Satire and Characterization Literary Terms

Satire: a kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice or folly in order to bring about social reform.

Exaggeration: making something into more than what it really is.

Hyperbole: a figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion or create a comic effect.

Understatement: a figure of speech that consists of saying less than what is really meant or saying something with less force than is appropriate.

Incongruity: the quality of disagreeing; being unsuitable or in appropriate. When two unlike objects or people are put together in a story.

Reversal: the point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist.

Parody: the imitation of a work of literature, art, or music for amusement or instruction.

Sarcasm: a kind of particularly cutting irony, in which praise is used tauntingly to indicate its opposite in meaning.

Irony: a contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality, between what is said and what is really meant, between what is expected and what actually happens, or between what appears to be true and what is really true.

Ridicule: words intended to belittle a person or idea and arouse contemptuous laughter.

Humor: the quality of a literary or informative work that makes the character and/or situations seem funny, amusing or ludicrous.

Direct Characterization: the narrator or a character in the story tells us what we need to know about a character (very straightforward). For example: "He is poor".

versus

Indirect Characterization: we find out about characters indirectly through thoughts, comments or actions of the characters (not straightforward). For example: "Though a philosopher...he had not found the stone for making gold".

Deroy Murdock: Drop the Racial Rhetoric

Michael Thompson

September 9, 2012

Honors English IV

Danehower

Deroy Murdock: Drop the Racial Rhetoric

            In this article Murdock writes about the racial tensions going on between the two presidential parties. He mainly focuses around Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks at a convention where he told a predominately black group that the republicans are going to “put ya’ll back in chains”. This was in reference to how the banks would work under Romney and how Americans would be put back in chains under banks rules. Murdock wants to incite a large response from readers by letting them see comparisons made by him and for them to tell Obama to stop the racial rhetoric.

            Murdock’s main audience in this article would be that of Republicans and African-American individuals. Murdock downplays the democrats by showing how republican rule has done nothing of what democrats have allegedly said such as the bank situation. However, Murdock wants his audience to agree with him, but he also wants them to understand that there is no agenda to enslave any individual and that the rhetoric Biden used needs to stop.

            The persona adopted by Murdock would be that of a strong republican but also as an African American individual. In this article, Murdock degrades the Democratic Party by giving historical examples from the time of the abolitionists and the start of the Ku Klux Klan. While Murdock adopts the persona of a strong republican, he also adopts the persona of an African American individual. He does this by first mocking what another person had said that “only black people can get angry” to which he replies “if only you could see the look on my face”. So he adopts this persona in a very satirical manner.

            The tone of this article is very belligerent and defensive. Murdock gives a belligerent attitude towards the subject of racism by the words he used such as angry, invective, and even racial pot – stirring. But this belligerence ties directly in with the defensiveness of the article. He defends republicans in the sense that they are not going to be enslaving anyone and he wants to audience to see this as well. He gets the audience to see this through his language and diction.

            The structure of this article was somewhat confusing at first. When first reading Murdock begins with Biden’s remarks at the convention but goes on to almost end with a gay-rights volunteer but after re-reading Murdock does this to intertwine different scenarios to let the audience see that if these racial rhetoric remarks keep going that something more lethal could happen. However, his introduction is plain and simple, easy to comprehend. The body is a logical development as I stated in the above sentence with the intertwining of different stories. Meanwhile his conclusion made me laugh when he said that Obama needs to keep Biden on a leash.

            Murdock’s supporting materials were decent. He had excellent examples to give and perfect literal analogies of how these remarks about racism could go on to lead to bigger things. However, one remark/example made by Murdock was a little outdated. This was the example of how during the abolitionists period, it was the Democrats attempting to keep slaves in chains but he made it seem as though these were the same people today. I don’t know if he noticed but right around President Nixon’s time, the roles of the parties switched, where Republicans went from Liberal to Conservative, while Democrats went from Conservative to Liberal. So that example wasn’t all that great, but Murdock’s other analogies/examples were pretty decent.

            Finally, Murdock’s strategies were superb. He used language that everyone could understand. Anyone with at least a sixth grade education could read and comprehend his words. His appeals were to a specific audience not too everyone. Murdock used allusions and refutations to get his word across. His refutations involved arguing for the republicans and showing the democrats weaknesses such as the whole bank ordeal where even when a republican was in power, banks did not “enslave” Americans but were actually more lenient. While his allusions consisted of roles democrats adopted during the abolitionists period and also comparisons of recent events and showing how one little thing can lead to bigger things (such as a gay-rights leading to shootings, or even riots with volunteers being hurt). 

Ronald Reagan: A Time for Choosing

Michael Thompson

September 8, 2012

Honors English IV

Danehower

Ronald Reagan: A Time for Choosing

            In this speech, Ronald Reagan gives his main argument which is that the American people have a time to choose in the upcoming election and he gives arguments on why the American people should choose him. The subject of his speech is to reach out to voters and make him known. He wants the audience to know his stands and that of his opponent’s stands and the contrasts in them. But with these contrasts he wants the American people to know that he is the better pick. He accomplishes this by giving all sorts of statistics and allusions.

            The audience is of course the American people. Reagan wants to influence eligible voters and voters alike. He wants them to play their role in voting for him. One of the ways he empowers the voters to vote for him is by telling the audience that there needs to be no left or right, but rather an up and a down; the up being “man’s old aged dream of individual freedom consistent with law and order” and the down being the “ant heap of totalitarianism”.

            Reagan’s persona in the matter of this speech is that he is a revered individual with hopes and dreams for the nation. He portrays himself as not only a possible president but the president himself. And also he gives points that he has not been given a script and is allowed to use his own ideas which to me represents the freedom that every American should be allotted.

            Reagan’s tone in this speech is serious and influential. He wants the audience to understand his viewpoints and how he feels about his ideas. He believes that his ideas are what will keep the country going and that these beliefs must be expressed to the audiences in the hopes of being understood. For the audience he gives them examples of how government interference hurts Americans and also allusions to past times such as the revolution and how the founding fathers did not want a big government.

            Reagan’s structure of his speech is phenomenal. In the introduction he, of course, introduces himself and his ideas. Throughout the body of his speech he has a logical flow of each of these ideas. He gives his thoughts on an issue, then gives the opponents but at the end of the dialogue he always asks the audience a question that really makes them think and think more in his favor. His conclusion is excellent as well for he gives allusions to past events that really incite the audience to look at him as almost a fatherly figure. He gives them allusions to the bible, as well as to the American Revolution and tells them that “we will preserve our children in this, the last best hope of a man on earth”.

           

            As for Reagan’s supporting material he gives a bountiful of statistics and examples. His given statistics show to the audience that the old ways aren’t working that we are increasing in millions of dollars of debt every day and that we have one and a half times the debt of all of the debt in all of the countries worldwide. He states that we are the last grain of freedom on the face of this earth by giving a story between him and two friends about a Cuban who escaped from Castro and to America and said that no other country offers freedom like that of the United States.

            Last, but not least Reagan also had an amazing amount of strategies. His language was used appropriately in all areas from being uprising towards his ideas and derogatory of the opponent’s ideas. In this article I saw a lot of a fortiori and allusions being used.  One example of a fortiori being used was that towards the War on Poverty. He gives the audience statistics on the money being poured into the system to help with this “war” and says “Now do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we're spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have -- and remember, this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs -- do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic?” this is the perfect example of a fortiori because if it happens in one case, it’s going to happen in others. Also with the allusion aspect of the strategies used, Reagan used a lot of American Revolution examples. He gave the allusion that big government is something that the Founding Fathers were avoiding and also gave this statement “This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves”. This statement is the perfect allusion to the 13 colonies under the British rule and having no representation in parliament during that time.