I Am Going to Die if I Keep Living the Way I Am

I denne study guide kan du få hjælp til at analysere artiklen “‘I Am Going to Die if I Keep Living the Way I Am.’ She Was Right” af Beth Macy, som har været brugt til en skriftlig eksamen i Engelsk A på STX fra den 20. maj 2019. Udover analysehjælpen kan du finde et summary af teksten samt idéer til din diskussion.

Præsentation af teksten

Titel: “‘I Am Going to Die if I Keep Living the Way I Am.’ She Was Right.” (2018)
Forfatter: Beth Macy
Genre: Artikel

Beth Macy er journalist og forfatter. Hun har udgivet tre fagbøger, herunder bestselleren Factory Man. Macy arbejdede tidligere for lokalavisen The Roanoke Times, men skriver i dag for The New York Times.

Hendes journalistiske arbejde har især fokus på den såkaldte opioid crisis i USA, hvilket vi også tydeligt ser i artiklen “‘I Am Going to Die if I Keep Living the Way I Am.’ She Was Right”, som beskriver de frygtelige menneskelige konsekvenser af krisen gennem en personlig historie.

Uddrag

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Headline

The headline of Beth Macy’s article “‘I Am Going to Die if I Keep Living the Way I Am.’ She Was Right.” contains a quotation from the person the text is focused on, the young woman Tess Henry.

When readers first see the title, it sparks curiosity as we are immediately told that the story will deal with a death, and that this death had even been predicted by the person who died. We thus get the sense that the story will be a tragic tale of someone whose lifestyle or recklessness ended up being fatal.

However, upon reading the story we discover a slight twist, as we learn that Tess was not directly killed by an opioid overdose - as might have been expected for someone in her situation - but was rather brutally murdered because her life as an addict placed her in an exposed position. Moreover, the article suggests that Tess’s death is not the fault of her recklessness or poor choices, but the fault of a systemic failure by the medical system (which created her addiction and then failed to support her to a cure), her family, and government policies.