Blog Post 7 & 8

Part One:

The judge went on a rant in his monologue about crime consuming the city, and the Man on Wire was a crime itself. However, the crimes listed by the judge tore the city apart whereas the man on wire united it. All of the criminals: thieves, rapists, members of the mafia committed their crimes with selfish intentions and left their victims either dead or distraught. The man on the wire committed a crime to take his passion to the next level; a passion that left his audience united in awe.

Part Two:

I was really excited to know Tillie, Jaslyn, Corrigan and the man on the wire were in the same courtroom. McCann ended the prologue on a cliffhanger, and I was curious about the significance of the man on the wire throughout the different stories, but now I see they all cross paths in one way or another. When Soderberg finds out he may have the chance to judge the tightrope walker’s trial, he is relieved to finally get a case that doesn’t have to deal with barbarous crime. He had always imagined himself to be a reformer in the court, but he realized he could not change the ineffective system and will have to deal with charging the endless number of criminals. When Soderberg spots the tightrope walker in the line of defendants, he is impressed by his confidence and becomes anxious to hear his case because he knows the city will be watching him. Soderberg rushes through Jaslyn’s and Tillie’s case and judges them from their appearance and behavior. To him, Jaslyn and Tillie are just another pair of criminals he has to deal with every day. Soderberg without knowing anything about Corrigan assumes that he is their pimp. He believes the only reason a white man would be helping prostitutes is for money and does not even consider the possibility of them being friends. Soderberg’s attitude towards the two different crimes shows that he too is fascinated by the tight rope’s walker’s performance and is tired of the crime that puts the city in a bad light.

Part Three:

In the prologue, we encounter a strange man who is walking across a thin cable near the clouds without knowing whether he was able to complete his stunt. That cable is the beginning of a bridge that took us through New York City. As we cross this bridge we are exposed to the cultural prejudice and economic divides in the lives of the characters. However, at the end characters who are at the polar ends of the city and economy are bridged together through loss and fate. As the different backgrounds unite, the city no longer feels so big and divided. The novel ends with Jaslyn’s thought of the world spinning as she lay beside Claire. Although Claire’s life is coming to an end, the clocks keep on ticking, the fan keeps on whirring, and the world keeps spinning.

The bridge that unsettled me at first was the one between Ciaran and Lara. I could not understand how Ciaran can feel an attraction to someone who was involved in his brother’s death. But then I thought maybe he realized that she was genuinely not a bad person. When the two were together, Ciaran saw that Lara did not argue with the guy that hit the back of her car and let him go. She also confessed to him that she was not the one who was driving the car that killed Corrigan, and she attended his funeral. Her ex-husband Blaine was the reason behind her misery. Through his actions, it was easy to tell Blaine did not care about anyone but himself, whereas Lara still held onto her morals.

The bridge between Corrigan and all the people in his life made my heart sing. His heart made room for anyone who wanted space. From a very young age, he gravitated towards the unfortunate and put himself in their shoes to share their burden. After he moves to New York, he does everything he can to help the prostitutes in the Bronx. He even keeps the doors to his apartment open at all times to make sure they have somewhere to go to use the bathroom, rest and eat. Although he vowed to celibacy when he fell in love with Adelita he took good care of her and her children. Corrigan treated everyone in his life with love no matter their actions, social and economic position. Corrigan’s personality is an inspiration for everyone to be compassionate towards one and other. He created a bridge in his world and extended it to everyone else he met.