Today and this weekend...

In order to prepare you to start your rough draft this weekend or on Monday (it is due on Tuesday), please read the following.  They should help you get some ideas flowing, 

Big Brother is Watching You Drive 

and 

AMERICANS ARE NOW LIVING IN A SOCIETY THAT RIVALS ORWELL’S 1984

If you wish to write a rhetorical analysis essay in response to prompt # 3, see essays from three Junior LT students responding to a rhetorical analysis assignment on Beloved (posted at the bottom of this blog entry). The assignment is similar to prompt # 3. 

1984 Part 3 quiz will be next Friday

Watch "Top Secret America"

Rhetorical Analysis Examples

Mr. Wesley

English IIIH- 2

8 May 2007

The Jungle      

Beloved is more than just the story of an ex-slave; it is the story of slavery itself, with layers of meaning that run over, under and through one another, as the strings of Sethe’s story are woven into the African-American experience. Sometimes Toni Morrison pulls the reader in closely, so that all that can be seen is the thread of Sethe’s life, twined tightly to the threads of Denver, Baby Suggs, and the Sweet Home men. Other times she holds readers at a distance, so that the entire tapestry of black America comes into focus. When Stamp Paid reflects on the dehumanization that slavery perpetuates among blacks and whites alike, Morrison effortlessly moves between the layers, setting Sethe’s life in context. Stamp Paid’s metaphorical musing about the tangled, twisted jungle whose roots lie in slavery is an example of Morrison’s broader brush strokes, as she eloquently and insightfully elucidates the heart of slavery’s evil.

            This passage begins with Stamp Paid’s visit to 124, and as his thoughts turn from the house’s living occupants to the angry spirits that haunt it, Morrison seamlessly transitions into an analysis of the ugly taint of slavery that still colors the lives of African Americans years after the institution’s abolition. Using a fearsome jungle as a multi-layered metaphor for the painful and dehumanizing outgrowths of slavery, she illuminates realities about the impact of racism that still exist today.

The jungle is first used to describe the white race’s perception of blacks. Morrison’s selection of a jungle for metaphorical comparison is skillful because it transfers the characteristics of Africa onto Africa’s people, thus establishing the source of white prejudice. To whites, blacks were as wild and untamed, as unpredicatable, as the exotic land that they arrived from, with Africa’s raw barbarism coursing unavoidably through their veins. The lyrical imagery that Morrison injects into the metaphor- “swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes”- recalls an archetypal African jungle, savage and primeval, and thereby further increases the power of this connection to Africa. 

Morrison then shifts the metaphor, refuting the belief that blacks have any such jungle beneath their skin, at least not that they carried over from Africa. Instead, she argues that it is a product of America, planted and cultivated by whites themselves. The savagery of the jungle mirrors the savagery whites have inflicted upon Africans, so that as fierce racism and horrific slavery practices dehumanized the slaves, the jungle within them grew more uncivilized, more untamable. 

And then, like a jungle stretching vines to entangle everything in its path, the taint of slavery spread to the whites. The madness, the fearsome inhumanity that the “screaming baboon” and the “red gums” represent, turned back on its creators. In perpetuating dehumanization against fellow humans, whites lost a part of their humanity as well. It is a vicious cycle; their fear of a jungle that did not exist until they created it makes them, “bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be.” Morrison skillfully manipulates this metaphor throughout the cycle, turning the jungle back against the whites and illuminating the irony in their fear of unknown dangers lurking beneath the dark skin of their slaves. The worst evil of slavery, Morrison reveals, is the corrupting, all-consuming effect it has on the humanity of all its participants. 

Excerpt from Beloved (234-235)

The day Stamp Paid saw the two backs through the window and then hurried down the steps, he believed the undecipherable language clamoring around the house was the mumbling of the black and angry dead. Very few had died in bed, like Baby Suggs, and none that he knew of, including Baby, had lived a livable life. Even the educated colored: the long-school people, the doctors, the teachers, the paper-writers and businessmen had a hard row to hoe. In addition to having to use their heads to get ahead, they had the weight of the whole race sitting there. You needed two heads for that. White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.

Meantime, the secret spread of this new kind of whitefolks’ jungle was hidden, silent, except once in a while when you could hear its mumbling in places like 124. (Morrison 234-5)

Mr. Wesley

English IIIAP 2

7 May 2007

Beloved: Exploring Independence and Love

In the literary narration of American history, Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved stands out.  The book is an intimate look at the emotional scars left behind by slavery, and Morrison evokes and closely examines the myriad of emotions—strong, basic, and natural—that her characters experience.  In one poignant passage from Beloved, Morrison explores the definition of freedom and slavery in terms of independence and love.

Early in the passage, Sethe explains to Paul D the wonder of independence that she found in her escape from slavery.  Before she speaks of the “miracle” of her escape, Sethe “cover[s] the lower half of her face with her palms” in a gesture of wonder and reverence.  That same reverential tone carries into her actual narrative.  Speaking in short, cut-off sentences, Sethe ponders the wonder of her escape and her own self-sufficiency in lines five through ten.  She marvels that the escape “came off right, like it was supposed to,” all through “Me using my own head.”  The entire passage is in an active voice, further highlighting Sethe’s newfound independence.  Also, many of the sentences begin with “I,” reinforcing the passage’s focus on independence and self-sufficiency.  Morrison emphasizes Sethe’s realization of self-sufficiency in order to underscore the most basic importance of that aspect of humanity.  Independence and free will is the defining element of the individual.  Without that independence to make decisions, the individual loses his or her identity to whatever or whoever else is making those decisions instead.  Sethe’s wonder at having achieved such a basic right draws the reader into an exploration of self-reliance and humanity, which ultimately serves to support the theme of dehumanization central to Beloved. 

Another powerful theme of the passage is the exploration of how independence relates to love.  Both Sethe and Paul D agree that slavery denied them the right to love others through the denial of independence.  Freedom was “to get to a place where you could love anything you chose—not to need permission for desire.”  Sethe says that she could never “love [her children] proper in Kentucky because they wasn’t mine to love.”  As a slave, denied the right even to her own body, Sethe would not be allowed even the slightest stake of ownership that love implies.  Morrison has Sethe describe this freedom to love as “a kind of selfishness,” which would under other circumstances have a negative connotation.  “Selfishness” implies the exclusion of the consideration of others from a person’s mind.  In Sethe’s case, selfishness takes on a new, positive meaning; it means “ownership of oneself.”  A second reason that Sethe could not afford to love her children was the danger of becoming too emotionally invested in them.  She had no control over their futures, and the horrors of having them sold, abused, or killed, would be too great to bear.  As Paul D says: “So you protected yourself and loved small. [. . .] Grass blades, salamanders, spiders, woodpeckers, beetles, a kingdom of ants.  Anything bigger wouldn’t do.  A woman, a child, a brother—a big love like that would split you wide open.”  Morrison chooses grass blades and insects, the smallest, most insignificant things, to demonstrate the level to which the slaves were reduced.  More interesting, however, is to note Paul’s negative use of the word “wide.”  Earlier in the passage, Sethe rejoiced in the wideness of her love: “I was big [. . .] and deep and wide and when I stretched out my arms all my children could get in between.  I was that wide.”  While Sethe rejoices in the new world opened up to her in freedom, Paul is still trapped by fear of opening himself to such deep emotions and the potential loss of that which he loves.  Morrison’s use of “wide” is a subtle way to highlight these conflicting views, which reinforce the novel’s main purpose by demonstrating the emotional scars of slavery. 

Morrison’s exploration of the intertwining of love, independence, and freedom is central to the seminal work that is Beloved.  She takes on these complex, abstract concepts and wrestles with them within the framework of the African American experience, with dramatic and touching results.

1 5 10 15 20

“I don’t have to tell you about Sweet Home—what it was—but maybe you don’t know what it was like for me to get away from there.”      Covering the lower half of her face with her palms, she paused to consider again the size of the miracle; its flavor.      “I did it.  I got us all out.  Without Halle too.  Up till then it was the only thing I ever did on my own.  Decided.  And it came off right, like it was supposed to.  We was here.  Each and every one of my babies and me too.  I birthed them and I got em out and it wasn’t no accident.  I did that.  I had help, of course, lots of that, but still it was me doing it; me saying, Go on, and Now.  Me having to look out.  Me using my own head.  But it was more than that.  It was a kind of selfishness I never knew nothing about before.  It felt good.  Good and right.  I was big, Paul D, and deep and wide and when I stretched out my arms all my children could get in between.  I was that wide.  Look like I loved em more after I got here.  Or maybe I couldn’t love em proper in Kentucky because they wasn’t mine to love.  But when I got here, when I jumped down off that wagon—there wasn’t nobody in the world I couldn’t love if I wanted to.  You know what I mean?”      Paul D did not answer because she didn’t expect or want him to, but he did know what she meant.  Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia, and having neither the right nor the permission to enjoy it because in that place mist, doves, sunlight, copper dirt, moon—everything belonged to the men who had the guns.  Little men, some of them, big men too, each of whom he could snap like a twig if he wanted to.  Men who knew their manhood lay in their guns and were not even embarrassed by the knowledge that without gunshot fox would laugh at them.  And these “men” who made even vixen laugh could, if you let them, stop you from hearing doves or loving moonlight.  So you protected yourself and loved small.  Picked the tiniest stars out of the sky to own; lay down with head twisted in order to see the loved one over the rim of the trench before you slept. [. . .] Grass blades, salamanders, spiders, woodpeckers, beetles, a kingdom of ants.  Anything bigger wouldn’t do.  A woman, a child, a brother—a big love like that would split you wide open [. . .] He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose—not to need permission for desire—well now, that was freedom. – excerpt from Toni Morrison’s Beloved, pages 190-191

Mr. Wesley

English III AP-2

7 May 2007

Learning to Forget the Unforgettable

            Some books are written solely for entertainment purposes; others are written with a greater purpose in mind—the purpose to teach. These books may teach people anything from morals to how to look at the world from an entirely novel perspective. Toni Morrison’s Beloved is without a doubt one of those latter books. In Beloved, Morrison skillfully crafts a stage ripe with emotion where the characters are brought to life to act out the bitterness and sorrow of their lives. Yet, as heart wrenching as some of the more dramatic scenes are, Morrison is at her best not when she is depicting the gruesome details of the characters’ lives, but when she preaches her message at the end of the book. Using point of view, figurative language, and repetition to emphasize her point, Morrison ends her book Beloved with a powerful message about learning to forget the unforgettable.

            Throughout Beloved, the story is mostly narrated in third person, with very few exceptions. For the most part, Morrison uses a third person limited-omniscient narration style that focuses on a single character at a time to reveal their thoughts, and although she switches perspectives fairly often, the reader rarely gets to see the general picture. In this final passage, however, Morrison uses the all-knowing, omniscient narrator, which is extremely befitting given that a conclusion should tie up most, if not all, of the loose knots in the whole scheme of things and leaves the reader with a sense of closure. Furthermore, because she uses it so sparingly earlier in the novel, the rarity of the third person omniscient narrator makes Morrison’s final lesson all the more powerful in its delivery.

            In addition to her choice of point of view, Morrison’s use of figurative language lends an additional dimension to her message. The best example of this is the first line of the fourth paragraph in the excerpt: “So they forgot her. Like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep” (324). At first glance, these two lines are deceptively simple; Morrison is simply comparing Beloved to a bad dream like you would do in any old simile—except that this is not any old simile. This simile’s purpose is to further embellish Beloved’s symbolic representation of slavery, or rather the ever-haunting shadow that slavery leaves behind in the lives of former slaves. Although the hints have been there all along, it is in these final two pages of Beloved that you realize with sudden clarity that Beloved represents so much more than just an angry baby’s ghost. And this is the way Morrison meant it to be, which is especially apparent given the ambiguous nature of the last two pages. You may well ask, “Is this passage referring to Beloved or the horrors of slavery?” The answer to that question is both because they are, figuratively, one and the same. The simile compounds this statement by the fact that you can easily interchange Beloved and the horrors of slavery in comparison to a bad dream. Moreover, Morrison’s decision to compare them to a dream shows that no matter how bad, both will eventually fade away until they are no more than exactly that—a dream, and not a reality.

            Furthermore, Morrison uses repetition to do what it does best, which is to emphasize important phrases. Obviously, the previously discussed simile is one such phrase, although she does change the syntax around ever so slightly to add more detail to the second repetition to make it stronger, like the way you build a house by putting one brick on top of another. Another key phrase that Morrison chooses to repeat is so important that it has its own paragraph: “It was not a story to pass on” (323, 324). The reason she puts so much emphasis on this one sentence is because that it essentially sums up the message of her story: that there are some things that are better left unremembered, no matter how hard they are to forget. Once again, this statement follows the ambiguity of the whole passage since, on the surface, it is referring to Beloved’s story, but underneath, it is referring to the story of slavery in general. Interestingly enough, on the third repetition, Morrison shifts from past to present tense: “This is not a story to pass on” (324). Perhaps by doing so, she is actually addressing the reader directly and implying that even now in this present day we must still learn to stop being haunted by the repercussions of slavery. But whether she is referring to the characters or the reader, Morrison’s use of repetition sounds her message loud and clear to whoever is listening.

There are some things that we may never forget and never should forget. There are other things that seem to be unforgettable, but must be forgotten in order to move on in life, past the hurt and the pain. Slavery is one such thing and Morrison’s story of Beloved and how she came back to haunt Sethe and company is a beautiful representation of the long lasting and haunting aftereffects of slavery. Through her use of point of view, figurative language, and repetition, Morrison makes sure that her message is heard by all readers alike in her powerful conclusion to Beloved.