arms and the man GROUP discussion

mayuri, cecilia, whitney, paige, lisa

Take a look at the hook and the “I first heard…” paragraph. Why do you think she starts this way? What is intersting to her about the Toughman competition?
I think she starts with "i first heard..." to set the stage for her story. This way the reader knows exactly what he/seh is going to read about without being confused. To Kathy Dobie, what draws her in is the ," cruelty and potential for humiliation--the risk every fighter takes and every skiny girls takes in the ring." She haeard about the contest from her photography er friends in detroit.

Characterize her attitude towards West Virginia? Is it affectionate? Snarky? Condescending? Realistic? What?
Her attitude towards West Virginia is an attempt to be realistic but comes off condescending. It seems a "realistic" place to go to Dobie visit because she has a scewed image of the cruel side to the Toughman Contest, so her attitude comes off condescending. "West Virginia seemed teh perfect place to watch a Toughman Contest: it's very white and deeply working-cass." This fits her image of the contest but seems to have a negative tone to the reader.

In the Clarksburg paragraph she uses all kinds of figurative language? Why? For what purpose?
The figurative language makes Clarksburg seems unique to match the unique contest going on. The figurative language shows the elements of the town to mirror image the contest. Also, the figurative language is used to set the stage and give the reader a picture in their mind of what Dobie is seeing.

Describe how Dobie captures the character of Jerry Thomas. What does she focus on? Why? What is he doing in this story?
She describes his physical features and gives insite to the different elements of Jerry Thomas. She gives details about him that you could notice in the first 10 minutes of talkign with him so that it's an image of what she and other people see. Dobie is giving us a window into her mind/ eyes. She focuses mainly on these physical features and demeanor easily noticed. She includes him because he is basically teh "boss/ big man" of the comptetition. By including Jerry, the reader gains an image of who is behind the contest.

How does Dobie describe the women at the fight? Do they fight differently? Do you find it sterotypical or offensive? How does the author juxtapose the male and female participants?
He describes the women as having "no finesse." The men seem tobe there for teh glory and ego-boost, while the women are there for necessity of the monetary prize to help them with their lives, or simply for teh pleasure. The women fight differently because they don't "run away", but seem to stick together and duke it out in "one spot" until someone wins. The author just smoothly transfers from girl fights to guy fights.

What does Dobie find when she interviews Ferrel and Cogar? Does this fit into her thesis? Would she put them in if they had awesome jobs they loved?
She gfins out that they're only here because, "they had nothing better to do." The believed their lives were worth next to nothing, so might as well! This fits into her thesis as to the differences in why guys and girls fight. I don't think she would put them in if they had jobs they liked because throughout teh story she makes it seem like this is teh best taht's going on there.

Look at the descriptions of the fighting itself. How does the author use sentence structure and detail to capture the fighting?
Dobie uses a lot of detail in teh fights. "In round three, John takes a hit, seems to get tangled in his own feet, whils around, and falls face first into the ropes." THis gives follows her suit of providig with descriptive details to the readers so they don't jsut read about teh fight, they can picture it in their minds and feel liek they are there. She shows instead of tells.
She uses sentence structure taht mirrors teh fighting itself with adjectives liek "whirl" and visual images of the fighting to let the reader visually picture it.

Take a look at the ending. What does the writer leave us with? What point is she trying to make about motivation and the Toughman?
She leaves the reader with questions about society and the struggles of teh world. She gives the reader a sense of the bigger picture out int eh world. Dobie is trying tomake a point about motive in the toughman taht people would rather settle their problems with physical force because it is something tangible that people can deal with on a physical level. Racism is not something that can be dealt with physically, it is an emotional struggle.

To what degree has the author put herself into this story? Where do we see her subjectivity and bias? Is that a good thing?
Grab an effective quote from any section of the piece and discuss why you thought it worked. Be specific.
In teh econd to last paragraph we see the bias of Dobies that she believes taht all people in Clarksurg hate their jobs and lfe. " He's worked hard all day...but can't say he likes his job. Maybe he and his wife aren't getting along." She interviewed two fighters taht hate their lives and now suddenly believes taht all Clarksburg citizens hate their lives. This is jsut her personal bias, so we don't think it's necessarily a good or bad thing. For me personally it would be abad thing to have a negative outlook on the people in the town based on the views of a couple individuals. The author uses her in teh story to show teh reader what she's seeing which gives the reader a window in to her mind.