On Boxing Annotated

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Persuasive Essay
Oates / On Boxing


---- Two fighters and a boxing ring, the cheers of the crowd, and the contest of skill determining the outermost limits of the human mind and body; this is a story- a "condensed drama without words" the extended metaphor of On Boxing. Anything can happen in this "story" from death to undeniable victory, and it all takes place in the ring-the setting, explained through the interchanging of blows-the dialogue, and written by "the authority of Time".
---- A boxing match is as much a wordless drama, as a funeral is a tragedy. Comparatively, the structure of both a story and the match are similar in that the sequential rounds in boxing are like the chapters in a story's chronology because each occur following the events of the last. Furthermore, the transitional sentences between paragraphs are also equalled by the fighters' brief pauses of anticipation between their next moves. Although romantic writers, strict on the most minuscule of details, would argue that a story does not contain a "referee" who would control the evolution of plot and denouement, a boxing match's development is not simply controlled by a referee but by the "authority of Time". …show more content…

Before the the ringing of a bell signals the beginning of a match, a few things occur-a prequel to the story. The boxers receive encouragement from their managers as well as from the crowd during their ascension to the ring. The referee discusses the rules, and both proceed to bumping their gloves, accepting their "irrevocable" fate, to box. In a moment the match begins and everything becomes "split second reflexes": the dialogue of boxing, which to the audience of the boxing match, is the text, the syntax, and the language of

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