TOW #13- "Terrorism"

              On an uneventful Saturday morning, I came across a video that popped up on a social media website. Unlike other videos, this one wasn’t about people doing questionable things to follow our society’s standard of being “funny”. It was simply a conversation between a white American and Muslim student, talking about the topic of terrorism during a college class. When the professor told the students that words such as “mercy, peace, and compassion” are mentioned in the Karan 355 times and that Islam is a religion that preaches peace and tolerance, the white American student, just like any other white students would, asked why the world’s most troubled spots were plagued with Islamic terrorism if Islam is a religion that preaches peace. By appealing to logos and pathos, the Muslim student answers this question as well as putting the situation into perspectives.

            The Muslim student starts with the definition of terrorism. Although terrorists are often classified as Muslims who invade different parts of the world to act against other religions, he claims that the world’s biggest terrorists can be the “white superpowers”. He tells the class that everyone around the world knows that the strike of the twin towers killed 3,000 people, but that nobody knows that the bombing of Afghanistan killed more than 15,000 people as 50,000 tons of explosives were dropped onto innocent civilians. The numbers that he presents to showcase his argument stands for itself. It reveals how uninformed people are about the harms that come to the Islamic states from the US and Britain and how dramatized the terrorized events in US can be when comparing the harms that were done of both sides. Then, he continues by stating that overall, 500,000 innocent men, women, and even children were killed in Afghanistan in order to appeal to pathos.

            Finally, when the white student asked, “If Muslims like you feel that way, then why don’t you get out of our country?” he simply replies by saying, “We will… as soon as you promise to leave ours.”

             The Muslim student was effective by appealing to logos and pathos when putting the rest of the students into his perspective when talking about terrorism. I was able to be aware of how uninformed I was and thought his way of portraying his position was very effective.

TOW #12- "The Liar's Club" IRB

            In the memoir ‘The Liar’s Club”, Mary Karr recalls back to when she is seven, experiencing the most traumatic event in her life. Living in Leechfield, one of the “the ugliest towns on the planet”, Karr grew up in poison- infested environment with a family full of violence, dislocation, and fragmentation. During the first half of the book, Karr introduces her mom by describing how she was taken away to a mental institution due to her nervous breakdowns.  With her grandma suffering from cancer and her father becoming an alcoholic, Kerr and her little sister is left neglected and goes from door to door, begging for a meal. By including similes, Kerr displays the emotions she encountered during her brutal childhood experiences as well as her complex thoughts.

            In the beginning of the book, Kerr only has broken pieces of her memory from a tragic event. She can only describe this indescribable moment with similes that help readers grasp her emotions. As she recalls back to when she discovered a fuzzy memory of being assisted out of her house by the police, she says it felt like the moment “a crystal ball that whirls from a foggy blur into focus” (14). Once she can no longer piece her stories back together, she compares her frustration to a ghost and how “like the smudge of a bad word quickly wiped off a school blackboard, the ghost can call undue attention to itself by its very vagueness” (25). With the use of similes, Kerr displays her complex emotions as well as her inner conflicts.

            It is undeniable that Kerr’s use of figurative language, such as simile, makes her memoir dramatic, portraying the great warmth and pain that built her strong sense of self. The gritty eloquence of her voice incorporated in her similes gave me vivid pictures and left me speechless.

TOW #11- “It’s Going to be Just Turned Around”

                As evidently shown in this political cartoon, this image depicts the American’s favor in changing the immigration law. From my background knowledge, I know that during the 1920s, Communism was expanding in different countries and that Americans feared the effects of having immigrants over: terrorists bombing their cities, foreign workers killing their land owners, and the expand of communism. Through the use of juxtaposition and appealing to logos, the artist proposes her though in order to change the present immigration law.

                Through juxtaposition, the artist clearly states what he is in favor of and what he isn’t. Using funnels that face the opposite direction, it makes it even more obvious that he wants to turn the immigration law around 180 degrees. One other difference in the two pictures is the white, dusty smoke. The smoke that is on the top left, surrounding the New York City shows not only the chaos, but the 40 bombs that harmed and threatened the Americans, essentially creating a negative bias toward the immigrants. The smoke on the right, showing the open end of the funnel shows the mess that is disturbing the peace in the United States. People are unrecognizable and their bags are carelessly thrown in the air. On the bottom right picture, however, the foreigners are patiently waiting until it is their turn to be selected and meet the requirements before they are allowed into the United States. There is no smoke on both ends of the funnel, which represents peace, and people are recognizable, walking in an organized order. This shows a logical reasoning as to why their immigration law should be changed and to show that it is the most rational solution to the problem.

                Evans uses juxtaposition as well as appealing to logos in order to portray his thought on the present immigration law. I think that the artist was successful as I was able to understand what he was in favor of with just a little bit of background information.

TOW #10- "What are Masterpieces and Why are There so Few of Them?"

           Written in the 1900s, during the time of the great depression, this controversial piece of literature reminds us of the time when the Americans, including Stein, believed that they could no longer be inspired to create masterpieces. In the Essay “What are Masterpieces and Why are There so Few of Them,” Stein displays her opinion on what builds a masterpiece. Through the use of ambiguous sentence structures and repetition, Stein intrigues the readers’ curiosity to get to her purpose in explaining what a masterpiece is, isn’t, and why there are so few of them.

            Stein’s style of writing ignores the rules of grammar and sounds as if she is directly speaking to the audience. However, Stein purposely manipulates her words to display the exact mess of thoughts on why there are very few masterpieces: “I’m I because my dog knows me but, creatively speaking, the little dog knowing that you are you and your recognizing that he knows, that is what destroys creation” (Stein, 131).  This ambiguous sentence structure shows how ironically, clarity on one’s identity consequently make one remember themselves and fail to produce originality, a masterpiece.

            In addition to his unique style of language, Stein continuously repeats words and phrases to emphasize the negative effect of over thinking. By stating that “Remembering is never clear [because it] makes secondary writing [when] one begin[s] to write something and suddenly remember something. If [that person] continue[s] to remember, [the] writing gets very confused” (130). This shows the difference between pieces and masterpieces and how it requires one to avoid labeling and limiting their possibilities on their creations.

            Overall, I don’t think that Stein’s devices are effective, because even though they were insightful and deep, the purpose got lost in the complex ideas that he wanted to share. However, her way of approaching the readers was unique, one of the qualities of having a masterpiece.

TOW #9- “President Obama Offers a Statement on the Attacks in Paris”

            Dozens of people fell to the pools of blood, escaping from the cries that filled the Bataclan Theatre, where gunmen fired towards the crowd of innocent French civilians. In an instant, families were torn as they held onto the motionless bodies of their loved ones. Bombing and shooting up six different places in France simultaneously, terrorists left over three hundred people either killed or injured. On November 13^th, President Obama delivered a statement on behalf of enraged Americans in a conference, where he appealed to pathos to imply his strong desire to support and assist the French government in their war against the terrorist groups.

            His anger aroused by the injustice he witnessed occur in France, Obama uses pronouns such as “we” and “us” as evident in the quote, “This is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share” (para 1,2) in order to morally justify U.S. plans of helping France in the process of seeking justice. He also recalls back to how America has “gone through those kind of episodes ourselves” and could “count on the French people to stand with us” (para, 5) in order to help U.S. citizens remember to give back to France for what they’ve done for us. To emphasize their unity in power, Obama portrays the two nations as victims of terrorist attacks and portrays his strong compassion for the families and friends in Paris, whose lives are now forever changed.  

            For me, the speech was effective, because I wanted to join Obama in offering our condolence to France throughout the speech. Through his appeal to pathos when emphasizing the values the people of U.S. and France share, Obama powerfully depicts his supportive stands.

IRB intro post #2- "The Liars' Club"

The memoir "Liars' Club" by Mary Karr, is a story of Karr's dark childhood that consisted of growing up under an alcoholic father and a neglectful mother. The catastrophic events that she describes makes it hard to believe that this book is a true story. I chose this memoir, because I was intrigued by the narrative tone and small flashbacks that are told in between stories, which reveals the author's humorous tone. Despite the hardships, Karr reveals the conquering of her past and the discovering of the future.

TOW #8- “The Soloist” (Part 2)

            With an ambition to change Ayer’s life, Lopez continues to convince Nathaniel to stay at Lamp, a facility center that could protect him and his instruments. Due to Nathaniel’s lack of trust in doctors who work in Lamp, Lopez struggles to make progress in Nathaniel’s life until Peter Snyder offers free music classes to Nathaniel. Once Nathaniel settles down in the facility, Lopez begins to search for Nathaniel’s lost sister and father to reconnect the three of them. However, when Nathaniel reads all the articles that Lopez has written about him, he is furious and demands Lopez to stop helping him. Lopez is left with a crushing disappointment and a recognition of the limit that has been imposed by the severe disorder of schizophrenia. In order to portray his hopeless defeat against Nathaniel’s condition, Lopez includes repetition of inappropriate diction in the memoir, “The Soloist”.

            Lopez’s dream is broken when Nathaniel yells, “I don’t have to stay in this stinking town that I absolutely motherfucking hate. I despise Los Angeles. I despise you!” (Lopez, 258). The strategic diction creates a sense of frustration that Lopez feels when realizing that even though his column audiences praise him for his actions, Ayers will never be capable of acknowledging Lopez for his guidance or seek help to get treatment for his schizophrenia. Not only that, but Lopez, as an author includes the repeated sentence, “get out”, spoken by Nathaniel to build up the tension that is present in the atmosphere. Nathaniel’s harsh diction in response to Lopez’s articles is what makes this text portray Lopez as a failure in his battle against Nathaniel's schizophrenia.