Noun and Verb Styles

The noun and verb styles are still a bit confusing to me, but hopefully I will get the hang of them soon!

I used two articles from the LA Times.
VERB STYLE:
As the anniversary of the Sept. 12 Chatsworth train disaster approaches, officials with Southern California's sprawling commuter rail service are facing a vexing array of technical, financial and potential legal challenges as they struggle to deliver on pledges of trailblazing safety reforms.

A burst of energy to remake the region's Metrolink train operation was unleashed by the deadliest rail collision in modern California history, a watershed event that killed 25, injured 130 and prompted landmark federal mandates to modernize the nation's rail safety systems.

Today, the rush to reform Metrolink -- a thinly staffed hybrid transportation agency once derided as the political stepchild of the five counties that created it -- is becoming increasingly costly, time-consuming and complicated.

Labor leaders are digging in to fight an unprecedented push by agency officials to place locomotive train crews under continuous video surveillance.

Technical and financial challenges loom over an ambitious schedule to a deploy a $200-million collision-avoidance network for all commuter, freight and intercity trains moving across hundreds of miles of track.

Meanwhile, Metrolink officials have reversed course on an effort to assume direct control over hiring, training and supervising rail crews, a move prompted partly by disclosures that in Chatsworth, an engineer employed by a contractor apparently ran a red light while sending a text message on his cellphone just before colliding head-on with a freight train.


link to the full article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-train-crash8-2009sep08,0,74.story
This article seems to show verb style because almost every sentence begins and ends with a verb. Using verb style for this particular article seems fitting because the article itself is reporting on action being taken by the Metrolink officials, as a result of an accident which occurred on the railroad. Since the article is reporting on reforms happening to the Metrolink crews, verb style is necessary to convey the sense of action that is being taken, in order to let the readers know that these reforms are in fact, taking place. The tone if the article is a bit urgent, indicating that changes to the Metrolink must be made sooner than later, to prevent any more accidents. This is being done by using phrases such as "the rush to reform" and "a burst of energy", all front-loading the sentences with action.


NOUN STYLE:
Eight people were killed, among them women and teenagers. Several more were seriously wounded and remained hospitalized Sunday, said Jose Luis Leyva of the state prosecutor's office in Culiacan, the state capital about 20 miles to the east.

The shooting may have been part of a string of apparent vigilante attacks in which low-level criminals have been killed by armed squads thought to be working with drug traffickers, police -- or both. More than 30 carjackers and robbers have been killed in similar circumstances in Sinaloa in the last few months, according to a count kept here by journalists.

Two of the victims in Saturday's shootings had criminal records for stealing cars, Leyva said in a rushed news conference Sunday. "Anything is possible," he said.

The dead included two boys, 15 and 16, and two women, 18 and 25, Leyva said.

link to full article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-shooting31-2009aug31,0,1139506.story

This article appears to use noun style, as it's intent is more for reporting facts than action. Although there is action referred to in this article, it is not about what is happening, but more of the aftermath. For example, a specific event described to in the story is referred to as "the shooting", making it an event rather than current action taking place. Also as described in the Noun and Verb Styles, a majority of the sentences begin and end with nouns. The tone of this story seems to be focusing solely on facts and evidence, rather than indicating something, or describe action being taken on the events reported.

Breakfast at Tiffany's Part II

The theme of being unable to escape from your past follows Holly Golightly throughout the novel. Each time a past lover or unwanted relic of her past turns up she flees. She never actually finds a solution to her problems, but continues to run from the cages of relationships and New York society. In the end she attempts to set her cat free because she feels her own freedom slipping away. However she then attempts to find him because she understands that she can't keep turning her back on her problems. Holly begins to realize her commitment issues, but they are never resolved. she serves her purpose as an example to the reader of a negative way of dealing with relationships, new and old, and Fred serves as the model for healthy relationships.

Breakfast At Tiffany's Pt 2

Holly Golightly never truly finds herself at the end of the story. I feel like once she becomes infatuated with Jose, it is proof that she really is a "real phoney" as OJ Berman originally said. She takes on the role of whatever character she believes will make her temporarlily happy without having to give too much commitment, as to which she might get hurt. Convincing herself into the role of Jose's "wife to be" is a perfect example of this. In order to keep herself preoccupied with the notion that she might actually become married to a rich handsome man, Holly begins to take on hobbies of being a housewife such as knitting, cooking, looking after Jose. All the while doing so in order to not let her guard down, and showing her fear of being committed to someone and letting them see her true emotions. I feel that Holly was her most velnerable at the end when she got rid of her cat. She realized that she was never actually going to be married to Jose, and that she might be happier living a different lifestyle than the one shed been living. Getting rid of cat was her only means of escape because if she couldnt be free, at least her cat could.

The whole idea of being lost and finding a place, a home, is a constant theme in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Holly leaves her past as a child-bride behind in order to start a new life as an independent women. Unfortunately, she can not escape her childhood as it appears on her door step dressed up as her husband, Doc. Doc refers to the life that he provided for Holly as a "home", for Holly had everything provided for her. Holly left. Holly leaves California and ventures to New York to once again have a redo at life. Holly Golightly never gets too attached, is constantly on her toes, and hides behind an overt pair of black shades. She even refuses to bond or accept a cat in her possession. Only after ditching her cat on the side of the road in Spanish Harlem, does she realize that the cat did belong to her. She finally takes responsibility to owning something, to feeling connected to a creature outside of herself. Nevertheless, Holly still flees to Brazil, only to have an ambiguous ending of her never settling down. The cat on the other hand is take care of and finds a new identity in a different environment. Holly has no identity. She has the ability to look sixteen to thirty and disappears when she gets tired of a situation. Holly is above all lost. She is not grounded or connected to anything or anyone, making the concept of "home" a future endeavor that she would like to embody.

Holly abandons her cat in Spanish Harlem. She tells him he's a "tough guy" and to "beat it". She acts tough about leaving her cat behind until saying that she and the cat "did belong to each other." Then she states the recurring tragedy in her life which is, "not knowing what is yours until you've thrown it away."
In spite of Holly's attempts to be live a non-commital lifestyle in order to be 'free' and 'wild' she has only committed herself to a way of living in which she obliges herself to make costly sacrifices. Her decisions force her to commit to abandoning the things and people she becomes close to that is if she becomes close at all. This could explain the way people question her as a phony.
Her happiness may be a facade, just as the role she played when she told her cat to "fuck off" and "beat it." It's as though her life is one big role she's acting out; she is being tough to cover her vulnerability, maybe even to cover the traces of remorse she has for committing to the lifestyle she lives. Also, if she sees other people believing her free, wild and happy-go-lucky or Holly Go-Lightly facade then she can feel like maybe it is true. When she projects herself this way and other people believe it she is able to believe it herself.

The "Wild Thing"

Holly’s loathing of all things caged is a powerful theme of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and one that gives great insight to her character. This theme is recurring in the novella, in such contexts as her aversion to the zoo and the extraction of the narrator’s promise to never put anything in the cage she gives him.

But the reason for this phobia is only made clear near the end of the tale; Holly is a self-proclaimed “wild thing” and cannot let herself be caged in any way. After her husband, Doc Golightly, comes to New York to reclaim her, she explains to Joe Bell, “[n]ever love a wild thing Mr. Bell…That was Doc’s mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing…But you can’t give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree”(74).

Holly was just another wild thing Doc had lugged home. Once he had made her strong, she had no option but to flee. She could not be tied down and tamed by a simple life in the country and so she fled. She had little choice, which the Doc presumably understands; it is simply her nature. She is like the hawk: a “wild thing.”

Response

Holly Golightly is a manipulative women as we have disscussed and craves attention as well as financial backing from her possible "clients." Whether these men are in fact lovers or she is instead a high brow prositute doesn't really matter. Ultimately she just needs money and to maintain a certain lifestyle she is accustomed to or perhaps just enjoys. She is possibly a caricature of a struggling upper east side girl but really it has nothing to do with the upper east side and everything to do with being a socialite.