The Man in the Water - Doral Academy Preparatory School · A reflective essay, like most essays,...

Before Reading

When disaster strikes, people react in different ways. Some struggle to save themselves, others crumble in fear, and a few rare individuals risk their own lives to save the lives of strangers. In “The Man in the Water,” you will read about an ordinary man whose selfless acts made him a hero.

QUICKWRITE With a group, use a description wheel like the one shown to list qualities that define a hero. Then write a short paragraph about a particular person who possesses these traits. Make sure to indicate whether the hero is a public figure or an ordinary person.

Can ordinary people be HEROES?

The Man in the WaterEssay by Roger Rosenblatt

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RI 2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it is shaped by specific details. RI 4 Analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.

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Meet the Author

Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook.

Roger Rosenblattborn 1940Star Journalist Roger Rosenblatt is a native of New York City and holds a Ph.D. in literature and writing from Harvard University. In 1975, after teaching at his alma mater, he became a professional journalist. During his lengthy writing career, he has regularly contributed to news publications, such as the Washington Post and Time, and has won several prestigious awards. Today, he is viewed as one of the finest American essayists, approaching his work with, as one critic noted, “uncommon clarity, conciseness, eloquence and humor.”

Man of the World Known for his sensitivity and literary flair, Rosenblatt has won praise for several nonfiction books on controversial topics, including Witness: The World Since Hiroshima, which examines the impact of the atomic bomb on different aspects of modern life. His best-known book is perhaps Children of War, an investigation into the lives of children in various war-torn nations.

background to the essayThe Crash of Flight 90 One of the most publicized air disasters occurred on January 13, 1982, when Air Florida Flight 90 departed from Washington National Airport. Failing to gain enough altitude on takeoff, the passenger jet crashed into the nearby 14th Street Bridge and slid into the icy Potomac River. Seventy-eight people died in the disaster—some of them in the plane, some in their cars on the bridge, and some in the frigid waters of the Potomac. Ice on the jet’s wings was the probable cause of the accident.

text analysis: reflective essayA reflective essay is an essay in which the writer makes a connection between a personal observation and a universal idea—such as love, courage, or freedom. Roger Rosenblatt’s essay contains narration as well as reflection. As he tells the story of a disaster, he makes choices, as a fiction writer would, about the order in which to present events and the perspective from which to present them. He also makes stylistic choices about diction (the words he uses) and syntax (the arrangement of words) to create effects, such as the voice and tone of the selection, rhythm of language, and emphasis of ideas. Notice how the choices Rosenblatt makes involve you in the story.

reading skill: identify main idea and supporting details

A reflective essay, like most essays, has a thesis, or main idea. If you are unsure of the main idea, you can usually figure it out from the supporting details—that is, the facts and other evidence included in the essay to reinforce the central idea.

In “The Man in the Water,” Rosenblatt explores why a 1982 airplane crash is memorable. He develops his main idea over the course of several para graphs. Jot down each part of his main idea as you find it. Then, beneath each statement, write a few details that support it.

Statement

Supporting DetailsSupporting Details

Statement

vocabulary in contextThe following words are key to understanding Rosenblatt’s essay about a real-life hero. Restate each phrase, using a different word or words for the boldfaced term. Write your answers in your Reader/Writer Notebook.

1. to straighten a chaotic bedroom

2. freedom emblemized by the American flag

3. the flailing goose drying its wings

4. an implacable child who cannot be quieted

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Author Online

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As disasters go, this one was terrible, but not unique, certainly not among the worst on the roster of U.S. air crashes. There was the unusual element of the bridge, of course, and the fact that the plane clipped it at a moment of high traffic, one routine thus intersecting another and disrupting both. Then, too, there was the location of the event. Washington, the city of form and regulations, turned chaotic, deregulated, by a blast of real winter and a single slap of metal on metal. The jets from Washington National Airport that normally swoop around the presidential monuments like famished gulls are, for the moment, emblemized by the one that fell; so there is that detail. And there was the aesthetic clash as well—blue-and-green Air Florida, the name a flying garden, sunk down among gray chunks in a black river. All that was worth noticing, to be sure. Still, there was nothing very special in any of it, except death, which, while always special, does not necessarily bring millions to tears or to attention. Why, then, the shock here?

Perhaps because the nation saw in this disaster something more than a mechanical failure. Perhaps because people saw in it no failure at all, but rather something successful about their makeup. Here, after all, were two forms of nature in collision: the elements and human character. Last Wednesday, the elements, indifferent as ever, brought down Flight 90. And on that same afternoon, human nature—groping and flailing in mysteries of its own—rose to the occasion. a

Of the four acknowledged heroes of the event, three are able to account for their behavior. Donald Usher and Eugene Windsor, a park police helicopter team, risked their lives every time they dipped the skids into the water to pick up survivors. On television, side by side in bright blue jumpsuits, they described their courage as all in the line of duty. Lenny Skutnik, a twenty-eight-year-old employee of the Congressional Budget Office, said: “It’s something I never thought I would do”—referring to his jumping into the water to drag an injured woman to shore. Skutnik added that “somebody had to go in the water,” delivering every hero’s line that

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The Man in the Water

R o g e r R o s e n b l a t t

chaotic (kA-JtPGk) adj. extremely confused or disordered

emblemized (DmPblE-mFzdQ) adj. represented; symbolized emblemize v.

a

CENTRAL IDEAReread lines 15–21. What point is Rosenblatt making about nature and human nature?

flailing (flAPlGng) adj. waving vigorously flail v.

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is no less admirable for its repetitions. In fact, nobody had to go into the water. That somebody actually did so is part of the reason this particular tragedy sticks in the mind. b

But the person most responsible for the emotional impact of the disaster is the one known at first simply as “the man in the water.” (Balding, probably in his fifties, an extravagant mustache.) He was seen clinging with five other survivors to the tail section of the airplane. This man was described by Usher and Windsor as appearing alert and in control. Every time they lowered a lifeline and flotation ring to him, he passed it on to another of the passengers. “In a mass casualty, you’ll find people like him,” said Windsor. “But I’ve never seen one with that commitment.” When the helicopter came back for him, the man had gone under. His selflessness was one reason the story held national attention; his anonymity another. The fact that he went unidentified invested him with a universal character. For a while he was Everyman, and thus proof (as if one needed it) that no man is ordinary. c

Still, he could never have imagined such a capacity in himself. Only minutes before his character was tested, he was sitting in the ordinary plane among the ordinary passengers, dutifully listening to the stewardess telling him to fasten his seat belt and saying something about the “no smoking sign.” So our man relaxed with the others, some of whom would owe their lives to him. Perhaps he started to read, or to doze, or to regret some harsh remark made in the office that morning. Then suddenly he knew that the trip would not be ordinary. Like every other person on that flight, he was desperate to live, which makes his final act so stunning. d

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REFLECTIVE ESSAYIn Rosenblatt’s view, why did “the man in the water” give the story greater significance?

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GRAMMAR AND STYLEReread lines 23–25. Notice how Rosenblatt includes the appositive phrase, or noun phrase, “a park police helicopter team” to describe concisely who the two men are.

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REFLECTIVE ESSAYNotice how Rosenblatt shifts back in time and assumes the perspective of the man, even though he cannot really know what the man was thinking. What does this perspective add to your impression of the man?

A park police helicopter pulls two survivors from the Potomac River following the crash of Air Florida Flight 90.

the man in the water 377

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For at some moment in the water he must have realized that he would not live if he continued to hand over the rope and ring to others. He had to know it, no matter how gradual the effect of the cold. In his judgment he had no choice. When the helicopter took off with what was to be the last survivor, he watched everything in the world move away from him, and he deliberately let it happen.

Yet there was something else about the man that kept our thoughts on him, and which keeps our thoughts on him still. He was there, in the essential, classic circumstance. Man in nature. The man in the water. eFor its part, nature cared nothing about the five passengers. Our man, on the other hand, cared totally. So the timeless battle commenced in the Potomac. For as long as that man could last, they went at each other, nature and man: the one making no distinctions of good and evil, acting on no principles, offering no lifelines; the other acting wholly on distinctions, principles, and, one supposes, on faith.

Since it was he who lost the fight, we ought to come again to the conclusion that people are powerless in the world. In reality, we believe the reverse, and it takes the act of the man in the water to remind us of our true feelings in this matter. It is not to say that everyone would have acted as he did, or as Usher, Windsor, and Skutnik. Yet whatever moved these men to challenge death on behalf of their fellows is not peculiar to them. Everyone feels the possibility in himself. That is the abiding wonder of the story. That is why we would not let go of it. If the man in the water gave a lifeline to the people gasping for survival, he was likewise giving a lifeline to those who observed him.

The odd thing is that we do not even really believe that the man in the water lost his fight. “Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature,” said Emerson. Exactly. So the man in the water had his own natural powers. He could not make ice storms, or freeze the water until it froze the blood. But he could hand life over to a stranger, and that is a power of nature too. The man in the water pitted himself against an implacable, impersonal enemy; he fought it with charity; and he held it to a standoff. He was the best we can do.

January 25, 1982

implacable (Gm-plBkPE-bEl)adj. impossible to calm or satisfy; relentless

Language CoachFrequently Misused Words Reread lines 57–58. Affect is a verb meaning “to influence”: The weather affected her commute. Effect is a noun meaning “a result”: Jimmy’s scolding had no effect on his noisy sister. How is effect used in lines 57–58?

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SYNTAX AND DICTIONDiction refers to the writer’s word choice, and syntax refers to the arrangement of those words. Writers use diction and syntax—important components of voice—to create effects. For example, Rosenblatt uses sentence fragments in line 64 to create drama and emphasis. These fragments slow the reader down and call attention to the ideas they express. The fragments are also parallel, with a repeated grammatical structure that adds to the rhythm of the language and shows that the two subjects—man in nature and man in the water—are equal ideas. Where else in this paragraph do you see repeated diction or syntax? What effect does it create?


RI 4

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After Reading

Comprehension 1. Recall What disaster is described in this essay?

2. Recall How did the anonymous man respond to the disaster?

3. Summarize What eventually happened to the man in the water?

Text Analysis 4. Clarify Rosenblatt defines the struggle between the man and the water in

broad terms. What does the struggle represent?

5. Make Inferences Why do you think Rosenblatt chose to focus on the anonymous man in the water rather than on one of the other three acknowledged heroes of the disaster?

6. Examine Reflective Essay Reflective essays relate a writer’s personal observations to universal ideas. Such essays are loosely structured and may use some of the same narrative techniques that fictional stories do. What would this essay lose without paragraphs 5 and 6 (lines 47–61)? What would it lose without paragraph 7 (lines 62–70) or the final paragraph?

7. Draw Conclusions About the Central Idea Review the chart you completed as you read. What is the central idea of the essay? Cite evidence to support your answer.

8. Analyze Tone A writer’s tone is the attitude that he or she takes toward a subject. It can be described in many different ways, including serious, bitter, playful, or sympathetic. In your own words, describe Rosenblatt’s tone toward the man in the water. Cite specific words and phrases to explain your thinking.

9. Evaluate Opinion Rosenblatt concludes that “we do not even really believe that the man in the water lost his fight [with nature].” Do you agree or disagree with this opinion? Cite evidence to support your answer.

10. Make Generalizations Do you think that most people are capable of acting as heroically as the man in the water? Give examples from the essay and real life to support your opinion.

Text Criticism 11. Critical Interpretations “For me,” Rosenblatt once stated, “the essay is a

continuous search for an answer to a question.” In your opinion, what question did Rosenblatt set out to answer in “The Man in the Water”? Cite evidence to support your interpretation.

Can ordinary people be HEROES?What heroic qualities do you have?


RI 1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support inferences drawn from the text. RI 2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it is shaped by specific details. RI 4 Analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.

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Vocabulary in Context vocabulary practice

Decide whether the words in each pair are synonyms or antonyms.

1. chaotic/ordered 2. emblemized/symbolized 3. flailing/waving 4. implacable/consolable

academic vocabulary in speaking

Part of the significance of the man in the water is that he gave his life to save others. Discuss with a partner how the perspective of this essay would shift if the man had survived the ordeal. Refer to evidence from the text and use at least one Academic Vocabulary word in your discussion.

vocabulary strategy: the latin root placThe word implacable stems from the Latin root plac, which means “to please or soothe.” To understand the meaning of words with plac, use context clues as well as your knowledge of the root.

plac

placid

placeboplacate

implacable

PRACTICE Choose the word from the word web that best completes each sentence. Use context clues to help you, or, if necessary, consult a dictionary.

1. The doctor prescribed a medicine-free pill to satisfy the patient. 2. She gave the crying baby a pacifier to her. 3. His boss was so difficult to please. 4. They lived a , unhurried existence in the mountains.

• consequent • crucial • initial • shift • survive


InteractiveVocabulary

word listchaoticemblemizedflailingimplacable


L 4c Consult reference materials to determine or clarify a word’s meaning or etymology.



InteractiveRevision

Language grammar and style: Write ConciselyReview the Grammar and Style note on page 377. One way Rosenblatt is able to keep his writing concise is by using appositive phrases. An appositive is a noun or pronoun that identifies or renames another noun or pronoun. An appositive phrase, or noun phrase, is made up of an appositive plus its modifiers. By incorporating appositive phrases into your writing, you can convey information about a person or thing in one sentence. Here are two examples from the essay:

Washington, the city of form and regulations, turned chaotic . . . (lines 5–6)Lenny Skutnik, a twenty-eight-year-old employee of the Congressional Budget Office, said . . . (lines 26–28)

Notice how the revisions in blue in the student model use appositive phrases to make the writing of this first draft more concise. Use a similar technique to revise your own writing.

reading-writing connectionIncrease your understanding of “The Man in the Water” by responding to this prompt. Then use the revising tip to improve your writing.

student model

In “The Man in the Water,” Roger Rosenblatt writes about the disaster

that befell Air Florida Flight 90. Roger Rosenblatt is an award winning

author and essayist. The plane was a passenger jet. Unlike an objective

news reporter, Rosenblatt assumes the perspective of the man in the

water. That man was an ordinary American hero.

, a passenger jet

, an award winning author and essayist,

,

YOUR

TURN

Short Constructed Response: Analysis What do you learn in “The Man in the Water” that you would probably not learn in a news report of the same tragedy? Use what you know about reflective essays and narrative techniques to write a one- or two-paragraph response.

Review your response. Have you used appositive phrases to make your writing more concise? If not, revise.

writing prompt revising tip


L 1b Use various types of phrases to convey specific meanings and add variety and interest to writing.


The Man in the Water - Doral Academy Preparatory School · A reflective essay, like most essays,...

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