Close Reading: The Case For Optimism by Bill Clinton
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2125031,00.html

In this article, Bill Clinton is striving to inspire and reassure his readers that there is hope. He has a great deal of information to communicate, but needs to come off as approachable and not overly-intellectual.

In the introduction, his tone is informal, "Forget what you may have heard...." (Clinton 40). This diction, with its cheesy, cliched connotations, is more appropriate for telemarketers than a former president. Mr. Clinton is aware that his incredible intelligence and wealth could alienate readers, so he uses this phrase to prove he doesn't take himself too seriously. Later, he describes Haiti as "one of the poorest places on the planet" (Clinton, 40). This alliteration emphasizes the levels of poverty, and the explosive consonants provide a sense of intensity.

The details used in this article are chosen to be easy to understand, and create an emotional impact. Everyone hates when politicians just rattle off a stream of statistics, so Clinton picks the ones that make sense to an average person, "Rwanda has only 633 physicians to treat a population of over 10 million" (Clinton 40). This appeals to our pathos, logos, and ethos. By giving us an exact number rather than a percent, it individualizes the struggling doctors, who obviously cannot take care of 10 million people. The individualization also helps us sympathize with their predicament, and opens us up to have concern for the inconceivable millions who have no access to medical care.

One syntactic pattern used often in this article, is the 'if...then' structure. "If there were no possibility of failure, then there would be no room for success", "If sustainable energy were bad economics, then Costa Rica wouldn't be the richest country in its area" (Clinton, 42). This is very familiar to anyone who has ever studied 6th grade science. Also, this construction is very straightforward. Even if it may seem a little elementary, this repetition is positive because it keeps the concepts clear and logical.

Mr. Clinton keeps his article accessible to readers with friendly syntax and casual diction. He uses strong details to involve the readers emotionally, and not bog them down with too many facts. His use of rhetorical devices is overall excellent.

1982. In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or audience with a scene or scenes of violence. In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work. Avoid plot summary.

        Violence in 'The Help' is used explicitly to draw attention to implicit power struggles and harmful social structures. Violent incidents between generations, races, and genders all show who really has the power and who is forced to live in fear. Aibileen, the protagonist, is a black maid in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962. She observes the violence around herself, and is driven to write a book revealing it all.

    In a beginning scene, Miss Leefolt is speaking on the phone, when her two-year-old daughter pulls out the cord. Then "Miss Leefolt slap Baby Girl on the back of her bare legs so hard I jump from the sting" (Stockett 22). Immediately after, the housekeeper and nanny Aibileen tries to comfort Baby Girl, and she slaps her. This is so much more than an upset child. In the context of the Jim Crow South, this is a synechdoche of the practice where in children learn immoral behaviors from their parents. No child is born racist, but when Miss Leefolt reprimands both her daughter and her maid for an interruption, Baby Girl learns firstly how to treat her own misbehaving daughter someday, and secondly, that Aibileen is partially to blame for the pain her mother caused her.  This violent scene works into Aibileen's frustration with the social situation, and her desire to change things. 

        Aibileen also describes the violent death of her son, Treelore; "One night he working late at the Scanlon-Taylor mill, lugging two-by-fours to the truck, splinters slicing all the way through the glove. He too small for that kind a work, too skinny, but he need the job...He slip off the loading dock...Tractor trailer didn't see him and crushed his lungs for he could move. By the time I found out, he was dead"( Stockett 3). Treelore was an incredibly intelligent young man. The image of 'splinters slicing all the way through the glove' is violent in and of itself, and shows how fierce and unfitting the work was for him. Had he been white, Treelore would be at University on a full scholarship, and never would have needed such a dangerous job. Although indirectly, his violent death was the work of racism and inequality. Aibileen feels this underlying injustice, saying "I just didn't feel so accepting anymore" ( Stockett 3). This experience is important, because it is when she becomes actively discontented with race relations in the south. Also, it puts her in a desperate situation with nothing to loose, which allows her begin a dangerous project. 

        The violence in 'The Help' reinforced the unjust systems which infuriate Aibileen and inspire her to write about the truth in Mississippi. Although indirect, the incidents of violence are connect to racial prejudice and injustice. This gives them powerful meaning in the context of Aibileen's life and struggles in a racist society.

Response to Course Materials - September 9

One concept which stuck with me from our lessons this week is that readers have their own vocabulary. I found the list of words to memorize tedious, until I understood that we need terms like 'paraprosdokian' and 'anaphora', not to sound pretentious, but to make discussions concise and not wrapped up in trying to describe specific literary devices. While taking the terms test, it was very frustrating how multiple terms could apply to one passage. Judging which answer is more right has never been a strong suit of mine. If I can learn to think about the intent of AP questions, it will help me determine which correct answer is more significant. Like the quote from V for Vendetta, 'People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people'; while this is both an anadiplosis and a chiasmus, what is striking about the statement is not the repetition of the word 'government'; it is the parallelism and strong reversal of statements. This helped me understand how to start thinking about AP questions.

Analysis of Me Talk Pretty One Day

Using The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing

David Sedaris writes with a unique and hilarious style. Critics praise his witty, ironic vignettes. Although his writing entertains, is it actually well-written? In the title chapter of his book Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sedaris actively describes his masochistic French teacher, showing us his experiences in her classroom. At times, he struggles to be concise.  The narrative style and unconventional themes gracefully disguise a very traditional construction for this essay; the exposition sets the scene; the ending provides for growth, closure, and future challenges. Acclaimed primarily as a comedian, David Sedaris also knows how to craft a good essay. One might even wonder if he has read Michael Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing.

“While the optimist struggled to defend herself, I scrambled to think of an answer,” (Sedaris 169).  Words like ‘struggled’ and ‘scrambled’ keep a scene incredibly active, considering that the subjects of these verbs are both sitting motionless at stationary desks. The first lesson that Nuts and Bolts teaches us is to ‘always use strong verbs and the active voice’ (Harvey 16). There was purpose and vitality when David “jotted down frantic notes in the margins,” (Sedaris 169). The other part of active voice is to show using active verbs over descriptive or linking verbs (Harvey 15). Where he could have just said ‘it felt sort of humiliating and ironic to be a middle-aged man back in college’, Sedaris gives us a telling example, “I was issued a student ID, which allows me a discounted entrance fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland, a far-flung amusement park that advertises with billboards picturing a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe and eating what appears to be a ham sandwich,” (Sedaris 166). This detail is delightful, and so much more interesting than descriptive verbs like, ‘I felt like I was too old for this’ or ‘it seemed I had traded in my dignity’.

David Sedaris, as well as most of the populace, is prone to rambling. His prose is all in his own narrative voice and, like in a real conversation, he sometimes lacks concision. Nuts and Bolts tells us that this ‘pompous style’ is to be avoided whenever possible (Harvey 3). For example, “As an added discomfort, they were all young, attractive, and well dressed, causing me to feel not unlike Pa Kettle trapped backstage after a fashion show” (Sedaris 167). ‘Causing me to feel not unlike’ - really? - ‘I felt like’ would definitely suffice. And it is obvious from his previously stated feelings of intimidation that their coifed appearances won’t bring him any comfort (Sedaris 167). How about, ‘And of course, they were all young, attractive, and well dressed’. That would keep his ironic tone without the excess syllables. It happens again when he talks about how his fellow students “all left class foolishly believing the worst was over”, and later “surely that was just an act designed to weed out the dead weight”, and in case it’s not clear, “We didn’t know it then, but the coming months would be...” that’s right, just as bad (Sedaris 170). How many times must he reassert that they weren’t expecting more of the same? These are small annoyances, sometimes for the sake of maintaining a genuine voice, but they are nonetheless far from concise.

What distinguishes a short story from a rambling chapter is the beginning and ending. “All good beginnings include a thesis statement, context, and a starting point” (Harvey 78). “At the age of forty-one, I am returning to school,” gives us context and a starting point (Sedaris 166). A thesis statement is meant to explain the main point of a work, and nowhere does Sedaris state ‘I moved to Paris and was traumatized by a sadistic French teacher’. So, he seems to be lacking that, but in prose, as long as the audience stays engaged, maybe it’s okay not to know where the story is going. As far as Harvey is concerned, this beginning is two for three. Looking to the end, an audience wants “a paradoxical quality: a sense of closure combined with a suggestion of new spaces to explore” (Harvey 83). This is where Me Talk Pretty One Day distinguishes itself from jumbled comedy, “The teacher singles me out, saying “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.” And it struck me that for the first time…I could understand every word…The world opened up” (Sedaris 173). He has arrived at the epiphany, and done it in an ironic style that is true to him. The world is just starting to open, and he has so much more to learn of the language, but there is a momentary triumph.

The essay Me Talk Pretty One Day is by no means a perfect example of college writing. David Sedaris is not brief in his narration, and this can be trying. However, it does use action verbs and details to show the reader what the narrator is feeling, rather than saying ‘I felt’, which make the piece an enjoyable read. Personal style and content aside, his essay is well constructed and has a satisfying conclusion.