Michael Crichton uses three common devices with ease in his novel, Sphere. The devices being: rhetoric, semantics, and style. Crichton uses these devices to incorporate a sense of unity in the writing. It is not difficult to incorporate this unity into a novel when the devices are properly used. When doing so, they flow together to create a more visual experience for the reader. These devices of writing are what create the environment for an understandable, yet interesting storyline.
Rhetoric is the art of using language effectively and persuasively. In doing so, the use of rhetoric fits in with how the writer of the story thinks and speaks. Crichton is an intellectual, yet he does not write in a sense where the reader cannot understand. He chooses to discuss many intellectual concepts, but in the process, Crichton makes them easy to understand by explaining them simply. “The wasn’t geometric. And it wasn’t amorphous or organic, either. It was hard to say what it was.” (Crichton, 117) In this excerpt, Crichton makes reference to a pattern. He describes it enough to leave the feeling of not knowing what it is besides just a simple pattern. Therefore, creating the feeling in which the characters feel.
Semantics refer to the study of language forms. In Sphere, the language is not too different. Every character in the novel is in fact an intellectual in one form or another. They speak correct grammar, and communicate well with each other. The social environment, which is formed, makes for smooth transitions of communication. The linguistics Crichton chose to use made the novel more appealing to the average reader.
Style can be defined as the way the author chooses to portray the characters and setting in his story. Crichton picks a parallel in his novel. The plot of Sphere deals with space exploration and alien existence. Yet Crichton does not put the setting in outer space, but in the deep sea. This parallelism is the basis for his entire novel. Throughout the story, the unexpected occurs. Even the main characters are unexpected.
Rhetoric in the article by William Covino and David Jolliffe is explained as an art of persuasion that uses communication with a purpose or goal. To add, it is an ongoing conversation between the rhetor and the auditors. In addition to using persuasion, the observance of the audience is used as well. In the article by William Covino and David Jolliffe they talk about the four major elements of rhetoric: the rhetorical situation, the audience, the methods of persuasion, and the 5 canons. As explained in the reading the purpose of rhetorical communication is to teach, to please, and to move.
Many people have questioned the existence of intergalactic intelligence such as time travel and aliens. Sphere takes all of these theories and rolls it into one novel. The main character in the novel is Norman Johnson a 56 year old psychologist who is very well known in his field. Norman plays a very important role in the novel, constantly changing the events for the better. Throughout the novel many changes occur to change his thoughts and his characteristics. Norman along with other scientists are called upon to work on a crash sight, but this wasn’t an ordinary crash sight that Norman was used to work on this was a crash sight of a UFO. The UFO is believed to be hundreds of years old. The investigation that they are working on is unknown to the eyes of the public. The main reason Norman has been selected to work on this project is due to his former work on the ULF project. The ULF was a project that gave recommendations for the human contact team to interact wit Unknown Life Forms. In Normans report it recommended a team of four an astrophysicist, a zoologist, a mathematician a linguist and a fifth member, a psychologist. The physiologist job would be to monitor the rest of the crew. Harold Barnes is the leader of investigation on the crash sight; Barnes essentially took Normans ideas on the ULF project and adapted it to the crash sight with Norman being the psychologist.
The right to a trial by jury is deeply embedded in the American democratic stance. This shines through the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
Citizens of the United States are given the right to a fair trial. Over the course of the development of the American jury system, citizens are allowed to the right to meet one’s accuser, be represented by his/her peers and protection from being tried more than once on any convicted crime. The jury system has evolved from a representation of all white men to both men and women from very diverse backgrounds. This is important if one is going to be tried in his/her community of peers.
The jury plays a crucial role in the courts of trial. They are an integral part in the Australian justice system. The jury system brings ordinary people into the courts everyday to judge whether a case is guilty or innocent. The role of the jury varies, depending on the different cases. In Australia, the court is ran by an adversary system. In this system “..individual litigants play a central part, initiating court action and largely determining the issues in dispute” (Ellis 2013, p. 133). In this essay I will be discussing the role of the jury system and how some believe the jury is one of the most important institutions in ensuring that Australia has an effective legal system, while others disagree. I will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of a jury system.
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
In the United States, jury trials are an important part of our court system. We rely heavily on the jury to decide the fate of the accused. We don’t give a second thought to having a jury trial now, but they were not always the ‘norm’.
Rhetoric is a significant part of our everyday lives. Whether it's convincing our friends to go to a concert on the weekend, to go to a certain place for lunch, or even convincing yourself to do something that you should but don't want to do. Rhetoric is all around us today. Billboard ads, television commercials, newspaper ads, political speeches, even news stories all try, to some degree, to sway our opinion or convince us to take some sort of action. If you take a step back to look and think about it, rhetoric, in all actuality, shapes our lives. Every day we have an array of options of things to do or things to buy. So every day, our opinion or actions are being influenced, however minutely, by rhetoric.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play. Macbeth’s rise to the throne was brought about by the same external forces that ensure his downfall.
In the book, Fahrenheit 451,written by Ray Bradbury, he had put in literary devices to help readers understand what is going on throughout the context of the story. The literary devices used in the book were imagery and personification. These literary devices will help shows how technology ruins personal relationships.
his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in
Others definitions are not far out from mine. Rhetoric is a term that can obviously change in someone else’s perspective. As you saw early in the passage the sophist and Aristotle have two totally different views on the term rhetoric. Yet, what we all have in common is that they all involve persuasion. Regardless of a person’s perception of definition rhetoric will always be a form of sharing information in order to affect somebody’s perspective, reason being why rhetoric is so important when it comes to writing. As a writer you want your audience to feel as if they are in the novel. For example, bringing it to life for the reader or even influencing a reader to do good things for themselves. For instance, if somebody were in the market for a great weight loss program that supposedly will shed 50Ibs in a week, then an advertisement titled “SERIOUS WEIGHT LOSS OVER 50Ibs IN A MONTH” would quickly catch his or her attention. As a writer you don’t write to not get your point across or not to touch your audience. You want every time they read your text for them to feel some type of way. That is why rhetoric is very important to a
Rhetoric is something that we use constantly in our everyday life. Unbeknown to us, we have been using the persuasive appeals of pathos, ethos and logos even for the most mundane things. Rhetoric can be seen everywhere in our everyday’s lives in form of media, religion, politics, government propaganda, historic references and social media. We should learn to identify and appropriately use the different categories of rhetoric expressions in an effective manner. Rhetoric is the study of effective speaking and writing in order to convince the audience or the reader. It is sued to convince the audience to think in the same way as the arguer or the presenter.
Macbeth, a play written by William Shakespeare, portrays Macbeth as a kinsman, subject and trusted friend to King Duncan I of Scotland. A trusted friend, that is, until Macbeth has a chance encounter with the “three witches” (Shakespeare) or the “Weird Sisters”. The witches predict that Macbeth will become the next King and that his fellow companion, Banquo, will be the father of a line of kings. A change comes over Macbeth after his meeting; he is no longer content to be a follower of the King, he will “be” King at any cost. After killing the King and his friend Banquo, losing his wife to madness and ordering the execution of many, Macbeth is killed in much the same fashion as he has killed. But does this really reflect the real King MacBeth of Scotland? While examining the characteristics and actions of the two Macbeths and decide if Shakespeare’s writing was historically sound or was it just “double, double, toil and trouble” (4.1.22-26) playing with MacBeth’s character.