"Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"

My immediate impression of this piece was that it was a written photograph. The first section of the photographic prose consisted of completely factual statements. There was no opinion, flowery language, or emotion about what was happening on the farm. This is interesting to me because I would think that if I were living somewhere for about a month, then I would have certain biases: likes and dislikes about the place and people. The objectivity of the writing was both impressive and offsetting. It is easy to describe clothing or the appearance of a farm with extreme objectivity, but once one starts to describe a person, the character tends to show through, especially if the author knows the person about which he is writing. Agee talks about the body as "flesh and bones" instead of personalizing it. "Face, hands, feet and legs are washed." That statement is unbelievably undeniable. It is a fact, and unlike a thesis statement, is not controversial at all.

The only time the author ever breaks objectivity is when talking about Mrs. Gudger. "I am thinking in such a way that I want to tell her how beautiful she is; and I would not be lying." The objectivity is sliced to allow emotion to flow into the paragraph. However, the statement is still not as poetic as one would guess a writer to express his admiration about someone.

There is a clear change in tone and sentence structure on page 236. There is a break in the writing; this is where Walker Evans begins to write his piece. The language instantly becomes more descriptive through emotion, instead of fact. "each man's garment wearing the shape and beauty of his induplicable body." This is way more descriptive than saying,"Trousers of a hard and cheap cotton wool, dark blue with narrow gray stripes; a twenty five cent belt stays in them always." The difference between the two writings is like the difference (as some would say at hte beginnings of photography) between a photograph and a painting. The metaphoric language is like the painting that holds emotion and has a presence in the room. The objective language is like the photograph because it is literally taken straight from a moment in time that actually happened and there is nothing added to it.

The second author clearly noticed the beauty of Mrs. Gudger also. "She was a poem as no human being shall touch." This is a more poetric description of Mrs. Gudger, which describes more than just a woman with a pretty face, but a woman who is beautiful on the inside also. The language of the second author gives her a soul in comparison with the first author.

This piece was specifically an observatation of the everyday life of three farm families. The lower class, which has "exceedingly little money" is praised as the "famous" because without them the country would not flourish. Their work in the fields is what keeps the machine made clothes they dream of available for those who actually have money. It is funny to see the men and women stress about their appearance and wearing nice clothing to town when they are not improving their social standing at all. It makes no difference which dress they wear, they are all handmade, and not the unatainable machine made clothing for the upperclass. The lower class is praised and made the hero in this essay.