Andres' Paper

In short, Andres' paper explains why Bob Dylan is the quintessential "stranger." Specifically, in his Andres' paper, he discusses how Dylan's censored and abruptly represented tone in a book that tries to reveal his own feelings to a larger population is indicative of a stranger who is both near and far. Throughout his essay, Andres' seems to indicate how Dylan's description of his many strange idiosyncrasies means that he is treating the reader as someone who is "organically connected" to him. To strengthen his argument, Andres' mentions how Dylan seems to bypass many, many facts in his description of his own life; instead, Dylan opts for incredibly narrow and detailed account of particular moments in his life. Examples of such moments include Dylan's obsession with Woody Guthrie. To heighten that sense of strangeness or abstractness, Dylan after each description of that specific event seems to jump to another possibly completely different event.

If I were writing the paper, as a means of incorporating antithesis, I would talk about Dylan's ability through his songs to speak of the human condition and how this ability is a sign of Dylan's objectivity. On one hand, Dylan is able to create an intimate, sometimes highly confusing, novel. On the other hand, Dylan wrote songs that captured the hearts of a generation - songs that everyone seemed to relate to and impart their own opinions on. In my opinion which might be completely wrong, Dylan's own songs seem to describe those similarities that are recognized by the stranger. These differences are never recognized by any one population because they never travel or spend an extended amount of time in another distinct, unique region. Therefore, Dylan in a more poetic fashion than the other artists describes the common, "more general" similarities that linked all Americans. Evidence of such objectivity is the story Dylan creates when describing his trip up to New York. His story was one that constantly moving (on a train) - most likely with several stops on the way. In doing so, he stops in any one town enough to build an organic connection with them. In addition, his actual story implies the kind of objectivity that Simmel speaks of - A Minnesota Jew that sings American folks songs. Although Dylan's ability to speak in a convoluted fashion as well as speak to the common man are seemingly contradictory thoughts, both are indicative of the farness and nearness of "the stranger."