Purposeful Summary—Crabs123

Posted on September 24, 2024 by crabs123

It seems counterintuitive that a photo shows a young girl lying lifeless on top of a painting that symbolizes life. On January 19th, 2010, Haiti was dealing with the disastrous aftermath of an earthquake. Amidst the chaos, 15-year-old Fabienne Charisma saw an opportunity to earn money for her struggling family and took a painting that she thought was valuable. Maybe it was the bright colors or the liveliness of the floral arrangement that attracted her to the painting. As she ran across rooftops with the paintings clutched in her arms, she was shot three times by a police officer trying to control the looting. It’s shocking to see a lively young girl in a bright pink sweater lying dead on top of a vibrant painting that held value in her innocent mind.

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1 Response to Purposeful Summary—Crabs123

  1. davidbdale's avatar davidbdale says:
    October 12, 2024 at 6:29 am

    Very clever, Crabs. You’ve completely subordinated the story to your own specific purpose. I don’t know where you picked up the detail that a single police officer deliberately shot the girl three times, but as long as you didn’t invent it, I can only applaud that you used it to vividly contrast her more-or-less innocent theft with his more-or-less defensible if terribly misguided attempt to restore the peace.

    You slip just a few times rhetorically.

    1. “dealing with” is a lame verb choice for what Haiti as a city was trying to do
      • city’s “deal with” rain on an outdoor concert
    2. “earn money” by stealing is sooo ethically ambiguous that it triggers an objection in careful readers
    3. You could swap the sequence of the painting observations
      • first she’s attracted to the vivid colors
      • then it occurs to her it might be valuable to sell
    4. You three times describe the painting singularly; once you call it paintings

    I’ll grade this as is, Crabs. Put it back into Feedback Please or Grade Please following any significant improvements.

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