Pulitzer Analysis

The article i looked at was "I Saw It. Then I Saw Nothing." by Daniel Henninger.
When I first started reading the article i was some what put off by the writing style of Henninger. I was not a big fan at all of him using "I saw" five times in the opening paragraph. It reminded me of Jr. High writing.
"I saw the airliner at the instant it hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. A little later I saw the flames burst out of the south tower when the second airliner hit it. I saw people fall from the top of the World Trade Center. I saw the south tower fall down. A little later, I saw the north tower fall down."

He did do a much better job at describing the scene of the city. He told us of the World Financial Center buildings and said that they sat in the shadow of the WTC towers. I also enjoyed reading how he liked to come in on the bridge everyday and see the buildings and the Statue of Liberty.

Henninger used internal dialogue when he writes, "Quicker than these words can convey, my mind said: I think I just saw the wing of an airliner below the top of the Trade Center." It is obvious it was internal dialogue for the simple fact that he said his mind said it. When it comes to 9/11, it is interesting to know what people were thinking when they saw the planes crash into the WTC.

When I was reading this article, the paragraph that stood out the most was this one,
"For awhile, aside from the flames and smoke, it was oddly uneventful. Sometimes windows would fall off the building and float down; sometimes a piece of smoking debris would arc downward. Then people started jumping off."
I always thought that after the first plane hit, it was caos everywhere. But to hear that it was "uneventful" surprised me. But as soon as he said "Then people started jumping off," you know the real truama of it all was beginning. I could really picture this paragraph when i read it. It set the scene with description of what was falling of the building at first, and then talking about the people jumping really added to it. This paragraph could also go under the "Dramatic Action" category in Notes on Narratives b/c it caused me to think and feel.

In this paragraph, "Now we were all running away, hard, because the smoke, about 40 stories high, was racing outward, toward us and all of lower Manhattan. My editorial-page colleague Jason Riley told me later that he got caught in the first collapse's fallout. He couldn't run faster than the smoke and crawled under a van to avoid the debris. But he started choking and his eyes were burning and the air had turned black. He said he thought the van would move and kill him. He banged on the van's window and they let him in. Then they opened the door to let two other guys in, and the van started filling with floating debris and smoke. He got out and cops were telling people to "make for the water." Jason headed toward the Brooklyn Bridge, and made it across."
I really liked the way he wrote Chronologically. It was as if i was watching a movie playing in my mind when i read it. It all moved a long very smoothly.This paragraph was also the only sign of external dialogue, but it worked for this article that there wasn't much external dialogue.

Over all, I'm glad i continued reading this article, even though i did not like how it was started.