s “What Ever Happened to the Russian Revolution” and Allegra Hyde’s “Let the Devil Sing” within Cheryl Strayed’s “The Best American Travel Writing 2018,” I noticed a pattern of reflecting upon the past within both travel essays. This is done within “What Ever Happened to the Russian Revolution” through an examination of Russian history and within “Let the Devil Sing” through an examination of the authors marriage. In both works, this reflection of the past is done to form a better understanding of how the present came about and the impacts that the past had upon it. To begin, I will examine how this pattern of reflecting upon the past is shown within “What Ever Happened to the Russian Revolution” over the course of Frazier’s time in Russia, as he reflects upon the past history of Russia and the lasting legacy of the Russian Revolution. In the beginning of “What Ever Happened to the Russian Revolution,” Frazier states “Russia is both a great, glorious country and an ongoing disaster. Just when you decide that it is the one, it turns around and discloses the other” before briefly touching on the previous two hundred years of Russian history that he will later discuss cultivating in the Russian Revolution one hundred years ago (Frazier/Strayed 93). Speaking of the revolution, which is the main focus of his travel essay, Frazier further elaborates “Today, a hundred years afterward, we still don’t know quite what to make of that huge event. The Russians themselves aren’t too sure about its significance” (Frazier/Strayed 93). For this reason, in this travel essay Frazier tries to reflect on Russian history to try to determine the true and lasting significance of the revolution. At the end of his travel essay, Frazier concludes “There would have been no Soviet Union without Lenin. Today he might feel discouraged to see the failure of his Marxist utopia – a failure so thorough that no country is likely to try it again soon. But his political methods may be his real legacy” (Frazier/Strayed 133). In this way, Frazier reflected upon the past events of the Russian Revolution to try to determine the main legacy that it had left behind, finding that it is within the methods that were used to bring it about, not the state(s) that it was able to form. However, within “Let the Devil Sing” the reflections of the past are regarding Hyde’s marriage and her past. In this travel essay, Hyde laments about both her marriage and the current state of her life living in Bulgaria, which is shown within the statement “My husband and I love one another, but our marriage feels like a sham. This is one of our problems. The other is living in Bulgaria” (Hyde/Strayed 172). She reflects upon this aspect of her life over the course of her and her husband’s trip to see The Devil’s Throat. Within one of these reflections, Hyde reflects upon how her conversations with her “future husband” in the past had been so enthralling and captivating for her, but “Now though, it seems more like an incursion to share the thoughts inside me, to unravel my knotted anxiety, to expose the hot coals lining my mind” (Hyde/Strayed 176). On her marriage, Hyde states “I wouldn’t have gone abroad if he hadn’t come with me. And if I hadn’t gone abroad, we might have not signed those binding papers. Those two things feel inextricable now – Bulgaria and our marriage – which in turn feels problematic” (Hyde/Strayed 175). She then explains the circumstances in Bulgaria that she had found to be very trying on their marriage and the complex feelings that had resulted within her because of it. Thus, amidst the backdrop of visiting the place where the legend of Eurydice and Orpheus was set, Hyde reflected upon her own past and the unhappiness she was now experiencing within her marriage that had seemingly come as a result. In this way, although both stories use reflection of the past in very different ways to examine the present, I find that it is a key pattern that can be observed within both travel essays. I believe that this aspect of reflecting upon the past and its impacts upon the future is an essential aspect that both stories share as it is able to connect the individual author’s travels to a greater central focus. Thus, even though the places that the authors visit are vastly different, they both share the aspect of using the past’s connection to the present to give their narratives a central theme to build off of and to engage the readers further from just the description of the places that they visited, even though each of these author’s central themes that are explored from reflecting upon the past are similarly vastly different. In this way, I found that this was a key pattern that both of these essays shared.

After reading this week’s assigned essays within Cheryl Strayed’s “The Best of American Travel Writing 2018” of “Goodbye, My Brother” by Elliot Ackerman and “Hope and Home” by Rabih Alameddine, I have noticed that both share a key pattern. Within both essays, a theme is shared of loss that had occurred in the past. Within “Goodbye, My Brother” this is featured from Ackerman’s return to Fallujah where he had fought during the Iraq War and lost a close friend of his. This had left a considerable impact upon him as he decided to return to the city after it had been liberated from ISIS. This impact that this traumatic event can be seen from his reaction after trying to use his friend’s line to describe “that life was like chess” and was rebuffed by his friend who stated “Life is backgammon. The game takes skill, but it also takes luck.” (Ackerman/Strayed 11). On this, Ackermann reflected “As he said this, I thought about the bullet that found Dan. I often think about the bullet that never found me” (Ackerman/Strayed 11). The events that Ackerman experienced within this city during the battle had left a significant impact upon his life and because of this, he felt the need to return to somewhat confront his past. However, within “Hope and Home” by Rabih Alameddine the theme of the losses of the past are shown in a completely different way. In this essay, the losses that occurred in the past are not from Alameddine’s own life, but rather of the refugees that he had interviewed and met, mainly within in Lebanon. Of these refugees that had traveled to Lebanon, many had lost everything they owned due to fleeing from the horrors that had plagued their home counties, notably that of terrorist groups were one of such horrors. This idea can be greatly seen through one of the interactions that Alameddine had with a man named Ahmad M. and his wife who he had met “a number of times” (Alameddine/Strayed 26). In this interaction, it is stated “”Hope?” Ahmad said. “I knew we couldn’t return the minute the war started.” “We lost everything,” his wife said” (Alameddine/Strayed 26). Thus, while Alamadine did not experience the loss of the past shown within this essay directly, he did experience it through interviewing and meeting refugees that had and witnessing the effects that this trauma caused to those that had directly experienced this. As Alameddine states on this, “My traumas involve nothing more than a bad pedicure. I end up interviewing refugees because even though I’m useless, even though there’s nothing that I can do, doing nothing is a crime” (Alameddine/Strayed 22). In the end, although both essays are different, as one features a personal loss of the past due to war and the other features the loss of the past that was experienced by others, both stories certainly share a theme of losses that occurred in the past that were caused by trauma and turmoil.

Over the course of his travelogue “Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes,” Daniel Everett learned many things through his experiences with the Piraha. Aside from being able to learn more about himself, Everett and the readers were able to learn more about the Piraha language and culture through Everett’s experiences. Despite the vast differences in culture and language that there may be between that of the Piraha and Western society, as Everett states “After all, it is our common genome that unites Homo Sapiens into a single species and produces other similarities among us, including many of our needs, desires, common experiences, and emotions” (Everett 255). Because of this, from the experiences detailed within this travelogue, Everett and the readers can get a better understanding of how similar we really are as humans despite the vast differences in culture and language that there may be. Everett further elaborated on this through the statement “This view of this book is that every language and culture pair shows us something unique about the way that one subset of our species has evolved to deal with the world around it. Each people solves linguistic, psychological, social, and cultural problems in different ways” (Everett 277). From this statement, I find it to show that although Everett understands that each society’s language and culture adapts to the demands of its own environment and problems, and thus these aspects of language and culture can have great variances between different societies, a similarity that can be seen within every culture is the way that each society has to adapt to its own unique circumstances. In this way, “Groups like the Pirahas offer novel, deeply useful, and alternative examples of how to deal with perennial and ubiquitous problems” (Everett 277). Thus, even though each society adapts to the unique conditions imposed on it through its environment and the problems that it is faced with, many problems are universal across societies. Although these problems are universal, because every society adapts to its own unique environment and problems, they are not handled in a universal way. Because of this, many societies essentially develop their own unique ways to address these universal problems. From these quotes, I believe that it greatly shows how Everett learned from his experiences, as he also teaches the readers, that although other societies may be drastically different from our own, we are all the same. For this reason, Everett shows that it is essential to both respect other societies, regardless of how different they are from our own, and the necessity to try to understand other cultures and languages to better understand humanity as a whole. In this way, over the course of Everett’s travelogue, I believe that both Everett and the readers learn to respect the differences that people may have as we are all inherently the same.

After reading chapter 6 of Carl Thompson’s “Travel Writing,” one can see that colonialism has left an impact upon travel writing. During the eighteenth, nineteenth, and even within the twentieth century, many writers from imperialist countries wrote of their experiences and travels within non-imperial countries. In this, they would often portray themselves as being more “civilized” than that of the people they would encounter by highlighting the differences between the two cultures. The term for this is referred to as “othering” (Thompson 132). Within the concept of “othering,” there are two senses of what the concept means. As described by Thompson, “In a weaker, more generalized sense, “othering” simply denotes the process by which the members of one culture identify and highlight the differences between themselves and the members of another culture” (Thompson 132). In this sense of the word, it is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather can provide a contrast between two different cultures and show to the readers the many different ways that people go about life around the word. Using this particular sense of the word, Thompson argues that “All travel writing must, arguably engage in the act of othering in the first sense” (Thompson 133). However, in the other sense of the word, as Thompson states, “In a stronger sense, however, it has come to refer more specifically to the process and strategies by which one culture depicts another culture as not only different but also inferior to itself (Thompson 132 and 133). In this stronger sense, many writers unfortunately used this to propagate racist imperial beliefs about other cultures. While the use of this second sense of the word is not as overtly prevalent in more modern travel writing, both senses can still be found and is part of the colonial legacy left upon travel writing.

Within Daniel Everett’s travelogue “Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes,” Everett both draws upon and resists this aspect of “othering” in the legacy of colonial discourse upon travel writing. An example of this can be seen through a harrowing encounter Everett experienced with the death of a sickly baby he decided to care for after the mother died shortly after birth. Despite his belief that he could save the baby, the other villagers decided from their cultural beliefs that it was in the baby’s best interest to die and killed the child. Everett reflects upon the situation by stating “The more I thought about the incident, though, the more I came to realize that the Pirahas, from their perspective, did what they thought was best. They weren’t simply being cruel or thoughtless. Their views of life, death, and illness are radically different from my Western ideas” (Everett 97). Rather than deride the culture of the Pirahas for this act that many would consider to be irredeemably cruel, Everett explains the situation through explaining that the act came from the difference in culture. As Everett further states on this “In a land without doctors, with the knowledge that you have to get tough or die, with much more firsthand experience with the dead and dying than I had ever had, the Pirahas could see death in someone’s eyes and health before I could. They felt certain that this baby was going to die. They felt it was suffering terribly” (Everett 97). Instead of casting judgement upon the Piraha people for doing this, as he easily could have done, he instead looked upon the incident as being a situation that exposed the difference between his and the Piraha’s culture. From this example, one can see how Everett draws upon the legacy of colonial discourse through using the weaker and more generalized sense of “othering,” but resists it through his decision to not use the stronger sense of it.

In travel writing, the persona of the author can play a large role. The portrayal of this persona can add a personal layer to the information that is related during the author’s travels. As Carl Thompson states within his book “Travel Writing” when describing Bill Bryson’s travelogue “The Lost Continent,” “The Lost Continent charts not only the literal travels of its author, but also an emotional and psychological journey within the author; or more precisely, an emotional and psychological evolution which is always likely, in our culture at least, to be construed metaphorically as a journey” (Thompson 96 and 97). From this quote, one can gain a different sense of what travel can be. Rather than being restricted to an account of a physical journey that one has made, travel writing can also include and overlap with the inner journey that happens during travel. As Thompson further states “In some travelogues, then, the journey functions to some extent as a narrative device whereby the author’s whole life may be brought into focus. Many travelogues of this type also present the journey as a key stimulus to a new understanding of the traveler’s life” (Thompson 114). In this sense, the author and the readers can possibly learn just as much about the author themself as they can about the places that the author traveled to. With this inwards focus on the author, even if the author does not physically find what they wished that they had, the discoveries that were made about themselves can give the travelogue meaning. Regardless if the author finds what they were physically seeking to find, the inner mindset of the author can add another layer of depth to a travelogue and give it a more complete feeling.

This concept can be greatly seen within the opening chapters of “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed. In this travelogue, Strayed almost immediately begins introducing her persona. After having her life fall apart around her, Strayed made the decision to hike the Pacific Crest Trail after finding a book. She then described the process that it took for her to finally decide to go on this journey and the preparations that she had to take beforehand. On this, Strayed states “once I’d actually gone and done it, walked all those miles for all those days, there was a realization that what I’d thought was the beginning had not really been the beginning at all. That in truth my hike on the Pacific Crest Trail hadn’t begun when I made the snap decision to do it. It had begun before I even imagined it, precisely four years, seven months, and three days before, when I’d stood in a little room in the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and learned that my mother was going to die” (Strayed 10). I find that this quote greatly shows how Strayed built her persona and gave her physical journey an inner purpose to go along with the outward goal of seeing the sights along the trail. From this, one can see how this physical journey is meant to, in part, put the life of Strayed in the spotlight and chronicle the inner transformation that is to come because of it. This contributes greatly to the narrative element of this travelogue as it adds another layer of an inner journey to couple with the physical journey that Strayed undertook.

Within William Least Heat-Moon’s “Blue Highways,” the characters that Heat-Moon encounters play a large role within the author’s travelogue. The different characters that he encounters during his journey function to tie in his personal experiences in travel to the places themselves. By featuring these characters and their unique accents within the dialogue, it gives the readers a better sense of what these places are like through the possible insights that are given as to what daily life might be like in these locations in which he travels to. This provides a contrast to Heat-Moon’s own thoughts, attitudes, and personal experiences that he details within the book by giving a glimpse into the lives of others. In turn, this helps contribute to the realism of his travelogue, as it makes the reader see how different life is between these places that he travels to during his narrative through his great focus on these characters. The details and dialogue that he shares is able to help the reader make connections with these places through the people as much as he does from the physical place. This contributes to the realism by aiding in the establishment of each place’s uniqueness within his own unique travel experiences. I find that an example of this can be seen through Heat-Moon’s interaction with the man Paul “DeePaul” Duhon in Lafayette. In this interaction, the narrator discovers “DeePaul’s” love for flying kites and desire to set Guinness World Record for doing so. On this, “DeePaul” states according to Heat-Moon “My kites day fly for time in da air, not how high. Someday I want people to be rememberin’ Duhon. I want ‘Duhon’ wrote down” (Heat-Moon 114). From this, we not only gain insight to the character “DeePaul” and what he does in his life, but we also are allowed a glimpse into the uniqueness of the place through Heat-Moon’s showing of the dialect through how he wrote the dialogue. Although the life that people have in these places are as unique as each place he visits, quotes like this add to the realism by making the characters that he encounters relatable, showing that despite the differences that may be had, everyone is still the same. Due to how authentic the interactions like this feel, it greatly adds to the authority that the author has due to how realistic they are portrayed. For this reason, I believe the characters that Heat-Moon encounters during his travelogue play a large role in his narrative focus as it adds greatly to the realism of his travels.