Gueterson essay Mall of America
...he mall himself to make his own opinion on the mall. He also used his visit to talk to patrons and gather information through personal interviews. After entering the mall Guterson was impressed by the monstrosity of everything inside ( 211). However, he was still convinced it was still just like a regular mall, just on a larger scale. Guterson backs his opinion by presenting facts and statistical information. He starts by showing how the mall is not even a marketplace anymore, but instead a tourist attraction. Native Americans use to travel miles and miles to barter and trade their hand made goods (212). The Persian bazaar would open early and close at sundown (212). The Greek agora was off-limits to those who had been charged with certain crimes (212). All these things no longer hold true for most American marketplaces especially not the Mall of America. This American marketplace is more of like a tourist attraction. The general manager of the mall claims, “there is a shopper in all of us” (213). In the mall there are stores where you can get a picture of yourself put on the body of the muscle man, or you can visit Knott’s camp Snoopy. Camp Snoopy is an indoor amusement park that includes rides and an arcade. Guterson thinks its things like this that make the Mall of America more of an attraction than a place to shop. He goes to say that the scale of the mall eventually overwhelmed him and he was unable to make a purchase (218). However, on of the most convincing ways that Guterson got his point across was through the personal interviews that he conducted while he was at the mall. One of the first people he talked to was a pair of young girls sipping coffee on a bench. What he learned from these girls was how the mall was not safe (215). One of them explained to him how three people had been wounded when shots were fired over San Jose Sharks jacket (215). Both were excited to remind him that this shooting happened ins...