Im Just Getting To The Disturbing Part By Steven Church Summary

Young children are exceptionally impressionable. They copy their peers, parents, and siblings to learn everything they do. They have overreactions to simple challenges because they have not yet learned how to behave. For a child who experiences a tragedy, the influence can be devastating, and something they can carry with them for their whole lives. Steven Church’s narrative essay “I’m Just Getting to the Disturbing Part” demonstrates human reactions toward a disaster, while expressing the author’s firsthand experience to a tragedy he witnessed as a child by using an ominous text throughout his story. Church’s essay illustrates the basic human nature to help those in need, even when hope appears lost. While swimming with his friends at a nearby lake, Steven Church witnesses an accidental drowning. After a woman …show more content…
Even from the start of his essay, Church gave ominous, foreboding details to the tragedy that was about to occur. The author says “But the lake is a place of sacrifice. What you gain in water, you lose in shade. What you gain in depth, you lose in vision,” (Church, 5). In an interview with Church about his writing, critic Sarah Montgomery writes, “the narrative voice builds intimacy with readers, revealing the author’s [stories],” (Montgomery). Church uses his personal and intimate writing to express the tragedy that he witnessed as a child. By enticing his readers with the foreshadowing at the beginning of the narrative, Church creates an eerie atmosphere that compels his audience. Montgomery also states that Church is often “clear about his fascination with his own encounters” for a subject in his writing (Montgomery). In my opinion, I believe that Church’s connections between his life and his work create the intense tone used to describe the tragedy in “I’m Just Getting to the Disturbing