TOW #20 - Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disaster, and Survival (Anderson Cooper) Part I

In his memoir titled, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disaster, and Survival, Anderson Cooper, a journalist having mostly worked with CNN, recounts the many times that he has been on the scene of, as the title says, war, disaster, and the struggle of people for their survival within these conditions. Writing in order to provide a new first person perspective of these major events to readers, Cooper was inspired to create his memoir after Hurricane Katrina. He is able to provide this perspective through his employment of similes and intense and emotional imagery.

Within the section of the text focusing on Hurricane Katrina, Cooper notes that, “I’ve continually volunteered to report on hurricanes. It’s not just the storm itself that I find compelling, but also the hours before and after.  There is a stillness, quietness.  Stores are shut, homes boarded up.  In many ways it feels like a war zone” (Cooper 125).” By comparing the time before and after a major storm, such as Hurricane Katrina, to that of a warzone, Cooper is able to show the reader the many ways that these events can affect a community, beyond what most people may see on a surface level. For those living within a region hit by such a powerful storm, life seems to come to a screeching halt, with everything being closed down. As a result, nothing happens, everyone takes shelter and waits. This is eerily similar to how people must react when they may find themselves in the midst of a war. Without Cooper’s writing, many people may have continued to see major storms as simply a major physically destructive force, not one that also affects the lives of many.

Continuing with this idea and Hurricane Katrina, Cooper goes on to tell the reader that. “It’s easy to get caught up in all the excitement, easy to forget that while you are talking on TV, someone is cowering in a closet with their kids, or drowning in their own living room” (Cooper 127). The words that Cooper delivers to the reader are grim in a bone chilling sense. His statement of imagining someone drowning within their own living room is horrifying and it continues to provide that sense of perspective that most people lack. For most, a storm is something that they will read about on their computer or phone in the comfort of their own home, safely. However, they will not understand the complete devastation that it offers to the people that are actually there. Cooper is able to provide this painful image to the reader in order to create this new idea, perhaps as an effort to motivate people to assist those in need in any way that they can.
Overall, I do believe that Anderson Cooper has effectively been able to accomplish his purpose in creating a new sense of perspective in his readers. I now think of events such as major storms as more than just something that can devastate the environment, but the lives of the very people living within it as well.