Week 7: Connections

For my paper I am concentrating on making the connections between the public sphere and how Valentino’s story is being told. “I was almost a soldier, Julian. I was saved by a massacre.” (Eggers 318) In the previous chapter Valentino meets this man Julian, a MRI technician from the hospital. Just like the rest of the book, this chapter describes in great detail how Valentino was almost a solider. He did not want to tell Julian, the American MRI technician of the atrocities that he saw and had to live with everyday. Depending on the Lost Boy, each story is different, and each way one retells it may be different, but with all of the Lost Boys, their stories all have meaning and make them the strong men they are today living in America. Within the chapter about trivialization a reader can find “From a modern perspective, there can only be a single truth about the history of the public sphere: either it’s improving it’s Enlightenment function of promoting equality, justice, freedom and comfort; or it’s getting worse in this function.” (Mckee 64) After making the connections between both books by Eggers and McKee, the promotion of the Lost Boys and Valetino’s story has opened many people’s eyes over the world. This book, along with first hand stories told, is evidence of what is truly happening in Africa. With today’s technological advances such as the Internet, social-networking sites, and instant news reports, we as a whole can educate one another and pass along information we have learned so we are contributing to the public sphere. I want to continue making connections between what seems to be real and what can seem trivial for my final paper.