Philip Roth

Roth writes with a rhythm that maintains the fluidity of his prose throughout this passage, and works an emphatic signifier upon his digression from the beat of his language.

'And how did this affect him-the glorification, the sanctification, of every hook shot he sank, every pass he leaped up and caught, every line drive he rifled for a double down the left-field line? Is this what made him that staid and stone-faced boy? Or was the mature-seeming sobriety the outward manifestation of an arduous inward struggle to keep in check the narcissism that an entire community was ladling with love?'

'every line drive he rifled for a double down the left-field line?'

'the glorification, the sanctification'

'of every hook shot he sank'

'made him that staid and stone-faced boy?'

Each of these lines evokes a rhythm; Roth employs the repetition of stress to construct patterns of sounds and images in his prose, each one feeds into the next and elicits a new rhyme or beat. While 'sanctification' and 'glorification' rhyme, the use of assonance and alliteration in 'hook shot he sank' maintains the beat of the passage, proceeding the rhyme.

As Roth digresses into a social statement, loosening his aggrandizement of the community's glorification of 'the swede,' to make an analytical observation, he changes the beat of his prose.

'Or was the mature-seeming sobriety the outward manifestation of an arduous inward struggle to keep in check the narcissism that an entire community was ladling with love?'

This sentence diminishes the poetic formalism of the previous lines and evokes a sense of analytical realism that contemplates the fears, insecurities, and anxieties of the era on which Roth writes.

His solid construction of rhythms emphasizes the absence of the poetic in a recollection that reads more soberly than nostalgic.

The Uncanny

Freud's writing exemplifies rhetorical establishment of not only a literary argument, but it's relevance to the writer. He validates his argument and in doing so legitimizes his authority to approach the subject.

Trivializing the scope of subjects related to the 'uncanny' as an aesthetic theory, Freud then distinguishes the 'qualities of feeling' that aesthetic evoke as particularly relevant to psychoanalysis and his field of expertise. Using a cartographic language, Freud evokes the sense of the psychoanalyst as an explorer of the substratum that exists beyond the ostensible discourse of aesthetic theories. He refers to the 'qualities of feeling' the sensory aspect of aesthetics as a 'province' of the subject, one which he in his position is particularly apt to consider; and 'the uncanny' is but a remote and seldom explored province of aesthetic 'strata.'

Freud's essay instills in the reader a sense of author's authority.

On the Double and it's relation to Conrad:

From what I infer of this passage, the double is an archetypal figure derived from the disregard of ourselves -qualities or conceptions of ourselves misplaced- which for good or bad, we have declined to embrace and instead project upon others. The uncanny effect is occurs in the recognition of these qualities, or our rediscovery of them in others.

Sir Walter Scott

In the twelfth grade I did a local theater production of A.R. Gurney's 'The Dining Room,' a vignette style dramatic comedy about the decline of the 20th Century W.A.S.P. society in America. There's a climactic sequence I remember, some white guy has slapped another white guy because Jesus Christ and Buddha Too, a rumor's abound that white guy one might be gay. [Hence appropriately the 'slapping'] As one white guy is carried off to the hospital, at the sequences' conclusion, his wife follows shortly with her white sons and calls to one of them, "Meet us at the doctors, bring a book, a long book, bring Ivanhoe."
I didn't get it. Now I get it.
It's easy to put Sir Walter Scott in a box, his interpretation of the lower class is not quite PC by contemporary standards, but I think his narrative approach is more irrelevant that irreverent. Meaning that I think Scott's commentary on the working classes, which may seem a tad demeaning is unintentionally so; In fact I think that Scott's narrative may be trying to romanticize the 'Drover class,' rather than convey the negative a portrayal that, today, reflects more poorly on Scott than the Drover.
His descriptions appeal to nature and the 'natural' qualities of the class system: certainly a romantic motiffe. But unfortunately, today his analogical language and alluisons to the drovers place amongst the 'herds' seems more like an elitist appeal to animalism than the beauty of nature.
"For the Highlander, a child amongst flocks, is a prince amongst herds, and his natural habits induce himt o disdain the shepherds slothful life, so that he feels himself nowhere more at home than when following a gallant drove of his country cattle in the character of their guardian."

Ok so not much need for explanation. His writing is very thoughtful, but lacks the critical thought to which modernism (particularly realism) appeals. 'A child amongst flocks' is a nearly biblical imagef Scott manages to convey without explicity allusion. 'Country cattle in the character' is a smooth use of alliteration, and the passage as a whole is rhetorically sound. Sir Walter Scott is a very good writer and clearly a thoughtful one.
However, his to his great unfortunance, modern readers will have a difficult time overlooking the dated ideals that resonate throughout almost every paragraph of his prose.

Mere Anarchy

Woody Allen evokes the voice of a neurotic film noir character. His eclectic syntax juxtaposes a dialogue of words like 'ratiocination' 'crepuscular' and 'astringent' with a more simple 'telling' not showing descriptive language. He contrast literary allusions and pop-culture references. Ultimately Allen evokes a high-middle style.

more on this later............

CON-JUNG-RAD

Joseph Conrad's The Secret Sharer uses a suspensive and elaborately metaphysical style to envelope the reader's conscience in the narrator's struggle. The circumstances and conflict that constitute and provoke the narrative structure, the story's suspensive arch, -a young captain encounters and reconciles with his literal double - coincides with the narrator's internal struggle to achieve confidence and understanding of his self. Symbolic language characterizes Conrad's abstract narration, but his suspensive style pulls the reader into soul of the character. As we read The Secret Sharer, readers become Secret Sharers, for they like the double, have partaken in a discourse of the narrator's inner-most insecurities.

'I saw the straight line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one on each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward journey.'

Everything that needs to be said about the ensuing events Conrad here says. The character is on a homeward journey, and at this point in his story he feels divided. Duplicity pervades the introductory paragraph. The flat shore corresponds to the stable sea, but both are still and stagnant under the dome of the sky. His symbolic language utilizes the cosmic to express the workings of the subconscious. Conrad's own Christian cosmology also resonates in his depiction of the narrator's soul. A trinity is formed between the land, the sea, and the overarching sky: father, son, and holy spirit, perhaps corresponding to the ego, super-ego, and id.

Conrad is very likable because his stories often explain the internal in terms of the external. He writes in a mythological style that consciously abstracts the inner struggles and realizations of his characters.

The European Dilema and The future belongs to Islam

In 'The European Dilemma,' Stephen Holmes uses the coinciding work of two separate authors as a catalyst for opening his own discussion about the future of Islam in Europe. Holmes' writing is mostly a critical juxtaposition of the two text in which he allows the reader to infer what possible significance the contrast and correlations may have. He pulls the works together by posing rhetorical questions that link the theories of each author. For example on page two when Holmes' has explicated a point made by Ian Burma, he transitions to a common theme addressed by the second author of his subject, Ayaan Hirsi, with the question 'Why have many Islamic immigrants failed to integrate successfully in countries such as Holland?'

In this way Holmes balances his review between the two authors and involves the inference of the reader in his comparison.

As a political piece, and not merely a review of two political works, Holmes' comparison implies a message: that there is a polarization between Islamic Europeans and the rest of secular Christian Europe. Rather than arguing his point, Holmes' implies it as a working assumption of his entire article; readers accept its reality as they read the headline, before they even begin considering the two text Holmes uses to reinforce his constructed theory.

Mark Steyn's 'The future belongs to Islam' is a far more explicitly political piece. Steyn's prose is dynamic and written to enforce his point, and his point is this:

'Age + Welfare = Disaster for you;

Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way.'

This excerpt, an abstract breakdown of the factors at play between the new wave Islamic Europeans and the White Europe of old, exemplifies the immediacy of Steyn's thesis and his stylistic argument. Much of Steyn's writing is hypotactic, he argues that the sum of contemporary conditions in Europe is the Islamic tension he portrays. He constructs an argument in which the situation in Europe is a developing equation, and each of the issues at hand -age, history, racial tensions- are each factors increasing the inevitable.

Paste

Henry James writes suspensive narrative sentences in a cumulative-periodic style. Though each individual sentence does not end with the punch of a periodic narration, the suspensive style of each sentence cumulates into a transition for the proceeding sentence: using sharp transitional punctuation, James forms narrative intervals between the long stretches of suspensive narration, allowing his reader to take a breath from the heavy narration. In these passages James' own voice, that of an eloquent observer, becomes most apparent.

"Our young woman found that she had done with the children, that morning, with a promptitude that was a new joy to them, and when she reappeared before Mrs. Guy this lady had already encircled a plumb white throat with the only ornament, surely, in all the late Mrs. Prime's -the effaced Miss Bradshaw's - collection, in the least qualified to raise a question."

Despite the heavy use of narration, James' own authorial voice rarely reveals itself. His telling, though intricate, is very plain: it is without much interpretation from the narrator himself.

Instead, James' voice is expressed through the reactions of characters to developing dynamics within each sequence. In his description of Charlotte's rushing the children's lessons he writes that she dismisses them with a ' promptitude that was a new joy to them.' Here Joyce observes and interprets for the reader a sequence he deemed worthy of note, but unworthy of further development. The use of an explicitly authorial 'telling' voice is to construct a transition, moving the action of the plot forward without further delay; so despite James' slow, suspensive style, his choice here shows a decisive discipline. His narration is a deliberate portrayal, constituted by a formulated composition of plot elements. Therefore despite the running together of ideas, as each sentence subject seems indefinably suffused to the next, James' style is periodic, and his plot emanates a series of well systemized stylistic choices.

I appreciate Montaigne, and so should you.

If anyone asks what I did tonight, I'll tell them, 'I read Montaigne.'
'Hmmm,' they might say, 'that's really great.'
'Yes I'd say so, it was very great' I would say.
If a bold inquierer so dares to queery, "On what?"
'Hmmm?'
"Montaigne on what, what was he writing on?"
"Oh, uh; he was writing on some verses of Virgil" I'd snap.
Because honesty is the best policy, and if anyone asks I would tell them the truth: Tonight I read Montaigne on Virgil.
What I got out of this.........................................................
Somewhere elluded me.

I really do like Montaigne. I've read him before, he's really not SO difficult to keep up with, translations varying, but his style opposes the assumptions that any modern reader brings to a text. We often associate precision with concision, but montaigne's sentences each contain an exhausting anatomical correctitude. An occasional fragment would be cathartic for the Montaigne reader, instead his heavy punctuation weighs down his prose and encumbers the eyelids of his readers.
Not that it's bad -his writing- it's brilliant, but it opposes the standards of contemporary lit, in way incomparable even to the dry, dense sentences of some modernist like James and Joyce.

"Pleasure is a quality of very little ambition: it thinks itself rich enough of itself without any addition of repute; and is best pleased where most retired. A young man should be whipped who pretends to a taste in wine and sauces; there was nothing which, at that age, I less valued or knew; now I begin to learn; I am very much ashamed on`t; but what should I do? I am more ashamed and vexed at the occasions that put me upon`t. `Tis for us to dote and trifle away the time, and for young men to stand upon their reputation and nice punctilios; they are going toward the world and the world`s opinion; we are retiring from it: "Sibi arma, sibi equos, sibi hastas, sibi clavam, sibi pilam, sibi natationes, et cursus habeant: nobis senibus ex lusionibus multis, talos relinquant et tesseras;" the laws themselves send us home. I can do no less in favor of this wretched condition into which my age has thrown me, than furnish it with toys to play withal, as they do children; and, in truth, we become such. Both wisdom and folly will have enough to do to support and relieve me by alternate services in this calamity of age:
"Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem."


-In the preceding passage Montaigne establishes a truism. Then he draws it out. Then he relates it to himself. Then he draws it out.

His style is not flawed, relative to the era it may have been revolutionary (I really don't know). The thesis of his paragraph 'Pleasure is a quality of very little ambition' may have, in Montaigne's age, seemed like a cutting edge observation rather than a grandfather's parable; but today the reader expects more relation to the immediate.
Montaigne has by no means lost relevance, his place in the canon, his work as a leg of the pedestol on which the great writers of all time stand, is by no means ephemeral. However, the approach that readers take montaigne has changed. We're not reading for content but analysis, not of his substance but his style.

Marx-Engels

"A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies."

Marx utilizes a suspensive series of juxtapositions that simultaneously evoke a sense of the immediate and the universal. His subject transcends rank, conviction, prejudice and -most essentially- generation barriers. His cause seems timeless, but suddenly contemporary. Yet the 'subject,' his 'cause' may well evade most readers, for the stylistic power of Marx's writing, it's sensory effect on the ear, contains it's interminable substance.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

Very eloquent language, the loose alliteration of 'patrician and plebian,' the rhythmic, assonance of the opposing terms 'guild-master and journeyman,' all promote the illustrious tone of Marx's message; regardless of what that message actually says.

I think the lasting quality of Marx's work as the premier statement of Communist ideas may derive from his tone. Surely there were other great and similar political theorists scribing their quarrels in illustrious statements throughout the 19th century, but Marx explicitly establishes his notions as an expression of the ages; as a truism, relatively adaptable to any era. And his language, his grandiose style of statement, exudes the romance of an oration in antiquity. Leftist of the twentieth century may have idealized the revolutionary content of Marx as rhetoricians of the thirteenth century held Cicero on a pedestal.

Well I have read the wrong text for this weeks post. Assuming that the first link I saw was our assignment, I read 'A Good Man is Hard to Find.'

Working on Marx and Ben's piece now.

Hopefully I'll have something written by tonight.

Sherwood Anderson

Much of Anderson's 'Winesburg, Ohio' expresses the decline of expression in urban-industrialized America. His language throughout the novel, common and plain, reflects this struggle to articulate the inexpressible: qualities of the human condition.

I think the writing comes out of an era in which philosophy art are becoming increasingly indifferent to the masses. There's not a lot that the average hotel can get out of 'Ulysses.'

Anderson is writing about the human condition, to give a voice to the general proprietors of that disposition: the common people, struggling in the factories to maintain the economy that supports those French critics who would embrace the novel as an early work of humanist realism.

Simplicity is key in this text. Not simplicity as a reductionist technique, to qualify the general public as a sad brewing lot of helpless ignorants subject to the great capitalist machine, but simplicity as an expression of the most rudimentary forms of human catharsis.

"The windows of the house were high and he wanted to look at the trees," Anderson says of the writer.

That he bothers to record this motive exemplifies Anderson's interests in the story. He is not interested in bemoaning the condition of the old writer, and obviously sympathetic character; instead Anderson intends to portray the consistency of his character: The subtle intuitive drives that compose 'the writer''s motivations, convictions, and general humanity.

Anders on is interested in the intuitive not the cerebral.

"The grotesque" are abstractions, Anderson does not interpret or project some great meaning onto the nearly prophetic manifestations of the writer's unconscious, instead he portrays them as a spectacle. Each grotesque is treated with a visceral but delicate measure of perception by Anderson. He is a master of constructing these abstractions without reckoning through any reductive interpretation.

I love this story.

More on this tomorrow.

Where a more traditional author may approach dialogue and discourse as a means of connecting plot elements, Hemingway disregards regards plot for discourse, preferring to examine the dynamic of a relationship conflict rather than its circumstantial context. His dismissal of description emphasizes his choice of included details, implying that each of these rare glimpses into the narration's setting and scenery contains a signifier that relates the author's thesis: Hemingway's purpose in recording the conversation of a couple over drinks.

The waitress' character most lucidly exemplifies my statement on the Hemingway style: a relational examination of 'the surface,' of circumstance.

Though the waitress is only a brief presence, an analysis of her portrayal will serve as a template for my examination of Hemingway's style. Without any political, moralizing, or sentimental statement about the 'subservient disposition of the working class,' Hemingway chooses to portray the character of 'the woman' as she is referred. 'The woman' receives no description. Her role within the action of the story is merely to serve the drinks that induce the two central character's dialogue. However, without consciously constructing her character, readers are left with a distinct impression of her demeanor.

Here 'the man' addresses the waitress, then he digresses to ask 'the girl':

"The woman came out from the bar.

'Four reales.' 'We want two Anis del Toro.'

'With water?'

'Do you want it with water?'

'I don't know,' the girl said. 'Is it good with water?'

'It's all right.'

'You want them with water?' asked the woman.

'Yes, with water.'

The waitress' presumption when she ask her question a second time, 'You want water with them?' interrupting 'the girl's' slow indecisive dialogue, reveals the entire mode of the waitress' routine. Hemingway's portrayal of this interaction with customers, not snappy but to the point, evokes a premier impression of 'the woman,' a portrait of a character that transcends the imagery of dispassionate description or a sentimental inquiry. She is not cute and perky; she is not new to the job and taciturn; she is not wise and patient; she is middle aged, not particularly attractive, not particularly unattractive -perhaps slightly over weight, but only slightly- she's worked in restaurant's before, but not this particular one long enough elicit sense of proprietorship, and she probably has a few kids and thick eye brows.

This I imagine when I read the text. I infer it as a reader. I construct this fluent visage of a character despite the author's decline to describe her. It is my interpretation of an excerpt from Hemingway's 'Hills like White Elephants,' and as the author Hemingway delegates his readers with a unique capacity to maintain their own interpretation of the text. He does this with paratactic prose, but through emphasis on specific details, Hemingway manipulates the ostensibly paratactic language into a hypotactic, linear structure that reveals plot.

Perhaps here lies the great secret of Hemingway prose; that each reader maintains their own personal, fabricated impression of the naked plot elements that Hemingway lays in print before them.

Christopher Durang

"Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You" exemplifies the dichotomy of irony; perhaps the most classic theatrical theme, if not merely an archaic motif, the inextricability of tragedy and comedy resonates through Christopher Durang's comic investigation of parochial contradiction.

That's a heck of a high style statement. What I mean, to speak more colloquially (a high style adjective for lower/middle style writing language), is that Durang's funny play is funny because it's also kind of sad, and also very true. Durang humorously exploits contradictions of biblical proportion, but ultimately investigates the grotesques of contradictions within Sister Mary Ignatius herself.

Though at first a cliche caricature of Catholic school repression, whose attributes consists of firm convictions and a pocket of cookies, a darker side of Sister Mary Ignatius's reveals itself as the character develops. These are the qualities that torture her students, the strict prejudices that she expresses through a dogmatic doctrine: Her dehumanizing treatment of even her favorite student Thomas (who she quizes for treats), her consistent mention of Sodom and Gomorrah to characterize homosexuality, and the strictly sober way in which she accounts for the crucifixion of christ as "nice of him" without any sense of irony. Each of these humorous aspects of the Durang's play contains a dark polarity, and this dichotomy characterizes the inner conflicts of Sister Mary Ignatius herself.

I have a difficult time writing critically about a dramatists' prose. Plays, consisting mostly of dialogue, give very little insight into the voice of the author himself. However, Durang's mastery of irony reveals his objective style, and he is always conscious of the character.

Dry September

Unlike a great deal of southern authors, Faulkner does not restrict the subject of his work to racism; rather, he portrays racism and the violence it propagates as the central conflict within a larger scheme of injustices and immoralities that plague southern society. Throughout 'Dry September' Faulkner exemplifies his depiction of the structurally iniquitous south. A rich range of sentence structures and consistent correlation of thematic imagery characterize his style and ultimately condemn a culture.

A darkly colorful suspensive sentence opens the narration and sets an immediately tense tone. "Through the bloody September twilight, aftermath of sixty-two rainless days, it had gone like a fire in dry grass - the rumor, the story, whatever it was." Even at the end of this long suspensive modifier Faulkner maintains the ambiguity of his subject, the "rumor" or "story." "Something about Miss Minnie Cooper and a Negro." Faulkner does not explain the 'something,' instead he employs the social inference of his reader. Obscurity is perhaps the signature 'Faulknerian;' the incapacity of characters and readers alike to determine what is 'known' or certain about the conditions of the narration. The continuity of any certainties in a Faulkner story is constantly skewed by the shifting perspectives of the narration. Hence the central plot catalyst in 'Dry September', a potential rape or mere harassment, maintains its ambiguity throughout the work. Despite all apparent evidence and the conjectures of readers, Faulkner never explicitly clarifies the accusations against Will Mayes or even the fate of Mayes himself.

Faulkner's most explicit expression of his own views resounds through the thematic correlation of the subtle imagery that distinguishes writing. An imagery in which the actions of characters symbolizes their qualities and attributes.

"The barber wiped the razor carefully and swiftly, and put it away, and ran to the rear, and took his hat from the wall." Here Faulkner describes the action of Hawkshaw, the barber and perhaps the story's central protagonist. Early in the narration 'Hawk' argues with the lynch revelers who fan the 'fire' of hysteria that emits from the 'rumor' or 'story.' Hawk defends the rights of Will Mayes, who he describes as "a good nigger," and even alludes that Miss Minnie Cooper may have conceived the rumor herself. Through Hawk, readers first suspect the innocence of Mayes and the contrivance of Cooper, and also through his description of Cooper we first glimpse a correlative civil rights theme: the displacement and desperation of older, single women in southern society.

As the band inclines to pursue Mayes, Hawk chases after them, first wiping his barber's razor "carefully and swiftly" and putting it away. With the inclusion of this subtle image Faulkner informs the reader of Hawk's moralistic intentions. The antagonist McLendon 'whirled' out of the barber shop as 'the screen door crashed behind' him. Hawk's actions correlate to his more meticulous and thoughtful approach of a matter which may be of life or death. Though he does not directly stand up for Mayes, Hawk beckons the townspeople to a meticulous consideration of the matter.

However, in Faulkner's world there are no decisive protagonist or antagonist. The only clear character role are those of victims. In 'Dry September' each character may very well be a victim. The antagonist Miss Minnie Cooper is obviously a victim of her own disposition; a state of social reproach that she projects onto Will Mayes. The treatment of Mayes is another obvious use of symbolic imagery. "They worked busily about the Negro as though he were a post," Faulkner notes in a not only dehumanizing simile, but one which evokes the symbols of crucifixion.

Even the primary antagonist McLendon, a veteran of the trenches, Faulkner ultimately portrays as an embittered, abusive, drunk; who is perhaps the product of his environment. An environment that Faulkner describes as 'dead:' his central motif. A quality of death broods in the atmosphere of Jefferson County, reflecting a withering social hierarchy that infects the deteriorating souls of the denizens themselves. "Their motion was like an extinct furnace blast: cooler, but utterly dead."

The stale air, an image that resonates from the descriptive sentence to the last and receives its ultimate reverberation in the title 'Dry September,' encompasses the frustrated fury of a stagnate society - the violent south.

Suspension Sloping Off, Stranger in the Village

I should have only taken two, but I was already high and not lending much focus to irreverent details like 'uptown,' 'downtown' signs, so it took three trains; that is three separate subway transfers to get me to Roosevelt Island on Saturday night. Resilient patience is a quality that these nights instill. Rushing between platforms to catch late night trains before they skid off into their tunnels, leaving only a fleeting gust of humid exhaust and a thirty minute interval before the next arrival, I have developed patience. L to 3rd, L back to 14th, and J uptown all the way to Roosevelt Island, a few flights of stairs, then a static escalator, and now all I have to do is find the place. I forgot to write down the address. It's starting to rain, not pour, but a light shower seems imminent. A dull blue light illuminates the phone dial, as I punch the keys in the dark; scrolling through names, noting those who might know the address, my destination. Manhattan looms between apartments to the east, as I squint at the screen and stroll without specific direction. I don't care. I'm tired. With any luck, I'll be drunk or half-drunk, within two hours and I won't have to care. Although the night skyline is really nice from Roosevelt Island, gazing from the outside in, but I don't really care: I'm tired.

Baldwin:

Though James Baldwin's tone oscillates throughout 'Stranger in the Village' between an ironic reflection and an emphatic examination of that same irony's underlying tensions; subtle narrative observations catalyze his argument by distinguishing his voice from writers who more directly and perhaps more haphazardly approach racial issues. Setting his essay within a vivid account of his stay in an isolated Swiss village, Baldwin may not only juxtapose America's race-relations to those of Europe's, but he manages to deter readers from judging his work as exclusively critical of America. Instead, early into the passage readers find themselves absorbed by its context without minding the political implications of it's content.

While Baldwin introduces the subject of 'the black man' within the first sentence of his narrative, he refrains moralizing thesis until well into the work, after he has established a humanizing precedent for the account. Much of his first two pages ironically describes the homogenous population of his Swiss setting. His account of the village's solitary Protestant church and the absence of a movie theater or even a bank, constructs a very un-American image of this locale, but ultimately Baldwin progresses to a humanizing element of the village cultural; which establishes the universality of his theme.

"There is often something beautiful, there is always something awful, in the spectacle of a person who has lost one of his faculties," Baldwin describes the seasonal pilgrimage of handicapped citizens to dip in the mountain village's hot-spring, "a faculty he never questioned until it was gone, and who struggles to recover it. Yet people remain people"

This thematic parallel occurs within the same paragraph in which Baldwin's begins transitioning the tone of his narration by recalling the first encounter with European reaction to race. "Neger! Neger!" the children proclaim as Baldwin passes on the street, though he professes their innocents, he admits his own frustration with their disposition; and so as the fourth paragraph of his essay begins, Baldwin recalls his reaction and first begins his juxtaposition of 'the American Negro' with 'the black man' abroad.

A historical and moralistic narration ensues. His account questions not only race-relations in America, but the significance of those relations within the global discourse on race. By writing from a neutral nation, Baldwin frames his story beyond the scope of national politics, implying that race-relations are a transcontinental and essentially human controversy. As a writer, Baldwin emphatically and with some reasonably palpable rage, states his thesis for the rights of 'the black man,' worldwide and in America, but as a stylist Baldwin also empowers his ironic tone and setting to mediate his message in a means that surpasses the limits of language.

Ms. Plath

I'm not much of a Sylvia Plath enthusiast. Of course I can't particularly say I'd like to know anyone who openly describes themselves as a 'Sylvia Plath enthusiast' (ie lonely feminist). Although I think "The Bell Jar's" appeal resides in the inextricable connection of her character's voice and the suicide of Ms. Plath herself. Readers almost want to stare into the text and glimpse the beyond the pale. At least this is how I felt when I read it. One can't help but associate the words of the character with the words of Plath, and ponder the depth of the difference. Her language is haunting, however I'm not entirely convinced that the harrowing quality of the text transpires from Plath's exceptional literary skill or the presumptions of the readers who project the visage of the dead author onto her character.

The common complaint I've heard filed against Plath's poetic prose throughout "The Bell Jar," is that it is in fact too poetic, with a metaphor per paragraph rate bordering on flowery.

"I dropped the compact into my pocketbook and stared out of the train window. Like a colossal junkyard, the swamps and back lots of Connecticut flashed past, one broken-down fragment bearing no relation to another." Does the flashing of swamps and backyards really look like a 'colossal junkyard?' I think this may be an exaggeration, or at least an in-concise use of language.

Advocates, fans, and dare I say enthusiasts of Plath's novel would probably claim that the maudlin metaphors express the immaturity of the young narrator, and do not directly reflect Plath's own poetic voice. Instead a more diligent critic would consider what the narrator's consistent use of description states about her condition. What are the qualities of her metaphorical dialogue that correlate to theme and imagery? From these elements, what can we derive about the novels inconclusive conclusion? What is the fate of our narrator?

Joan Didion's 'Good to All That,' has the potency to make me laugh and simultaneously cry. She understands the dichotomy between tragedy and comedy; the dark side of irony, and she conveys it in her work. She expresses this sense of thematic duality from the very first line, "It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends."

The central dichotomy that resonates throughout her work, is the relation of the present to her past. Her voice maintains a sense of the present, in which she realizes the 'morals' of her story and reflects nostalgically, but she concurrently relates them to a quality of almost romantic enthusiasm that encompasses the emotions of her innocent new to New York self.

Dh Lawrence

Throughout "The Rocking Horse Winner" DH Lawrence evokes suspense by describing the internal anxieties of characters who primarily concern themselves with trivial, external problems. The very image of the rocking horse on which the young Paul rides to his death signifies a material idol out of which he hopes to extract an immaterial quality-luck.

Dark Irony and Lawrence's characteristic satire of the Britain's frivolous upper-middle class resonate throughout the story's narrative tone. "There was a young woman who was beautiful," Lawrence begins in a voice suited for a fairy tale, developing an incongruously rhythmic beat as he expounds upon her destitution. "She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny Children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them." Any use of the word 'bonny' in a narrative written after the 19th century forfeits all claim to solemnity even if the sentence refers to the indifference of a Mother; and the maudlin description of 'love turned to dust' correlates perfectly with, 'yet she felt they had been thrust.'

Contrasting tone with context evokes irony.

The most vivid quality of Lawrence narration resides in his capacity to externalize the internal anxieties of his characters through sound. Particularly the hushed whispering of house that expresses the character's increasing, unspoken consciousness of their debt. Without extensive use of onomatopoei, Lawrence illustrates the sounds of the story by describing the characters' reactions to them, and by this effect intensifies the anticipation of the readers.

"There was a strange, heavy and yet not loud noise. Her heart stood still." In this passage near the tragic conclusion, with only a few paragraphs left, we the readers anticipate that Paul's mother is about to discover the winning rocking horse. But the suspense of not knowing, but only suspecting and awaiting confirmation maintains a graphic presence as we visualize both Paul's Mother and the frantic swaying of the rocker beyond the doorway. "It was a soundless noise, yet rushing and powerful. Something huge, in violent, hushed motion. What was it? What in God's name was it?" We the readers know exactly what 'it' is."She ought to know. She felt that she knew the noise." She does not, but we do. "Yet she could not place it."

By the time Paul's Mother discovers the source of the noise, we the readers have supplemented her character for ourselves and our own expectations. We immediately rejoice upon the confirmation that our suspicions were indeed correct, the sound is coming from Paul's rocking chair, but then Lawrence debunks our pride. The boy has ridden himself into a delirium. The horse, the title of the story, the subject of our suspicion is an irrelevant object before the emotional turmoil of the child. And the true discovery is not his rocker but his collapse.

Orwell

In his essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell vehemently bemoans the pompous dialogues of authors who, like so many contemporary critics struggling to string concept through the needles eye, project their ideas through an opaque and ambiguous language.

Not quite.

In his essay, Orwell emphasizes the significance of simplicity in language and the clarity of images that a simplified dialogue will produce. He criticizes phraseology, the stringing together of phrases that conveys the impression of clarity through common cliches (such as 'stringing together of'). And finally Orwell justifies his examination of language, and the importance of reconciling 'the debasement' of the English language, by relating the ambiguity of poor writing to its common place in politics; where the publics acceptance of meaningless cliche may empower global initiatives.

His central persuasive technique is this emphasis on the relation of language to the public's interpretation of political jargon. While the essay primarily concerns the debasement of the English language, Orwell titles his essay 'Politics and the English Language.' Although he does not begin focusing on the political relevance of language until the eighth of twelve pages. His analysis of political language persuades the common reader of his argument's real world relevance. And within the title, by submitting the subject 'English Language' to the catalyst 'Politics,' Orwell insures that his article will receive the attention of common readers as well as literary critics.

Digression: A college essayist cannot read Orwell's article without feeling slightly exposed. I confess that I have written many a mindless phrase. What interests me most about Orwell's article is that he offers a solution to the debasement of English. Clarity and originality of imagery, simplicity of syntax, and simply thinking before writing; however, I think my own discontent derives from the professorial praise that pretentious writing achieves. A good professor sees through the bullshit, but often enough professorial minds maintain such flowery conceptions of themselves that they giggle with glee when they catch their own reflections in the embellished lines of a veritable moron.

Grace

James Joyce paints a portrait of the underlying religious tensions that characterize the lives of Dubliners. Each of the central characters throughout 'Grace' present a different approach to Catholicism or Judeo-Christian religions. While each of them professes to  Catholic convictions, none of them maintain the same personal doctrine. Within each character is an interpretation that correlates to the ideals with which they approach the central conflict-IE, Tom Kernan's 'fall' from grace. 

Sentence Types: 

'Two Gentlemen who were in the lavatory at the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite helpless" - A general statement with an explanatory statement 

Joyce opens his passage with this line which thrust the reader into the action of the story, but declines to explain the setting or circumstance. Instead, the offhanded description gives the impression that these events are common pub occurrences.

"The arc of his social rise intersected the arc of his friend's decline, but Mr. Kernan's decline was mitigated by the fact that certain of those friends who had known him at his highest point of success still esteemed him as a character."-Same word repeated in a parallel structure

This may be my favorite description throughout the story. It explains the relationship of Kernan and Mr. Power, using a parallel structure to emphasize the sense of congruity between the directions of their lives. And perhaps offer some insight into Mr. Power's interest in Kernan's salvation. 

"There they were at it, all the cardinals and bishops and archbishops from all the ends of the earth and these two fighting dog and devil until at last the Pope himself stood up and declared infallibility a dogma of the Church ex cathedra." -A series of internal appositives

Well not quite, in the series 'cardinals and bishops and archbishops' each does not supplement the other, but Joyce's hypotactic listing implies the common order between them. 

"The inference was allowed." -Short statement for relief

This line occurs near the conclusion of the conversation about papal history. After a long series of parallel structures with Latin phrases, Joyce allows the reader to take a breath and consider the symbolic significance of this religious dialogue. Rather than continuing to absorb readers with the trivial language of church history, the line punctuates the previous paragraphs and emphasizes their deeper relevance to the plot. 

Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov's sometimes verbose language manages to float off the tongue, much like the very name Lolita. Nabokov's running style evokes the fervent energy of careless passion, but it seems somehow maturely developed: his language is precise, which shows readers that although his character seems consumed with this passion, he never loses focus.
"All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add"
In this description of a boyhood infatuation, Nabokov maintains a distinct linguitic rhythm throughout the sentence, despite that the narrator is obviously lost in his thoughts and stumbling to find the right word. The stumbling voice of the narrator when he says 'madly,' clumsily,' shamelessly,' agonizingly,' and conclusively 'hoplessly,' expresses the indecisively energetic tone of his voice as he struggles to contain his passion within a single clause. While the enaphoric quality of the language signifies the presence of a great writer maintaining rhetorical control, without which the narrator's cumulative energy may sweep away the readers as it has himself.
Overall, I would say that Nabokov exemplifies Lanham's thesis that periodic and running sentences may often flow together. The voice of his narrator resounds through the cumulative and running prose, in a language consisting mostly of verbose adjetives that agrandise his subject. Paradoxically however, Nabokov's poetic rythm and use of parallelism conveys a well calculated sense of tone.

The Mystery of Renewal

Throughout his inauguration speech, Bill Clinton oscillates between a nearly decorative language, in which he idealizes the mystic qualities of change, and a more directly objective call to national initiative. Hypotaxis characterizes the structure of his speech, in which he very early on establishes the goals and ideals he intends to address.
A syntactic rhythm emphasizes the 'imagery' with which Clinton relates his central themes. The most central of these themes being the idea of 'renewal.' " Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal," Clinton opens. "This ceremony is held in the depth of winter. But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring. A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America."
'Renewal,' 'Reborn,' 'Reinvent,' without having to directly repeat himself, Clinton's words evoke a sense of rhyme, and ultimately convey a common definition, which correlates to his central theme. 

Specifically in the sentence: "A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America." Essentially his statement says, "A spring in America that reinvents America." However, Clinton's grandiose modification of this idea, which he achieves through the use of extended imagery, and the nearly poetic rhythm of his syntax reiterates his thematic idealism. The poetic punch of his prose derives from his use of periodic sentences. In which the sentence conclusion often seems like a preconceived beat. Although this emphatically poetic style may seem exhausted or embellished to readers, one must remember that Clinton's words were primarily written to be heard. 

The Silver Dish

 "What do you do about death-in this case, the death of an old father?" Sam Bellow immediately establishes the questions he will address through and throughout his short story, "The Silver Dish." These themes are namely, death and specifically, the death of an aging father. However, his precise thematic introduction debunks the readers' inherent expectations of a subtle narrative approach. Readers expect to decipher the narrative's central question after sorting through descriptions of settings, characters, and the gradual development of a conflict. Bellow disenchants these reader expectations by opening his narrative with a question posed directly to the readers. He establishes the story's central conflict  before introducing any of the traditional elements of narrative: character, setting, etc. 

"If you're a modern person," bellow continues,"sixty years of age, and a man who's been around like Woody Selbst, what do you do?" While he introduces the central character Woody, he still declines to offer any explanation of what he means by 'modern person' and what this detail indicates about Woody's character. The focus of the narrative still seems directed at the readers, the 'you' in his question. 

"Take this matter of mourning, and take it against a contemporary background. How, against a contemporary background, do you mourn an octogenarian father, nearly blind, his heart enlarged, his lungs filling with fluid, who creeps, stumbles, gives off the odors, the moldiness or gassiness of old men. I mean! As Woody put it, be realistic. "

Now at last, Bellow has explained how the character Woody relates to the narratives central question, but he does so with the introduction of even more new ideas and questions for the reader to ponder:  'what is the condition of Woody's father?' 'Why does he emphasize the contemporary background?' 

"Think what times these are. The papers daily give it to you—the Lufthansa pilot in Aden is described by the hostages on his knees, begging the Palestinian terrorists not to execute him, but they shoot him through the head. Later they themselves are killed. And still others shoot others, or shoot themselves. That’s what you read in the press, see on the tube, mention at dinner. We know now what goes daily through the whole of the human community, like a global death-peristalsis."

Bellow now establishes the context of the narrative's central question, but he does so at the conclusion of the opening paragraph. His style is characterized by an inversion of the narrative structure. His opening paragraphs ends where the reader would expect it to begin, with the dramatic establishment of a setting. Bellow's first sentence epitomizes this inversion of the narrative structure. "What do you do about death-in this case, the death of an old father?" Bellow does not construct his narrative as a medium for the question 'what do you do about death?' Instead, the story comes as humanizing afterthought to the grandiose theme of death. Hypotaxis works ironically in this sentence by placing the question of 'what do you do about death,' before the structurally essential detail, 'the death of an old father.'

'Miss Piggy Would Have Sent the Wrong Message,'

'Miss Piggy Would Have Sent the Wrong Message'

Dana Milbank

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

For my response to Lanham's chapter on "Noun and Verb Styles," I'm using an article from the Washington Post which covers the Elmo's official appointment as the spokesman for the prevention of H1N1 flu. An ironic tone persists throughout the entire article, written by Dana Milbank, whose voice resonates with a sense of contrast. As she details the serious subject of swine flu with a static syntax, she transitions into a verbal vocabulary with a  inclusion of quotations from Elmo.

Noun 

"After months of preparation and umpteen billions of dollars, the federal government came out Tuesday with its swine flu response."  

A static quality characterizes the article's introductory sentence. Nouns dominate structure of this sentence. If not for the title of the article and the cute, furry photo along its border, a reader might presume the ensuing paragraph will maintain a bureaucratic tone. However the next paragraph, which immediately opens with an exclamatory remark from Elmo, introduces a new tone entirely. Milbank adopts a dominantly verbal style to integrate these quotations with the article. This transition expresses the writer's consciousness of the article's ironic tone. 

"Come on! Wash your hands with Elmo! Wash, wash, wash!" the Muppet from Sesame Street sings in a public service announcement released Tuesday by the Obama administration. "Sneeze into your arm with Elmo," the character adds. "Ah-choo!"

Introductory Note

The writer I would like to emulate: