Chapter 22:

Summary

Stopped Clock: Clark gives readers a look back on time up to the year 2000, naming books, athletes, and songs that dominated during that century. John Hersey published Hiroshima in 1946, which "...gave us all a view of what American forces had unleashed. It ended one war but ushered in the nuclear age."

A Moment in Time: The first paragraph of Hiroshima is provided. Clark breaks it down significantly, all the way down to the "...longest sentence, at 189 words, [which] is divided into five clauses and uses four semicolons and a period."

Beginning: The first sentence of the first paragraph of Hiroshima is broken down into three sections. The beginning of the sentence is examined through the passage of time it provides.

Middle: This section of the sentence emphasizes Hersey's strong emphasis on action in the middle of the sentence, when it is usually found at the end.

End: The remaining section of the sentence uses a "litotes, or understatement—the opposite of hyperbole."

Cast of Characters: There are six characters in Hiroshima. They all survive the bombing, which is significant because the first paragraph lets reaaders know that 100,000 people were killed by the bombing.

Writing Lessons

1. Stories are about time in motion. But there are moments when time seems to stop, at least in narrative terms: when the atom bomb drops, when Kennedy is shot, when the Challenger explodes. As a writer, you can mark that moment when time stands still. Freeze a movie into a still frame.

2. A good way to begin a long story is to list the key characters or issues or events at the top. Give readers enough to generate interest. You are saying, in effect: “If you want to know more about the German Jesuit, read on.” Make a promise at the beginning. Fulfill it by the end.

3. Shakespeare’s plays begin with a list of characters—the dramatis personae, the people of the drama. It’s a good strategy for many reports and stories. Name the people (or dogs, penguins, or whales) who will populate the work. Now, here is the key question: In what order will they appear? Who will walk onstage first? Hersey begins with two clerks at the moment of the explosion. Then his six characters are presented in outline, not unlike the way Chaucer presents the Canterbury pilgrims.

4. Given the nature of the news and the death toll, the author’s narrative feels somehow underwritten, but in a good way. There are no elaborate metaphors. The author keeps the focus on the cast of characters and not on his own feelings or emotions. In general, this is a good rhetorical strategy. The more powerful or consequential the content, the more the author should “get out of the way.” This does not mean that craft must be set aside. Instead, it means craft must be used to create a feeling of understatement.

Critique

This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of a piece of historical non-fiction that is still commonly used in schools today. In "Framework for Success in Postsecondary Schools," a part of responsibility is for students to "recognize their own role in learning" (5). Historical non-fiction works such as Hiroshima are an important part of understanding the past, which then prepares students for the future.

A critique of this chapter is the fact that so much detail is put into examining the first paragraph of the work, and not the work as a whole.