AROO...
I had to write a writing paper using an example of modern rhetoric. In a mix of desperation and genius, I decided to dredge up A Room of One's Own. The resulting essay turned out very nicely if I may say so (I got a 11/10). Fall break starts 12:00 Friday, so I am definitely looking forward to it! Classes resume next Wednesday. Although FOCUS programs are only offered in the fall, Duke's starting a new FOCUS program in the spring (Global Health), so I can't decide whether to apply or not. It sounds interesting, but there's many other classes I want to take. I can't decide!!! :( I also want to get a copy of Sahara. The book was awesome (I love Clive Cussler), so the movie had better be good! Speaking of movies, we had to see Clash of the Titans for our FOCUS IDC. An awful movie...the special effects were nearly as bad as that sci-fi film clip Berman showed us.
In her work A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf uses rhetoric very effectively to convey her point that women need privacy and a steady income in order to create literature. The book, which grew out of a speech given at a women’s college at Cambridge, was intended primarily for women. The book is an excellent example of rhetoric because it fully embodies all of the characteristics of rhetoric. Rhetoric has been defined as “the art of using discourse to persuade people to adopt or reject some belief, attitude, or commitment; to assign a particular meaning or value to their own or others’ conduct; or to carry out some proposed course of action in response to a pressing public problem.” A Room of One’s Own is an example of rhetoric that attempts to persuade people to adopt a belief. The book can primarily be considered an example of epideictic rhetoric. The three main elements of rhetoric are ethos, logos, and pathos. A Room of One’s Own displays all three.
As A Room of One’s Own begins, the author introduces the concept that the audience (or readers) can think of her as Mary Beton, Mary Seton, or Mary Carmichael; she claims her name is not important. This is an extremely important point in terms of rhetoric. A key aspect of rhetoric is ethos, or the ethical nature of rhetoric. The main idea of ethos is to establish the identity and credibility of the speaker. Unusually, Woolf refuses to identity herself. Furthermore, Woolf refuses to attempt to convince the audience she is honest and has good intentions. “Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping. If not, you will of course throw the whole of it into the waste-paper basket and forget all about it.” How, then, does Woolf demonstrate ethos? The answer is simple; Woolf uses examples of women of all classes to give her claim plausibility and credibility. For example, Woolf uses the example of Jane Austen, forced to eke out her masterpieces in her parlor, self-consciously hiding evidence of her activity when interrupted by visitors. These examples, purposely introduced by the author, give far more credence to the book than any claims on the author’s part. By the end of the book, few readers are left unmoved by her eloquent claims. In other words, the specific examples cited by Woolf give credence to her claims. Isocrates supports this view. “…Speech has helped us attain practically all of the things we have devised…By speech we refute the wicked and praise the good. By speech we educate the ignorant and inform the wise.” In other words, Isocrates is putting the highest emphasis on words. Words are used to create civilization, and words are used to function within civilization. Woolf places a similar importance on words. Woolf believes that words and literature are of the utmost importance to society, and women should have the opportunity to write freely. A final example of ethos is the author’s appeal to be simple and direct. “I have shirked the duty of coming to a conclusion upon these two questions-women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems. But in order to make some amends I am going to do what I can to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money. I am going to develop in your presence as fully and freely as I can the train of thought which led me to think this. Perhaps if I lay bare the ideas, the prejudices, that lie behind this statement you will find that they have some bearing upon women and some upon fiction.” These statements are highly effective in convincing the audience of Woolf’s good intentions. She lays her intentions bare, and she makes no pretensions. This forthrightness and lack of subtlety marks Woolf’s book and gives it a strong ethical appeal.
Much of A Room of One’s Own’s appeal, however, lies with its attention to pathos. As Gorgias points out, language tends to have a strong (and often deleterious) effect on emotion. “[Speech] has the power to put an end to fear, to remove grief, to instill joy, and increase pity.” Woolf puts this power of language to good use in her essay. To instill pity and understanding, Woolf introduces the fictional sister of Shakespeare in chapter 3. “Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say…Very soon he got work in the theatre, became a successful actor, and lived at the hub of the universe, meeting everybody, knowing everybody, practising his art on the boards, exercising his wits in the streets, and even getting access to the palace of the queen. Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister, let us suppose, remained at home. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil…” The story ends with the unfortunate Judith taking her own life after being turned away at every theater amid raucous laughter. This anecdote is certainly not intended to be educational; Shakespeare had no such gifted sister so far as we know. Why then, did Woolf insert such an odd story? Woolf knew quite well the story was very moving, and she anticipated the effect it would have on her audience. To endlessly lecture about her topic like the sophists is one thing, but describing it on a personal level is something quite different. Woolf intended women to be her audience, which is another reason for this obvious example of pathos. Women, traditionally seen as emotional, would be more upset by the plight of a fellow woman than a reader of the male sex. Is this obvious use of pathos effective? Most people would wholeheartedly agree that it is. Woolf’s Judith has become quite famous, and the pathetic figure that she presents cannot help but persuade readers to accept Woolf’s claims.
Although Woolf relies heavily on pathos to make her point, A Room of One’s Own is certainly not devoid of logos, or the logical nature of rhetoric. In chapter 6, Woolf observes the bustling streets from her window. “Now it was bringing from one side of the street to the other diagonally a girl in patent leather boots, and then a young man in a maroon overcoat; it was also bringing a taxi-cab; and it brought all three together at a point directly beneath my window; where the taxi stopped; and the girl and the young man stopped; and they got into the taxi; and then the cab glided off as if it were swept on by the current elsewhere.” From this simple intersection, Woolf presents a strong, logical case for the unity of male and female creativity. Woolf uses the term androgyny to illustrate this concept. Woolf argues that women should have the right to privacy and a fixed income, thus giving them the same opportunities as men. However, Woolf does not support competition between the sexes. A good writer is neither purely male nor purely female, she claims. A good writer is androgynous and incorporates elements of both sexes. Woolf uses the example of the taxi to illustrate the concept in the real world. The man and woman coming together in the taxi for a common purpose is highly significant. Such reasoning appeals to the human intellect, which is why logos is effective. However, nowhere in A Room of One’s Own does Woolf support her claims with solid facts or numbers. Rather, she dances from one female author to the next, examining each and how their creativity could have been improved by more favorable conditions. Katula and Murphy examine this trend. “Given these realities about speech, it falls to oratory-rhetoric-to persuade others; because speech does not always reveal the truth, persuasion is what we have left.” Woolf certainly does not claim to be consistently telling the truth; early in the books she warns the audience about lies flowing from her lips. However, Woolf does use persuasion effectively to make her point. In another case of excellent logic, Woolf clearly explains why women need to be able to write freely. “Good books are desirable and that good writers, even if they show every variety of human depravity, are still good human beings. Thus when I ask you to write more books I am urging you to do what will be for your good and for the good of the world at large.” Woolf cleverly makes two points in her favor. First, she makes an appeal to intellect by stating that literature should reflect all aspects of humanity, a concept with which most would agree. Woolf then appeals to emotion by claiming allowing this freedom to write is good for the world. This claim, although dramatic, is effective in convincing the reader of Woolf’s claims. A key aspect of rhetoric is that it claims to address public problems. By claiming female writers could better the world, Woolf makes the private issue public.
As with all cases of rhetoric, A Room of One’s Own is intended for a particular audience. The book grew out of lectures Woolf gave at women’s colleges at Cambridge. Thus, the essay is primarily intended for women, as is evident in the often critical remarks Woolf makes about men. One of the more critical remarks Woolf makes compares women to mirrors. According to Woolf, men need to look at their wives (mirrors) and see themselves as larger than life. Otherwise, they lack the fortitude to survive the rest of the day. This remark and others like it make it quite clear Woolf intended the essay for women. The novel is intended to illustrate the point that women need privacy and a fixed income in order to create fiction. Why then, was the essay directed at women? Sure men would have been a more appropriate audience! The answer is that Woolf was not directly demanding these rights for women. Rather, she was attempting to give women a glimpse of what could happen and what steps they needed to take to make it happen. Through stories of Mary Beton’s life and the lives of other female writers, Woolf inspires women to take steps to unleash their own creativity.
Another characteristic to consider when reading rhetoric is that rhetoric does not deal with absolute truth. Indeed, if an absolute truth existed, there would be no need for rhetoric, the main purpose of which is to persuade the audience that the speaker is correct. As Katula and Murphy point out, Protagoras taught “that for every idea, there is a corresponding contrary idea.” This idea is key when reading A Room of Own’s Own. Unlike Protagoras, Woolf did not even address the other side of the issue. Woolf states that she intends to prove women need privacy and a fixed income in order to create, and she continues her proof until near the end of the essay. Unfortunately, this supreme indifference to the other side of the issue leaves much to be desired. Woolf mentions men often, but almost inevitably in a bad light. Woolf does not examine the issue from a man’s perspective, which greatly weakens the validity of her essay.
Finally, rhetoric is usually defined as some sort of discourse. Whether verbal or written rhetoric is superior is, of course, up for debate, but Woolf makes her point in both mediums. Woolf originally gave the essay in the form of a speech to women at Cambridge. After its eager acceptance, Woolf lengthened it into the present essay. Both forms are effective, which shows that Woolf was indeed a master of rhetoric. By using ethos, pathos, and logos to validate her claims, Woolf effectively persuades readers.
MIAMI - The alligator has some foreign competition at the top of the Everglades food chain, and the results of the struggle are horror-movie messy. A 13-foot Burmese python recently burst after it apparently tried to swallow a live, six-foot alligator whole, authorities said. The incident has heightened biologists' fears that the nonnative snakes could threaten a host of other animal species in the Everglades. "It means nothing in the Everglades is safe from pythons, a top-down predator," said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor. Over the years, many pythons have been abandoned in the Everglades by pet owners. The gory evidence of the latest gator-python encounter - the fourth documented in the past three years - was discovered and photographed last week by a helicopter pilot and wildlife researcher. The snake was found with the gator's hindquarters protruding from its midsection. Mazzotti said the alligator may have clawed at the python's stomach as the snake tried to digest it. In previous incidents, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw. "There had been some hope that alligators can control Burmese pythons," Mazzotti said. "This indicates to me it's going to be an even draw. Sometimes alligators are going to win and sometimes the python will win." It is unknown how many pythons are competing with the thousands of alligators in the Everglades, but at least 150 have been captured in the past two years, said Joe Wasilewski, a wildlife biologist and crocodile tracker. Pythons could threaten many smaller species that conservationists are trying to protect, including other reptiles, otters, squirrels, woodstorks and sparrows, Mazzotti said. Wasilewski said a 10- or 20-foot python also could pose a risk to an unwary human, especially a child. He added, however, "I don't think this is an imminent threat. This is not a `Be afraid, be very afraid' situation.'"
In her work A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf uses rhetoric very effectively to convey her point that women need privacy and a steady income in order to create literature. The book, which grew out of a speech given at a women’s college at Cambridge, was intended primarily for women. The book is an excellent example of rhetoric because it fully embodies all of the characteristics of rhetoric. Rhetoric has been defined as “the art of using discourse to persuade people to adopt or reject some belief, attitude, or commitment; to assign a particular meaning or value to their own or others’ conduct; or to carry out some proposed course of action in response to a pressing public problem.” A Room of One’s Own is an example of rhetoric that attempts to persuade people to adopt a belief. The book can primarily be considered an example of epideictic rhetoric. The three main elements of rhetoric are ethos, logos, and pathos. A Room of One’s Own displays all three.
As A Room of One’s Own begins, the author introduces the concept that the audience (or readers) can think of her as Mary Beton, Mary Seton, or Mary Carmichael; she claims her name is not important. This is an extremely important point in terms of rhetoric. A key aspect of rhetoric is ethos, or the ethical nature of rhetoric. The main idea of ethos is to establish the identity and credibility of the speaker. Unusually, Woolf refuses to identity herself. Furthermore, Woolf refuses to attempt to convince the audience she is honest and has good intentions. “Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping. If not, you will of course throw the whole of it into the waste-paper basket and forget all about it.” How, then, does Woolf demonstrate ethos? The answer is simple; Woolf uses examples of women of all classes to give her claim plausibility and credibility. For example, Woolf uses the example of Jane Austen, forced to eke out her masterpieces in her parlor, self-consciously hiding evidence of her activity when interrupted by visitors. These examples, purposely introduced by the author, give far more credence to the book than any claims on the author’s part. By the end of the book, few readers are left unmoved by her eloquent claims. In other words, the specific examples cited by Woolf give credence to her claims. Isocrates supports this view. “…Speech has helped us attain practically all of the things we have devised…By speech we refute the wicked and praise the good. By speech we educate the ignorant and inform the wise.” In other words, Isocrates is putting the highest emphasis on words. Words are used to create civilization, and words are used to function within civilization. Woolf places a similar importance on words. Woolf believes that words and literature are of the utmost importance to society, and women should have the opportunity to write freely. A final example of ethos is the author’s appeal to be simple and direct. “I have shirked the duty of coming to a conclusion upon these two questions-women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems. But in order to make some amends I am going to do what I can to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money. I am going to develop in your presence as fully and freely as I can the train of thought which led me to think this. Perhaps if I lay bare the ideas, the prejudices, that lie behind this statement you will find that they have some bearing upon women and some upon fiction.” These statements are highly effective in convincing the audience of Woolf’s good intentions. She lays her intentions bare, and she makes no pretensions. This forthrightness and lack of subtlety marks Woolf’s book and gives it a strong ethical appeal.
Much of A Room of One’s Own’s appeal, however, lies with its attention to pathos. As Gorgias points out, language tends to have a strong (and often deleterious) effect on emotion. “[Speech] has the power to put an end to fear, to remove grief, to instill joy, and increase pity.” Woolf puts this power of language to good use in her essay. To instill pity and understanding, Woolf introduces the fictional sister of Shakespeare in chapter 3. “Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say…Very soon he got work in the theatre, became a successful actor, and lived at the hub of the universe, meeting everybody, knowing everybody, practising his art on the boards, exercising his wits in the streets, and even getting access to the palace of the queen. Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister, let us suppose, remained at home. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil…” The story ends with the unfortunate Judith taking her own life after being turned away at every theater amid raucous laughter. This anecdote is certainly not intended to be educational; Shakespeare had no such gifted sister so far as we know. Why then, did Woolf insert such an odd story? Woolf knew quite well the story was very moving, and she anticipated the effect it would have on her audience. To endlessly lecture about her topic like the sophists is one thing, but describing it on a personal level is something quite different. Woolf intended women to be her audience, which is another reason for this obvious example of pathos. Women, traditionally seen as emotional, would be more upset by the plight of a fellow woman than a reader of the male sex. Is this obvious use of pathos effective? Most people would wholeheartedly agree that it is. Woolf’s Judith has become quite famous, and the pathetic figure that she presents cannot help but persuade readers to accept Woolf’s claims.
Although Woolf relies heavily on pathos to make her point, A Room of One’s Own is certainly not devoid of logos, or the logical nature of rhetoric. In chapter 6, Woolf observes the bustling streets from her window. “Now it was bringing from one side of the street to the other diagonally a girl in patent leather boots, and then a young man in a maroon overcoat; it was also bringing a taxi-cab; and it brought all three together at a point directly beneath my window; where the taxi stopped; and the girl and the young man stopped; and they got into the taxi; and then the cab glided off as if it were swept on by the current elsewhere.” From this simple intersection, Woolf presents a strong, logical case for the unity of male and female creativity. Woolf uses the term androgyny to illustrate this concept. Woolf argues that women should have the right to privacy and a fixed income, thus giving them the same opportunities as men. However, Woolf does not support competition between the sexes. A good writer is neither purely male nor purely female, she claims. A good writer is androgynous and incorporates elements of both sexes. Woolf uses the example of the taxi to illustrate the concept in the real world. The man and woman coming together in the taxi for a common purpose is highly significant. Such reasoning appeals to the human intellect, which is why logos is effective. However, nowhere in A Room of One’s Own does Woolf support her claims with solid facts or numbers. Rather, she dances from one female author to the next, examining each and how their creativity could have been improved by more favorable conditions. Katula and Murphy examine this trend. “Given these realities about speech, it falls to oratory-rhetoric-to persuade others; because speech does not always reveal the truth, persuasion is what we have left.” Woolf certainly does not claim to be consistently telling the truth; early in the books she warns the audience about lies flowing from her lips. However, Woolf does use persuasion effectively to make her point. In another case of excellent logic, Woolf clearly explains why women need to be able to write freely. “Good books are desirable and that good writers, even if they show every variety of human depravity, are still good human beings. Thus when I ask you to write more books I am urging you to do what will be for your good and for the good of the world at large.” Woolf cleverly makes two points in her favor. First, she makes an appeal to intellect by stating that literature should reflect all aspects of humanity, a concept with which most would agree. Woolf then appeals to emotion by claiming allowing this freedom to write is good for the world. This claim, although dramatic, is effective in convincing the reader of Woolf’s claims. A key aspect of rhetoric is that it claims to address public problems. By claiming female writers could better the world, Woolf makes the private issue public.
As with all cases of rhetoric, A Room of One’s Own is intended for a particular audience. The book grew out of lectures Woolf gave at women’s colleges at Cambridge. Thus, the essay is primarily intended for women, as is evident in the often critical remarks Woolf makes about men. One of the more critical remarks Woolf makes compares women to mirrors. According to Woolf, men need to look at their wives (mirrors) and see themselves as larger than life. Otherwise, they lack the fortitude to survive the rest of the day. This remark and others like it make it quite clear Woolf intended the essay for women. The novel is intended to illustrate the point that women need privacy and a fixed income in order to create fiction. Why then, was the essay directed at women? Sure men would have been a more appropriate audience! The answer is that Woolf was not directly demanding these rights for women. Rather, she was attempting to give women a glimpse of what could happen and what steps they needed to take to make it happen. Through stories of Mary Beton’s life and the lives of other female writers, Woolf inspires women to take steps to unleash their own creativity.
Another characteristic to consider when reading rhetoric is that rhetoric does not deal with absolute truth. Indeed, if an absolute truth existed, there would be no need for rhetoric, the main purpose of which is to persuade the audience that the speaker is correct. As Katula and Murphy point out, Protagoras taught “that for every idea, there is a corresponding contrary idea.” This idea is key when reading A Room of Own’s Own. Unlike Protagoras, Woolf did not even address the other side of the issue. Woolf states that she intends to prove women need privacy and a fixed income in order to create, and she continues her proof until near the end of the essay. Unfortunately, this supreme indifference to the other side of the issue leaves much to be desired. Woolf mentions men often, but almost inevitably in a bad light. Woolf does not examine the issue from a man’s perspective, which greatly weakens the validity of her essay.
Finally, rhetoric is usually defined as some sort of discourse. Whether verbal or written rhetoric is superior is, of course, up for debate, but Woolf makes her point in both mediums. Woolf originally gave the essay in the form of a speech to women at Cambridge. After its eager acceptance, Woolf lengthened it into the present essay. Both forms are effective, which shows that Woolf was indeed a master of rhetoric. By using ethos, pathos, and logos to validate her claims, Woolf effectively persuades readers.
MIAMI - The alligator has some foreign competition at the top of the Everglades food chain, and the results of the struggle are horror-movie messy. A 13-foot Burmese python recently burst after it apparently tried to swallow a live, six-foot alligator whole, authorities said. The incident has heightened biologists' fears that the nonnative snakes could threaten a host of other animal species in the Everglades. "It means nothing in the Everglades is safe from pythons, a top-down predator," said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor. Over the years, many pythons have been abandoned in the Everglades by pet owners. The gory evidence of the latest gator-python encounter - the fourth documented in the past three years - was discovered and photographed last week by a helicopter pilot and wildlife researcher. The snake was found with the gator's hindquarters protruding from its midsection. Mazzotti said the alligator may have clawed at the python's stomach as the snake tried to digest it. In previous incidents, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw. "There had been some hope that alligators can control Burmese pythons," Mazzotti said. "This indicates to me it's going to be an even draw. Sometimes alligators are going to win and sometimes the python will win." It is unknown how many pythons are competing with the thousands of alligators in the Everglades, but at least 150 have been captured in the past two years, said Joe Wasilewski, a wildlife biologist and crocodile tracker. Pythons could threaten many smaller species that conservationists are trying to protect, including other reptiles, otters, squirrels, woodstorks and sparrows, Mazzotti said. Wasilewski said a 10- or 20-foot python also could pose a risk to an unwary human, especially a child. He added, however, "I don't think this is an imminent threat. This is not a `Be afraid, be very afraid' situation.'"