Essay 3 Three Sources and Why You Chose Them

Works Cited

Cross, David R.; Purvis, Karyn B.; Stone, Howard W.; Young, Melissa J. "A Study of the

Benefit of Social and Religious Support on Church Members During Times of Crisis."

Pastoral Psychology. Mar2003, Vol. 51 Issue 4, p327-340. 14p. 3 Charts. Database.

Academic Search Premier.

I chose this source because it discusses the role religion plays in people's lives, how that is important, especially during a crisis. It looks at how religion can provide support in difficult times. This relate to Friendswood because of Willa and her relationship with religion.

Forth, Julian. “Religion, Intimacy, and Social Resistance.” Cross Currents. Jun2016, Vol. 66               Issue 2, p154-161. 8p. Wiley Blackwell. Web.

I chose this source because it relates to the topic I want to research and relates to some of the things we have discussed in class about dissent and religion. The journal article discusses religious movements, social resistance, and public speech/performance. The intent of the article is to examine how religion affects our societies in different aspects of life, which relates to several of the questions I want to answer within my essay.

Schewel, Benjamin. “Seven Ways of Looking at Religion.” Hedgehog Review. Fall2015, Vol. 17
                 Issue 3, p102-117. 16p. Web.

I chose this source because it discusses seven perspectives on religion in modern times. The topics covered include the tradition and culture in modern societies related to religion, morality as well as belief and faith. Also mentioned is the impact of the pressures of modernity on the changes and dynamics in the social, psychological and economic aspects of the society.

FRIENDSWOOD ESSAY 3 Topic, Thesis, and Questions

Topic: Religion

Thesis:

Due to the different interpretations of religion, a division has arisen between the religious who seek to better themselves and the world through religion and those who seek to abuse religion to harm or shame others.



Questions:

1. What is the purpose of religion?
2. Why do people practice a religion or faith?
3. Why don't people practice a religion or faith
4. How do people interpret religion?
5. Why does Steinke use in Apocalyptic imagery from the book of Revelations in Friendswood and how is this relevant to the topic?
6. Why do people abuse or warp the meaning of religion?
7. How has religion been abused in the past?
8. In the present?
9. Why stereotyping an entire religion is inaccurate and harmful?
10. What can people of faith do to rectify the damage caused by misled individuals of the same faith?

Reading Log: Disscusion Quetion 7 Response

Throughout Rene Steinke's book Friendswood, there have only been the four narrators: Lee, Hal, Willa and Dex. Then page 350 comes, and the author gives everyone a little surprise. Each chapter is named for the character narrating. On page 350, the chapter title is Cully.

Cully is Hal's son, a football player and one of the boys that raped Willa. The chapter he narrates explores his relationship with the man he works with as security, Jose, and the impact Jose's influence has on him.

Cully and Jose's relationship is one of the better and more constructive relationships Cully has. Jose is the only positive male role model in Cully's life.

Hal is a failure as a father and a role model.
He teaches Cully all the wrong things. He never lets Cully be responsible for his actions and is quick to blame everyone and anyone for his and Cully's mistakes. He gives horrible advice that lacks any substance. He can't help Cully with his guilt over what he did to Willa because he can't accept that Cully is anything but perfect.


Jose gives Cully tangible advice, things that he can do to actively change his life for the better. One such piece of advice has to do with Cully's friends. "Jose had warned him off guys like Brad, who tried to use meanness as a masquerade for manliness." (Steinke 350). Unlike with Hal's advice, Cully actually listens to Jose. The is shown by the fact that he is "trying to escape" his friends and doesn't "want to hang out with Brad and Bishop anymore." (Steinke 350). Cully knows that if he continues to hang out with them, "there would be more accidental fuckups like the one with Willa Lambert, which still clawed at him" (Steinke 351). He sincerely feels an immense amount of guilt because of what he did to Willa and doesn't want anyone else to get hurt because of him. He doesn't want to ruin anyone else's life or his own life any further. If he stays with his friends, it will happen again.

Cully obviously holds Jose in high esteem. He calls Jose "more honorable than Avery ever would be." (Steinke 353). Jose, simply put, is a good man. It is because of his influence that Cully begins taking responsibility for what he did to Willa. Cully's steps towards positive accountability may seem small to us, but to Cully they are huge. Prior to this, Cully has not been allowed to take responsibility for his actions. Now, he is starting to take responsibility and tries to repair the emotional damage he has caused to Willa by apologizing to her, albeit through an anonymous letter. This is something he never would have done had it not been for Jose's influence on him.

Reading Log Questions 2

1.     How does Hal use blame to protect Cully and himself?  What is Hal trying to protect himself from?
If he allows Cully to take responsibility for his actions that means he has to let go of how Cully used to be and see him as he is and he can’t, because if he does that it means he’s letting go of the past. Hal cannot let go of the past. A part of him wants to keep the good in the past and the other part of him cannot get over the bad things in the past. He also does not want to take responsibility, he does not want to deal with Cully’s behavior so he pushes the blame for his failure to identify and do something about Cully’s behavior onto Darlene. “He was too angry to say anything else to her-how could she not notice?” (Steinke 130). None of this is Darlene’s fault, but Hal projects his frustration and responsibilities onto her so that he does not have to be responsible and neither does Cully.

2.   Dex begins to befriend Willa.  Is his friendship genuine?  Why does he befriend Willa?  Does he blame himself for what happens to her?
I think Dex is trying to be genuine, because he does still like Willa, however, he may also be reaching out to her due to his own guilt for not doing anything. He knows so much about what happened because of what the football players tell confide in him and what he himself saw but he’s afraid to come forward and speak. “You’re threatening me?” (Steinke 208). Dex is not so subtly threatened by one of his ‘friends’ on the team. He wants to stand up for Willa but he feels like he can’t really do anything yet.

3.       Choose an institution (marriage, government, academic, church, family, mass media) to discuss why “they” are speaking and why “they” are blaming.
One of the institutions in Friendswood that is using blame is the institution of family. Willa’s mother is putting blame on her to criticize and punish her inability to remember. She is in pain about her daughter being raped and failed to protect her so she is displacing her anger and pain onto Willa. She also blames Willa’s best friend, Dani, for being a bad influence on her even though Dani is doing whatever she can to protect Willa. Hal on the other hand is using blame to absolve Cully of his responsibility and his actions. He blames his wife Darlene for Cully’s drinking. He’s not letting Cully learn responsibility or accountability. Hal idolizes Cully and cannot accept anything about him that does not adhere to the image he has of his son.

Works Cited

Steinke, Rene. Friendswood. New York, New York: Riverhead Books, 2014. Book.

Friendswood Reader Log Questions 1 and 2 (pages 63-94)

Institutions are meant to help, protect or aid people. That is their purpose. Unfortunately, institutions do not always adhere to this purpose. The institutions in Friendswood, specifically City Hall and the EPA, are examples of institutions that have failed to protect the people.

City Hall completely ignores Lee's arguments and information about the oil spill. They act as if she's just some angry woman who wants to cause trouble. Yes Lee is angry, but that tends to happen when "no one goddamn listens." (Friendswood page 90). They are failing the people of Friendswood. City halls are supposed to be a place where townspeople can get involved and bring up issues they think need to be addressed and are able to have their voices heard. Friendswood's City Hall seems to just want Lee to shut up about the chemicals, they obviously haven't been listening to her, and keep trying to invalidate her research.

The EPA treats Lee no better than City Hall. It is implied that the EPA has been adamantly ignoring Lee. She says "Just give me the address, not just the general EPA one, but yours in particular." (Friendswood page 90). It is very possible that the EPA has just been tossing any and all information that Lee has sent, which is why she asks for the specific address of someone who seems at least moderately interested in reading her report.

Who should speak? When is it okay to dissent? (Friendswwood pgs 30-62)

When is it okay to dissent? Sometimes the world is a dark place, filled with tragedy and it seems like some fresh new hell is just around every corner. We bristle at injustices and cruelty towards innocent people or groups while others ignore or applaud such actions.

Dissent is not something people like to talk about. Those who dissent are often ostracized and sometimes targeted by those who hold a majority opinion. However, in order for anything to change, dissent needs to be present.
There is no real guideline or rule for dissenting, and everyone’s reason for dissenting is going to be different. The consensus is that dissent is ‘okay’ when an individual or a group of people are unjustly hurt and no one is held responsible or justice is not had.

In Friendswood, dissent of any kind would not and is not looked upon kindly. Lee is isolated and ostracized by the majority of the townsfolk due to her inability to “stop making a fuss” (page 53) about Rosemont and the pollution there. The readers can understand Lee’s position and beliefs, considering the recent tragedy in Indiana. About a thousand people in Indiana are being forced to find new homes after being informed that the soil is poisoned with lead. Angry, and with good reason, at the government and EPA for not doing more to help them or warn them, many of the residents can identify with Lee’s struggles, and if things take a turn for the worse, her grief. Lee lost her daughter to cancer caused by the chemicals and the people in Indiana could potentially lose their children due to the high lead content in their blood. This is more than a good enough reason to dissent.

Due to what we know about Friendswood and what we know will happen to Willa, we can assume that some form of dissent is going to happen, and most likely she will be ostracized, or even blamed for what happened to her. Like the Stanford rape victim, Willa can’t remember what happened, and people will most likely try to invalidate her accusation or what happened to her because of this. The Stanford rape victim had the two men who helped her, her family, friends, boyfriend, and people across the U.S. supporting her and demanding justice. When the judge denied her that, it became another case where the people responsible for protecting others have failed in their duty.

Who should speak? Ideally, it should be everyone, but not everyone is willing or able to speak up, for a myriad of reasons, and there are other ways to dissent that do not involve being vocal about it. However, just thinking something isn’t enough to cause change. People. Everyday people, like the two men who helped the Stanford rape victim. People like that guy that owns the pizza place across the street. People like that woman walking to the park with her children. People who are willing to give to cause they believe in. People who want to cause change for the better. Most importantly, people who are responsible for the welfare of millions of people need to speak up and be honest.

Who are the Main Characters and How is Friendswood Described?

So far, in her novel Friendswood, Rene Steinke has made use of indirect characterization. Everything known about the characters is conveyed through their words, actions, thoughts and emotions. So far, the main characters are Lee, Hal, and Willa.

The first character the readers are introduced to is Lee. It's implied and then later confirmed that she has had a separation from her husband Jack. This is most likely due to some fallout after the death of their daughter Jess, as she was in the 1993 chapter but does not appear again and the way Jack and Lee talk about her and what happened with the oil spill (pages 29-31) leads one to believe that Jess is no longer living. Due to what happened at Rosemont and what happened to her daughter, Lee is obsessed with preventing the development of the field that was contaminated. Her lingering grief over what happened and need for some sort of justice seems to be the driving force of her actions.

The next character Steinke introduces is Hal. Hal is a desperate man who wants to escape the monotony and mediocrity of his current life. The way he describes his job, how he feels about his clients, and the fact that he had an affair and that some part of him longs to continue that affair shows how dissatisfied with his life he is. At the same time, he obviously loves and wants to do right by his wife and son Cully, whom he is incredibly proud of. His prayers for help show just how desperate he is. He doesn't just want to, he needs to appeal to a higher power for help. In this case, the higher power is both God and this Avery person who has some part in the development of the contaminated field and who is interested in having Hal sell those homes (page 14).

Finally, there is Willa. Willa, at first glance, seems to be a standard teenage girl, but is she really? Having hallucinations does not seem like something most teenage girls do. Something traumatic may have happened at some point in the past that she is only beginning to remember now.

The name 'Friendswood' carries the connotation of peace and community. It's a tight knit place, shown by the fact that all of the characters, main and minor, know each other. The description of the restaurant Hal eats at, where the walls are covered in old pictures of the town's high school football teams since 1940 and the comment about "honorable tradition" (page15) shows that the past still has a strong hold over the community. The description of the storm-battered town in the beginning of the book foreshadows the issues that will eventually tear apart the town (page 3).

Cited Works:
Steinke, R. (2014). Friendswood. New York, New York: Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin
House LLC