Robert Cormier
Robert Cormier is a very successful writer, he has written a total of 19 books. He uses a very good writing style and devices to enhance his writing. Robert Cormier used many examples of psychological manipulation which made the reader feel more attached to the characters who were being manipulated. This was one of the devices he used that took his writing to the next level. When he did this it made you feel more a part of the novel. It made you feel personally connected to the novel and gave you a positive or negative feeling towards the characters. In the books the characters manipulated people for many reasons but most of the time it was to get what they wanted.
In the book The Chocolate War the whole book was based off of psychological manipulation. A group of students called the Vigils manipulated many students and teachers into getting what they want. The Vigils had a lot influence in the school, they used their assignments to gain more power and respect. An article stated “the assignments
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In this book Robert Cormier does fantastic work by creating the character of Trent (the interrogator). He completely manipulates people into thinking they did things that they did not. He is able to convince Carl that he was the murderer of a little girl when he actually was not. After Trent was able to force Carl to confess Sarah stated “That's not possible...they have the killer in custody” (Cormier 148). He uses psychological manipulation by making you question your own life. His interrogation worked so well that it turned Carl insane and he ended up becoming a murderer because of it. This happens at the end of the book when Carl says “I am going to show what I can do and really do it this time instead of saying he did it when he didn’t.” (Cormier 154). This is one of the best examples of psychological manipulation because Trent is able to make people think whatever he wants them
In the Norfolk Four case, Ford began his interrogatories by a prior assumption that the four suspects were involved in the case. As Chapman (2013) noted, “ the interrogator will use whatever means necessary to elicit a confession, and not only will the suspect confess, but they will form false memories of the crimes they did not commit,” (p.162). Joseph Dick, one of the four suspects in the Norfolk Four case, claimed that due to the harsh interrogatories, he accepted the label put on him and began to believe that he committed the crime. Accordingly, Joseph Dick and the others began telling false narratives of the way they committed the crime. Even though, their narratives contradicted with evidence and facts of the actual murder, Ford proceeded to psychologically abuse the four suspects in order to hear what he wanted to hear.
Throughout the book The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, there are many different themes that happen during the story to progress the plot. But there are three main themes : manipulation, power, and choice. All of which are seen by a lot of the main characters. One main and important theme in The Chocolate War is manipulation. Through the whole book there are many instances where manipulation is used as a tactic for someone or a group of people to get what they want, even teachers.
War is depicted as a horrid situation that takes one 's innocence along with joy and happiness. War changes a person completely through the dehumanizing violence illustrated through Paul, a innocent young man who transformed by war into a man with everything stripped from him. The symbols that help this theme are his books and potato pancakes that both support the effect war has had on Paul by changing his views and taking all his connections to joy. The books represent the shadow war has casted while the potato pancakes mean love and blessing that gets unthanked by Paul since he lost the ability to feel in a constant state of
The reader starts out with a real hatred for the antagonists, but eventually comes to like them. The author does a wonderful job at convincing the reader to empathize with the kidnappers. Using the three methods that I have talked about, he makes the reader feel completely opposite than what the reader would expect to feel. Combining excellent writing skills, a great plot, and an interesting technique, the author accomplishes a great story while making the reader empathize with the "bad guys", who might not be so bad after all.
during the war. This novel is able to portray the overwhelming effects and power war has
...adults to achieve his motive. From the experience in being manipulated, he uses it to show his army who is in command and to bring out their full potential, displaying his leadership qualities. Thus, one can say from the experiences that are gained with all the manipulation that occurs to and around the children, it builds potent characters.
In 1969, when Jim Garrison's Conspiracy-To-Kill-Kennedy trial collapsed, his entire case that the accused, Clay Shaw, had participated in an assassination plot turned out to be based on nothing more than the hypnotized- induced story of a single witness. This witness was Perry Raymond Russo who had testified that he had had no conscious memory of his own conspiracy story before he was drugged, hypnotized, and fed hypothetical circumstances about the plot that was supposed to have witnessed by Jim Garrison. This witness acknowledged that he could not separate fantasy from reality after this bizarre treatment. This resulted in a dismay of Garrison's supporters and the resign of three members of his staff. In the movie JFK, Garrison re-emerges as a man who brilliantly solves the mystery of the Kennedy Assassination. In this version, there was no hypnosis and the reborn ...
The speeches cause children to have revenge in their hearts and minds, and seeing the death of their friends and families are motivating them to fight. The war was coming, and the village needed more soldiers to keep the village safe. The boys were told to join the military or leave the village, but they knew there was only death once they leave the village. “‘Some of you are here because they have killed your parents or families, others because this is a safe place to be. Well, it is not that safe anymore.
I believe the author was successful while portraying Abner as a negative character, to begin after Harris demanded a dollar f...
Anybody can write and persuade a certain audience, based on how the writer wants their audience to look at the situation. In Steve Earle’s essay “A Death in Texas”, he persuades his readers that he wants to believe that Johnathan Wayne Nobles was rehabilitated. In the essay, Nobles was a changed man within faith from becoming a religious man within the prison walls. Prison guards learned to trust Nobles with his quick-witted charm and friendliness. Steve persuaded himself that Johnathan was a changed man from the words that they had exchanged over the years on paper. Reality states that no matter how much someone changed in the present, it doesn’t change what they have done in the past. Earle describes in the essay “There he will be pumped full of chemicals that will collapse his lungs and stop his heart forever” (Earle 73). He’s persuading the audience with horrid emotion with facts of a lethal injection that will happen to Johnathan. What Earle doesn’t describe is how gruesomely Johnathan’s murders were. In this world everyone has a chance to know right from wrong, even if someone was brought up wrong in the society. Johnathan was not rehabilitated, maybe at one point accepted his past, but he was still a murderer and a
For many years, people have been manipulated into plans without even knowing. One example of why the manipulation occurs is Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, which is a motivational theory comprising human needs. Like in the memoir, a long way gone, written by Ishmael Beah, in 2007. The Sierra Leone army employs a strategy of providing levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy in order to recruit children to become soldiers through misconceptions.
Throughout the narrative, the text utilizes the conflict over the crisis of cognition, or the very mystery regarding the Marquise’s lack of knowledge surrounding her mysterious pregnancy, as a catalyst for the presentation of the plurality of opinions associated with the Marquise’s current status in society and presumptions to the father’s identity. In itself, this state of cognitive dissonance prevents the Marquise from making any attempts at atoning for her supposed sin, as she herself is unaware of any possible transgressions responsible for her current predicament. In turn, this separation from the truth pushes the marquise to fall into the conviction that the “incomprehensible change[s] in her figure” and “inner sensations” (85) she felt were due to the god of Fantasy or Morpheus or even “one of his attendant dreams,” (74) thereby relinquishing her subconscious from any guilt. However, despite her self-assurance of innocence and desperate pleas at expressing her clear conscience, the marquise becomes subject to external pressures from both her family and society, who come to perc...
...his manipulation of people’s knowledge creates a mindless society, so manipulation is a method Bradbury uses to convey his warning. By presenting the theme of manipulation and lies Orwell and Bradbury exhibit their warnings about society.
Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, is a superb novel with outstanding themes. One of the most prominent themes found in this novel is psychological manipulation. Citizens in this society are subject to ever present signs declaring “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” (Orwell 1). Along with psychological manipulation, physical control takes place. The Party not only controls what people in Oceania think, but what they do as well.
understanding. I am a skeptic. The characters that he incorporates within his story, help to. establish a sense of the conditions and hardships that the country is experiencing. experiencing, and the presence of fear throughout the whole of the populace.