The Way To Rainy Mountain

In N. Scott Momaday’s essay, The Way To Rainy Mountain, the author describes the mountain in Oklahoma that was a landmark for the Kiowas as well as the place where his grandmother was buried. The Kiowas was the people that the author belongs to and in the present they have been moved to reservations. In the essay, N. Scott Momaday explains to the reader the timeline of his grandmother’s life. The use of imagery and adjectives is what makes the essay so great because the reader can paint a picture in his or her head of what exactly life must have been like for Aho (the grandmother). The author reflects back to the time when his grandmother was a child and the Kiowas were in control of a large amount of land and were living peacefully. Descriptions of the land and different seasons the Kiowas people went through are accurately depicted throughout the essay through the use of Aho’s life. The Rainy Mountain has the toughest weather in the winter which brings a lot snow, but during the summer it is beautiful and brings out the best in the Kiowas people. During Aho’s lifetime the U.S. Cavalry forced the Kiowas people to relocate and endure many tough times. Aho was buried along the Rainy Mountain and the author enjoys going back to the mountain to visit the gravestone and think about the good time of the tribe. I really enjoyed this writing because I could easily daydream and put myself in the exact location the author was trying to describe. Reading this personal essay almost felt similar to a poem in the way it followed so smoothly and how descriptive the scenery was. The author also did a nice job of telling a story through the time table of someone else’s life. He does a wonderful job reeling in the reader to feel as if they are present during the life of Aho the grandmother.

The Boston Photographs

In Nora Ephron’s essay, The Boston Photographs, Ephron talks about three pictures that were taken in Boston outside of an apartment. The first picture is of a fireman, a woman, and her child standing on a fire escape as the building behind them is on fire. The second photo is of the fire escape breaking from the building, and the third picture is of the woman and child falling from the building. Ephron describes in her essay the negative response the editor’s received from the public about publishing these pictures in newspapers across the nation. She feels that these pictures deserve to be printed and are a perfect example of how photojournalism is often more powerful than written journalism. She also argues that the press tends to only print the good news so it would only be realistic for the press to show the unfortunate news as well. In the actual story of the woman and child, the woman died on impact but the child lived because he landed on top of the mother. Ephron also argues that if the both the woman and child would have survived then the public wouldn’t have any complaints about the photos. It is the fact that she died that some say her privacy of death was unfairly taken away from her. Ephron feels that if people are dying in the world everyday then it shouldn’t be that big of a deal for the public to see pictures similar to the ones in this essay. I agree with Ephron because the pictures weren’t grotesque or of corpses, but rather action shots of a real life scene. It is extremely sad and unfortunate that this chain of events occurred for the mother and child, but I feel their privacy wasn’t exposed negatively through these pictures. I understand why some readers would take offense to the pictures and complain, but I don’t think the editors were in the wrong in this situation.