For this exercise, pick one of the mysteries we have read (by Chandler, Fisher, Hughes, or Auster) and consider how social capital functions in that story. Begin by picking a character from the story and drawing that character\u2019s sociogram. Make sure to include characters who are alluded to even if they do not directly appear in the narrative (parents, former business partners, ex-lovers, etc.). Then, in about 1 page of double-spaced prose or a little more, analyze a couple of the ties that have been depicted in the sociogram:<\/p>\n
Right now what you have written I find very confusing\u2014there
\nis a lot of very abstract language that I find hard to understand. I think it
\nmay help to try and describe in more simple terms \u2013 and with more specific
\ndetails from the story \u2013 what you think weak and strong ties are supposed to do
\nand how different characters in the story are fulfilling or not fulfilling
\nthose functions for Gillis. You don\u2019t have to worry about having an
\nintroductory paragraph or near transitions\u2014don\u2019t worry about writing an essay,
\njust go straight to the points you want to make. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One aspect of the Watters essay you might have misunderstood
\nis what he means by an \u201curban tribe\u201d, because I don\u2019t think we see that in the
\nFisher story at all. Remember that an urban tribe is like the four friends
\nSamantha, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte in the Sex and the City episode \u2013 a
\ngroup of friends who all have strong ties to each other. Nobody in Fisher\u2019s
\nstory, City of Refuge, strikes me as having strong ties at all. I think Gillis
\nbelieves he might be developing a strong tie with Uggam, but the reader knows
\nthat Uggam is just using Gillis (first to sell the dope for him, and second as
\na patsy to take the blame for the whole drug-dealing operation). I agree with
\nyou that there is a sense of the tie between Gillis and Uggam deepening (a
\nchance encounter creates a weak tie that seems like it gets stronger in some
\nways), but I think it\u2019s also important to point out that this closeness is a
\nruse, and so not a genuinely strong tie as Watters describes them (nor a
\ngenuinely helpful weak tie, the way weak ties are supposed to be\u2014since the
\n\u201chelp\u201d Uggam is giving Gillis is actually self-serving and malicious).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So my first suggestion is to explain these relationships (of
\nGillis to Uggam, and Gillis to Tony) in more detail, and question whether they
\nfit Watters\u2019s concepts of weak and strong ties. Maybe they do in some
\nways, but in other ways they probably don\u2019t; they are not simple,
\nstraightforward weak or strong ties the way Watters has defined the concepts.
\nBased on a more detailed explanation of these relationships, you might then be
\nable to explain more clearly and concretely what your sense of the big picture
\nof the story is. A couple of words you used stood out to me that you might want
\nto think about further \u2013 you described the Harlem in the story as \u201ctangled\u201d,
\nand I think that is very true. With just a few characters portrayed, we manage
\nto see lots of surprising connections between them and how they impact each
\nother\u2019s futures. However, you also describe it as \u201ctight-knit\u201d at one point, I
\nthink, and that I\u2019m not so sure of. It doesn\u2019t seem likely anyone wants to
\ngenuinely help anyone else out in this story, nor that anyone can trust anyone
\nelse (except maybe that Tom Edwards trusts Uggam as a fellow criminal).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The only other thing I\u2019ll mention is that the sociogram
\nitself could probably include a few more figures. For instance, there is the
\nJamaican (the guy who used to work for Tony until Gillis steals his job from
\nhim); there is Tom Edwards; possibly you could consider the Black police and\/or
\nthe white detectives to be on the sociogram; the abusive boyfriend of the girl
\nwith the green stockings; and the people \u201cback home\u201d in South Carolina
\n(Gillis\u2019s family and Uggam\u2019s family) who are vaguely mentioned but don\u2019t appear
\nin the story directly. Remember that in a sociogram, Gillis might be connected
\nto some of these people indirectly (e.g., the abusive boyfriend is connected to
\nthe woman with the green stockings, whom you see as connected to Gillis). It\u2019s
\nnot that you have to map every possible person in this world, but it might be
\nuseful in trying to think about the big picture of this story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For this exercise, pick one of the mysteries we have read (by Chandler, Fisher, Hughes, or Auster) and consider how social capital functions in that story. Begin by picking a character from the story and drawing that character\u2019s sociogram. Make sure to include characters who are alluded to even if they do not directly appear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"disciplines":[66],"paper_types":[],"tagged":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/14999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/questions"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/14999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=14999"},{"taxonomy":"paper_types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/paper_types?post=14999"},{"taxonomy":"tagged","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tagged?post=14999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}