Close Reading #2

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/04/jfk-jr-christina-haag-201104#gotopage1

                Love on the Edge

Memoirs often share important information about the author and people in their lives. This excerpt from Christina Haag’s Memoir retells her time with John F. Kennedy Jr. With the use of syntax, imagery, and details, she reveals to the reader JFK Jr.’s one and only fear, being another loss his mother must endure.

Haag paints John as a fearless child who grew to be an even more fearless adult, but also shows him to be caring. Haag met John when as a child, they were a part of the same group of friends and even then she recounts him as being someone that feared nothing. By including vivid recounts of their childhood together, she creates an image of John in the reader’s mind. She further includes instances of examples of his kindness and optimism for example when he sent her flowers and asked his cousin to stay with her in the hospital when he was unable to make it. This imagery creates a clear picture of John’s character for the reader and further adds to the piece’s meaning.

Along with showing John’s fearlessness she also shows the one thing he is afraid of, his mother enduring another loss. Haag does this by using detail. With the occasional mention here and there of he and his mother’s relationship she keeps is relevant in the reader’s mind. In addition to this by including John’s response of “Don’t tell my mother” after the kayak scare it is evident that she is the only one he is truly afraid for. Though he too was scared, the real reason for his fear was his mother and that is seen by noticing who he mentions first right after or before something is to happen. Haag drives this in more by including the fact that John’s mother insisted the secret service follow them when they were younger. This shows that he knew his mother was cautious and worried and was easily scared.

Taking his mother’s fear into count it is easily understood why John showed so much fear. Haag demonstrates this fear through syntax in the last part of this excerpt. By using short, heavy sentences Haag shows their nervousness and fear. For example when John’s commands like, “Bail! Find the Bail! Now!” show frustration and panic. It’s a drastic difference from the first half of the work where the sentence structure is longer and demonstrates calmness and peace. The reason for John’s panic is the fear not that he would lose his life but that his mother would again mourn the loss of a loved one.

With the use of Imagery, Details, and Syntax Haag not only demonstrates John F Kennedy’s fear but the source of his fear, another loss for his mother.