Ap Language &
English Composition Summer Assignment
Assignment 1
1. The dehumanizing effects of slavery.
2. The rhetorical strategies in Douglass narrative.
Ethos:
Pathos
Irony
Assignment 2
1. The medium is the metaphor
2. Media as Epistemology
3. Typographic America
4. The Typographic Mind
5. The Peek-a-Boo world
6. The age of Show Business
7. “Now... Thisâ€
8. Shuffle off to Bethlehem
9. Reach out and Elect Someone
11. The Huxleyan Warning
Assignment 1
1. The dehumanizing effects of slavery.
Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an autobiographical account about the
author’s unpleasant and harrowing experiences as a former slave. Credited as
one of the best narratives of its time, the book narrates in brutal honesty,
the excruciating and agonizing events that took place in his early life as a
slave. As slavery and the banning of it was closely tied to American history,
the work is considered as a prominent and persuasive piece of literature that
stoked up the movement for abolishing slave trade in the United States of
America.
“I was not allowed to
be present during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long
before I knew anything about itâ€
These few
words which appear in the first chapter of the narrative, Douglass explain how
his master had separated him from his mother as soon as he was born. Douglas
surmises the cause of this separation as a way to estrange a child with its mother.
By removing an infant from its mother, Douglass points out the darkest shades
of human selfishness and how inhuman a person could be.
The
extreme pain and anguish of the author is expressed in the words above as he is
uncertain who is more uncompassionate. The reason why he is sceptic about the
morality of the slave is because he doubts how far an individual who is
alienated from his family, especially his mother from birth could have normal
feelings and compassion as others.
"The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my
spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in
tears while hearing them...To those songs I trace my first glimmering
conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery."
Douglass discloses how the slave songs
influenced him during his childhood. The songs of the slaves were often heard
while they were working in the fields and he always found these songs
disturbingly alluring. He could never neglect the pain and sorrow of these
songs and never could understand them completely.
He
associates listening to these songs made him realize how dehumanizing slavery
could ever be. Though it was an expression of the pain and angst of the slaves,
the owners would consider these songs as something which the slaves sang when
they were happy. Douglass could never fathom this insensitive and callous
selfishness of humans. He would carry the pain and anger he had of slavery and
would associate these songs to the torture and hardships of slavery.
“There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and
children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all
subjected to the same narrow examination.â€
This is
another passage which describes the extreme indignation and contempt that
Douglass had towards slavery. The passage explains an instance where Douglass
had to bear witness to his fellow brethren being inspected during ‘valuation’ a
process in which it was decided whom the slave would be owned to. He uses very
sharp words like ‘brutalizing’ to describe the harrowing experience where
humans; man and women alike, were treated like animals and were being marked
for valuation just like commodities. This was one of the periods when the
slaves had to undergo the worst turmoil of their lives, as slave owners would
strip them off the friends or relatives, just by a nod of their head.
“That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon
became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of
harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demonâ€
In chapter
six, Douglass explains his experiences of living with Mrs. Sophia Auld, who had
become his new slave owner. He was astonished at first to see how different
Mrs. Auld was from the other slave owners. She was kind hearted and never had
the grim rigidity of a slave owner. She was even kind enough to teach him
alphabets, without the knowledge of her husband.
But
Douglass reasoning about Mrs. Auld changes as there is a change in her
attitude, which he believes was brought about by the disparity of slavery. He
puts forward the irresponsible power that slavery had given, changed the
behaviour of his owner Mrs. Auld. He laments over the fact that the lack of
respect and tenderness towards slaves would turn even the most cultured and
matured persons to change themselves into unreasonable human beings.
2. The rhetorical strategies in Douglass narrative.
A rhetoric
strategy is a method by which a writer tries to persuade his readers to a
particular opinion. The opinion would be established by use of sentences or
words that consolidates a rational argument. A rhetorical argument can be
established by an author by use of strong words that connect to the reader and
makes him associate with the view points of the writer. It is a crafty method
adopted by writers to establish a point of view and align the readers thought
to the same.
Douglass
biography reveals his ability to express with words his strong contempt and
opinions against slavery that existed in America before the Emancipation
Proclamation. The main rhetorical devices that Douglass illustrates in his
narrative are ethos, pathos, irony and anecdotes. Different strategies to
garner evidence about a concept is used, such as slavery in this context and
makes a logical sequence helping the reader connect to the authors thought
process and associate with the arguments that he puts forth. The three main
rhetorical devices that Douglass puts forth in his biography that has
influenced the readers has been discussed below:
Ethos:
Ethos is a
rhetorical device which convinces the reader of the integrity and authority of
the writer to validly discuss about a topic of his choice. The narrative by
Douglas is laced with a lot of anecdotal references of his own experiences that
he had to face with at the hands of his slave owners. The author has made a few
startling revelations about the brutality of slavery and how he experienced and
witnessed a lot of incidents from his childhood. Having lived the life of a
slave himself, Douglas exhibits no restraint in admitting the derogatory
experiences he had to undergo all his life. The readers could connect to his
narrative, as all the experiences that have been explained has either been
undergone by himself or someone close to him. As soon as the narrative begins,
the personal accounts touch a chord in the readers mind and create a sense of
trust that the writer has some honest and grim experiences to share with them
Pathos
Pathos is
one of the strongest rhetorical devices and could be used by an author to
provoke strong emotional responses from the reader. Pathos if used effectively
can be a persuasive factor for the writer as emotional responses tend to remain
at the minds of the reader for a long time. The author can create an emotional
bonding with his readers in a narrative if personal accounts or experiences can
be depicted in a manner in which the readers can associate themselves with.
“if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read,
there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He
would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.â€
This is
one of the instances where Douglas shares his experience as a kid at the house
of one his owners, Mr. Auld. He depicts the view of his master Mr. Auld when he
learnt that his wife was teaching young Douglas the alphabets. He was skeptical
about the whole thing and restrains his wife from doing so. The reasoning
behind his thought was that a slave would become uncontrollable if he had more
intelligence and ability. The words have been used with great care and portray
the anguish of a young child who has been refused a basic privilege like
education.
Irony
Irony is another rhetorical device
that has been used by Douglas to convey humorously the inconsistencies in the
behavior of the slave owners. Irony could be an effective device in rhetoric
to transfer the real truth by words which may mean something differently
literally. Douglas transmits the outrage he had towards the slave owners by
masking his words with irony at different instances in the narrative. For
example, in chapter 3, Douglas quotes an instance were Colonel Lloyd takes care
utmost of his horses.
He
sarcastically suggests that Colonel Lloyd took care of his horses with much
more care than of his human slaves. He found it contradictory that Barney, who
was in charge of the horse, was punished many times for not caring for his
horses. He pokes fun at the whole concept of slavery, where the greed and self
indulgence of the slave owners over powered the empathy and pity towards the
slaves who lived in worse conditions than animals.
In
conclusion, it could be inferred from the narrative that Douglass was deeply
enraged by his own experiences of slavery and wanted to bring to light the
bitter experiences he had to suffer from his childhood.
Assignment 2
The medium is the metaphor
In the opening chapter Postman tries to persuade the reader
with his opinions as to how the American way of thinking has changed
drastically. He believes that the exposure to broadcasting mediums has changed
the way journalism had been viewed, accepted and acknowledged. His notions are
mainly against the influence of Television and the impact it has on the
American public. The power of a visual medium is that it could be more oriented
towards the physical aspects of anything, which according to him is just
peripheral and very trivial. He especially points out the obsession of
televised journalism to take the focus on the looks and physical
characteristics of even Politicians. He delicately suggests that a visual media
such as Television could not be taken seriously due to its overt emphasis on
entertainment and advertising. He expresses his concern of the shift in
significance of knowledge attainment through reading to something like
Television which gives too much importance to ocular perception.
Postman does not refuse to accept the influence of the
visual media in reporting. He has strong convictions about the type of
information that a particular medium should carry. He states that the actual
emphasis should be n the information passed by the medium than the medium
itself. He draws a clear distinction between the type of content that gets
generated due to the type of medium and the actual content that gets delivered.
Media as Epistemology
The main point of discussion by Postman in the second
chapter is about the migration of the people’s interest from newspapers to
television. Postman strongly opposes this transition and states that the
intelligence of the people has dwindled. He sarcastically puts forth facts to
reinstate that the conversations has changed from being sensible and relevant earlier
to ludicrous and unreasonable nowadays. As an example of the impact a medium
can have on culture, he gives an example about an African tribe whose
fundamentals were based on an oral culture. Following an oral culture means the
main form of communication and conduct depended through speech. Being heavily
dependent on an oral culture reflected in every wake of their life even at the
way they carried out punishments by their judicial system. The main way of
punishing for this pride was by means of proverbs that decided their code of
conduct. The punishment a criminal could get would thus depend upon the proverb
the judge could remember at that particular time.
Postman points out that the usage of proverbs in an American
court scenario would be hilarious. As there are more efficient modes of
documenting present in American culture, the collection of evidence its
analysis and administering judgment would follow an entirely different method.
This makes Postman reckon that media is one platform where our knowledge could
be extended to distinguish between information and opinion. Postman’s major
concern throughout is the dwindling of a reading culture which he thinks has
been caused due to the influence of television. Many of his statements give an
opinion that knowledge can never be gained through a visual medium such as
television. Knowledge can be gained by different means and the methods of
acquiring it could be boundless. These thoughts were proved to be inaccurate in
many ways and would be proved that any medium be it visual or typographical
could be used to garner more knowledge in a more sophisticated manner.
Typographic America
“the only
communication event that could produce such collective attention in today's
America is the Superbowl.â€
In this
chapter, Postman holds a very high regard of America during the seventeenth
century. As from his previous opinions, it is clear of his affinity towards the
literary gains that could be garnered by reading. He emphasizes that America in
those days were far better and idealistic in terms of its literary gains. It
could be noted that though he has taken pride in the literacy rate of the
Americans, he has conveniently sidelined the hardships and neglect of studies
by the slaves and the indigenous native tribes. In the quote Postman
sarcastically suggests the difference in interests of the people in both the
eras. While Thomas Paines ‘Common Sense’ was a book that was considered to be
an instant hit among the Americans of the past, another thing that could garner
peoples interest in such proportions could only be the American Super Bowl due
to the emphasis on advertising and getting lost in the visual media culture.
The Typographic Mind
“When Dickens visited America in 1842, his reception equaled
the adulation we offer today to television stars, quarterbacks, and Michael
Jackson.†(p. 39)
In chapter
4 of the narrative Postman summarizes mostly about the talks that Abraham
Lincoln and Stephen Douglas had. It was recorded that the talks were very long
and lasted for close to three hours. He expresses his surprise and appreciation
of the audience general intellect in showing patience to imbibe what either of
the great men were trying to convey with their oratory skills. He also compares
the love and adulation that Charles Dickens received during his visit to
America. He compares the reaction of the people to those that could only be
enjoyed by only TV stars and sports people. He also implies in this chapter
about the many advantages of printed language which was paraphrasing.
According to Postman, readable content would be more rational because it was
paraphraseable.
The Peek-a-Boo world
“the potential of the telegraph to transform information
into a commodity might never have been realized, except for the partnership
between the telegraph and the pressâ€
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