讀書筆記
讀書心得
I read the article“ The Cockfight” in the book “ The Good Deed”.
An American woman who watched three cock fights during her honeymoon in the Philippines. Combining some small fighting with her husband, she learned: Never give up, when you know the problem!
1） Mary and Bruce Adams married just two weeks. Bruce was the executive of Samson Export Company, his firm wanted him to visit the office in Manila. They had combined a business trip with their honeymoon. They lived in the big old Manila Hotel. This was the first time Mary had traveled farther than California. She wanted to go sightseeing in Manila.
Bruce often cannot find the things he had used. He did not know where are his dark glasses, lost the case and he did not know where are his swimming shorts. He didn’t think it was his fault, he thought taking care of his life is the responsibility of his wife, he said : “what did I marry you for”. He thought there’s no sight better than swimming pool, so he slammed door and went to swim alone.
Mary had a contradictory attitude towards Bruce, she thought he was adorable and hateful. When Bruce had a bad attitude, she was patient as her mother told her, but she felt she was not afraid of him.
Mary insisted to see the scenery。She asked the Hotel manager to engage a car and a responsible driver, she said she wanted to see the city. The driver drove her to see the old Spanish building, Just broken wall now. The driver took her into the Oldest church , a great battered cathedral, and to see Rizal Memorial , Rizal was their national hero, leader against the Spanish conquerors.
2) After visiting Manila city, the driver suggested going to see cockfight. Mary was willing to. The cockfight was forbidden in Manila, It was in Quezeo, half an hour drive. The driver bought two tickets to enter。
A) The first fighting. Two birds. One was big and white, another was little and brown. There were spurs on the legs of both cocks.
Mary thought the big white cock like Bruce. “That strutting head,that bold and roving eyes —a handsome creature, assured of his own ability.” And she liked the little brown cock, ill-tempered. Her mother had said: ‘ Mary was stubborn.’
She bet on the little one! Only bid five pesos .
The small cock, which had begun so bravely, was gave up at last.
B) Next fighting. Two cocks were better matched. She bet on the cock at the right. Neither cock had a comb. The driver told her: ‘comb is easy for pecking and too much blood comes out. So combs are cut off. ‘Mary thought she also need eliminate the vulnerable. ‘Word can never hurt me even from the man I love. ‘
The fight went on until both cocks were near exhaustion Mary thought: perhaps neither will win. The driver said: it is now a question of spirit. Suddenly one cock surrendered. Not the one she had bet on . Her cock was scarcely more alive, but in victory . Now she knew, the point in any battle was never to give up .
Mary told the driver that her husband didn't know she was coming out gambling, the driver advised Mary to go back immediately to avoid her husband getting angry. But Mary said she wasn't afraid of her husband, she wanted to study, she wanted to understand something when she saw the cockfight.
C) The third fighting. One is a beautiful black cock, proud, and the other is a red, mongrel ,dirty cock. not paying attention to other. A stupid little cock, simple mind. Mary bade ten penes on the red cock. She did not care about money. She wanted to know how to win, know the spirit.
The black chicken started attacking, and the red chicken retreated. Black chickens have war experience, red chickens do not! Everyone is betting on the black chicken. The owner of the red chicken also thought he will giving up.
When the black chicken attacked again, the red chicken seemed to understand that the black chicken was attacking it. It began to counterattack. Black cock went into panic and was defeated.
Everyone was quiet, didn't expect the black chicken to lose.
The driver asked Mary: how did you know the small red cock would win? Mary said: “ it would never give up once it knew what the problem was”.
3) When Mary got back to the hotel, the manager greeted her and said: your husband is looking for you, he is not pleased, but to quarrel so soon. Mary said: “I never quarrel. I never give up, once I know the problem”. When she went upstairs to the room, Bruce was there, asked: where have you been? She answered: Out, Seeing Manila.I shall never give up loving you. Bruce said: stubborn Mrs. Simple. And kissed her.
3)I think :
A) One should do what he think it is right, even there are many difficult. One should not do what he think it is wrong, even there are many temptations ! Never give up.
B) A country should persist in resisting aggression from other countries，never give up. .
Discussion Prompts:
3. On deciding to take a tour of Manila, the wife, Mary, tells the guide to take her “everywhere.” Where do they go at first?
5. What seems to be the most exciting part of Mary’s tour?
6. Since cockfighting is ”forbidden” in Manila, Mary and the guide must travel to Quezon, “a city not far away” (175). How does the use of the word forbidden characterize the journey and the cockfight?
story? How would you justify doing so?
11. Are Mary and Bruce believable characters?
12. What is the role of the hotel manager?
13. How effective is the closing scene? What does it suggest to you about the relationshipbetween Mary and Bruce? Has it changed any? Have they?
Cockfighting, which involves “strapping metal spurs to the legs of two chickens and confining them to a pit to fight…to the death,” is now illegal in all fifty states, following Louisiana’s outlawing it in 2007, and since 2019 it has been banned in all territories as well. According to federal law, it is a crime to knowingly sell, buy, possess, train, transport, deliver or receive any chicken across state line for fighting purposes” (Whang 21). This being so, Whang reports that breeding birds in the U.S. has gone underground and the focus is on international cockfighting in Mexico, Vietnam, and Peru, where prized strains of American breeds are in demand. This is true even in those countries where breeding of game fowl is permitted, and buyers come from all over the world. “Thomas Pool… territorial veterinarian in Guam from 2005 to 2022, says that over the last five years more than 11,500 fighting birds were shipped to Guam alone from American game-fowl farms…a thin slice of the entire international trade…” (21).
The responsibility for combating cockfighting now belongs to the states and is exercised in various ways, says Whang: “In seven states the crime is only a misdemeanor, with fines as low as $50, and in Georgia, cockfighting can be prosecuted only indirectly, through laws against animal cruelty. Animal-welfare rights activists often contend that local law enforcement turns a blind eye to cockfighting and that strong state and federal laws, as well as greater public awareness of the problem, are needed …” (21-22).
In 2020, an animal rights organization called Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, led by Steve Hindi, contacted the sheriff of Clinton County, Alabama, regarding a big cock fighting event—The Call to Action BBQ—being organized by the Easterling family of Verbena, Alabama. The sheriff refused to take action, saying that until cockfighting became a federal crime, he could not responsibly spend tax payer money on prosecuting a misdemeanor. In the summer of 2021, tips from Hindi and other animal rights activist organizations connected the Easterlings to international cockfighting, subjecting their activities to federal prohibition. Following a raid of their farm by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, the Easterlings were indicted on several counts and pled guilty to violating the Animal Welfare Act, forcing them to turn over their game fowl to the government, which, in turn, prepared to kill the birds, the usual action taken after the closing of a case following a raid on a game fowl farm. Interestingly, the Easterlings asked the government to consider having the birds “’rehomed,’ or sent to another farm or animal sanctuary, rather than euthanizing them” (25). Several animal sanctuaries agreed to take the birds, and despite some problems regarding vaccinations, the birds were eventually saved.
Patrice Jones, founder of the Vine Sanctuary in Vermont that specializes in rehabilitating game fowl, suggests that “’the unchallenged killing of game fowl reflects our views of roosters in general: the notion that they are natural-born fighters is so prevalent that few people question it….Game-fowl breeders …believe so sincerely that they are allowing these birds to express their natural masculinity—which, of course, is the most toxic masculinity possible….They feel shame when one of their roosters behaves in an evolutionarily sensible manner, by fleeing danger or declining to re-engage a retreating foe….They sincerely believe that an evolutionarily senseless level of aggression is the birthright of these birds and self-righteously reject any evidence to the contrary’” (Excerpted from Jones’ 2010 article in Feminism & Psychology, qtd. by Whang p. 25).
One long-time game-fowl breeder from Texas, Kenny Jack, says that if roosters are left unattended they will seek fights and slash each other with natural spurs… on the backs of their legs. “‘I’ll tell you what’s cruel…What’s cruel and bad is I could just bring them behind the house and leave them. They’ll just destroy each other, smash into pieces’” (Whang 25, 47).Whang suggests that Jack’s support of cockfighting seems to rest on a single claim: “ A game fowl’s purpose is to fight. In short, centuries of breeding have crafted game fowl into aggressive and murderous animals. They were brought into existence for cockfighting. He [Jack] asked me to imagine that chicks at birth have a choice. ‘They could live in that crowded dirty warehouse and die a horribly early death, or they could be a gamecock and live a good life with all that freedom and have a chance to win all that glory,’ he said. After a pause, he added, ‘What would they choose’” (47)?
In answer to Jack, Patrice Jones would say that she is convinced that cockfighters believe sincerely that “’they are the champions of these misunderstood birds, that they are inherent soldiers, and that we [those who work to rehab such birds] are the cruel ones for emasculating them,’” but she insists to the contrary that “‘fighting cocks start to fight because they are afraid.’’’ She notes, for example, that ‘‘’game cocks are separated from their parents and frequently kept in sensory deprivation and social isolation. Their combs are often shaved off, making them less recognizable to one another (and themselves), and they are rewarded for savagely winning fights. They are not allowed to give up….The aggression is learned, not inherent’” (Whang 47). For this reason, she has spent the last twenty years working to introduce rescued game fowl into the community of chickens with great success. Working slowly, speaking in a soothing voice, and smoothing the bird’s feathers, she exposes him for a little longer each time until she can leave him in a crate surrounded by other birds. Using this method, she reports that “’almost [all] of her game fowl have learned to live together without restraints’” (Whang 47).
“George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were devoted rooster fighters. Union and Confederate soldiers put aside their differences on Sundays during the Civil War to pit their chickens against one another. Abraham Lincoln was given the nickname Honest Abe after he displayed impartiality as a cockfighting judge. What ever the (dubious) historical merit of claims like these, they are meant to establish the deeply American identity of game fowl. ‘They fought them right out on the White House lawn,’ says David Thurston, president of the United Gamefowl Breeders Association, a national non-profit dedicated to the birds’ preservation” (Whang 21).
The tension seems to be felt most strongly by the women. The men seem hardly to have registered it, or they feel so secure in the relationship that the possibility of any rift in or challenge to it would never occur to them. In both stories, the wife leaves the hotel and goes out on her own, disappointed in her husband’s indifference. Interestingly, when both women return, their husband’s raise the same question, “Where have you been?” In each instance, the reader knows at least part of the answer to that question for we have been on the wife’s journey and have been privileged to witness the awakenings and insights that will strengthen and secure the marriage.
The more I think about these stories, the more I believe that what the author has given us might be described as mini-bildungsromane, a German word applied to stories, usually novels, in which the hero, most often a young male, receives a kind of education, moral and psychological, as we watch him grow from childhood to adulthood. If you have read Catcher in the Rye, Jane Eyre, Little Women, To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Outsiders, you have read a bildungsroman. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, Buck chooses female protagonists for her two stories, and working within the limitations of the short story genre, sends them on brief journeys that lead to awakenings and fresh insights The adoption of this genre works particularly well, I believe, in “The Cockfight” where the marriage is still in its infancy, and where the learning that takes place is of great importance to the potential life span of this new marriage.