Charles Lamb masterfully shoots down a request from his good friend William Wordsworth by using many forms of rhetorical strategies, including multiple uses of imagery, LEP, and rhetorical questions, delivering all of it in a slowly degrading form of sincerity to decline Wordsworth’s invitation to visit him in the country. Lamb starts off his response ever so politely, pseudo-apologizing for his late response. Lamb does this because even though the offer isn't enticing to him, it is still a very kind gesture from a close friend. As he continues he expresses concerns as to the cost of this getaway, and seems to hint that it isn’t a cost of money, but maybe sanity, “If I shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey.” his logical answer steers you towards the feeling that he will not be planning on accepting the offer. By not shooting down this invitation right away Lamb has time to explain why the trip does not entice him, and also exemplifies his friendship with Wordsworth. …show more content…
Lamb uses pathos in the next sentence, saying, “Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life.” This conveys the notion that the offer Wordsworth extended to him is something he doesn't care to do, ever.
This shifts the feeling away from rejecting his offer because of the friendship to rejecting his offer because of the setting. Lamb continues on, describing why he would rather stay in London, and does this using imagery: “The lighted shops… the innumerable trades...the bustle and wickedness… the very women of the town…” Lamb continues to a point of rambling in order to show the immensity of his love for London, and how it trickles down to even the smallest details. Lamb’s love for his home is exemplified by his use of even more imagery to describe London, for example “London itself a pantomime and a masquerade…” His point is that he loves London and wouldn't want to leave for
anything. Shortly after he finishes elaborating on his love for London, Lamb starts to belittle the very home of Wordsworth, starting with a rhetorical question, Lamb asks, “Have I not enough without your mountains?” Although Lamb starts this letter considerately, all traces of that feeling begin to dissipate when he begins using a hostile tone. He becomes hostile in an effort to get his point through to Wordsworth as blatantly as possible. The following sentence gives that idea structure, starting on his rampage. Lamb begins with, “I do not envy you. I should pity you…” and seems to slam the very lifestyle, of his friend Wordsworth, in a final effort to show his contempt for the countryside. Lamb being the skillful poet he is wraps up his rejection of the invitation with a dismissive note, stating that he “should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna.” By ending his letter with that sentence, Lamb is clear that he felt as if the idea were preposterous from the get go, and thus finishes his declination of the invitation Wordsworth extended to him.
Often people are not what they seem. According to Roald Dahl, in “Lamb to the Slaughter,” “But there needn’t really be any fuss. I hope not anyway. It wouldn’t be very good for my job.” When in public Patrick Maloney was the doting husband, but when the doors hid outside eyes Patrick revealed his true feelings. He wanted a divorce. He wanted to ruin his wife and soon-to-be child, but without anyone knowing. Thought the passage, the tone is revealed as condescending. The way Mr. Maloney talks to his wife is as though she is a small and unknowing child.
In 102 Minutes, Chapter 7, authors Dwyer and Flynn use ethos, logos, and pathos to appeal to the readers’ consciences, minds and hearts regarding what happened to the people inside the Twin Towers on 9/11. Of particular interest are the following uses of the three appeals.
“People who had incurred the displeasure of the party simply disappeared and were never heard of again.
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
In his letter dated January 30, 1801, Charles Lamb efficiently utilizes a variety of rhetorical techniques to eloquently and politely decline William Wordsworth’s invitation to visit him. Mr. Lamb is an especially well-equipped individual in the field of composition, as indicated by his efficient use of rhetorical devices (Latinate word choice, sentence structure, and other aspects of syntax). He is able to deliver his message of decline politely and eloquently while at the same time avoiding the offense of the reader, Mr. William Wordsworth. He is able to explain why he is unable to accept the offer without giving the impression of being off-put. And he does so with class, sophistication, and skill.
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a pamphlet called “A Modest Proposal”. It is a satirical piece that described a radical and humorous proposal to a very serious problem. The problem Swift was attacking was the poverty and state of destitution that Ireland was in at the time. Swift wanted to bring attention to the seriousness of the problem and does so by satirically proposing to eat the babies of poor families in order to rid Ireland of poverty. Clearly, this proposal is not to be taken seriously, but merely to prompt others to work to better the state of the nation. Swift hoped to reach not only the people of Ireland who he was calling to action, but the British, who were oppressing the poor. He writes with contempt for those who are oppressing the Irish and also dissatisfaction with the people in Ireland themselves to be oppressed.
Pollan’s article provides a solid base to the conversation, defining what to do in order to eat healthy. Holding this concept of eating healthy, Joe Pinsker in “Why So Many Rich Kids Come to Enjoy the Taste of Healthier Foods” enters into the conversation and questions the connection of difference in families’ income and how healthy children eat (129-132). He argues that how much families earn largely affect how healthy children eat — income is one of the most important factors preventing people from eating healthy (129-132). In his article, Pinsker utilizes a study done by Caitlin Daniel to illustrate that level of income does affect children’s diet (130). In Daniel’s research, among 75 Boston-area parents, those rich families value children’s healthy diet more than food wasted when children refused to accept those healthier but
The poem “Black Lamb” is about a person who has experienced the horrible reality of being raped. It creates a person who is extremely dissatisfied with herself. She feels that everyone thinks she is different or bad. Her life has been turned completely around in such a short time. Trying to live a normal life has been destroyed by an evil act she had no control over.
going to eat the lamb because at the start and all the way through the
Looking back at my rhetorical analysis in writing 150, to sum it up, it was horrendous. It became exceedingly obvious that I had skipped the prewriting step. Forgoing this step caused choppy sentences, multiple grammatical errors, and horrendous flow. The rough draft ended up looking like a collection of jumbled up words. The first attempted felt so bad, I started over entirely. After the review in class, I used the examples to focus my ideas and build off what other people had done. For example, the review helped me to clarify my knowledge and use of Kairos. Once done, it was peer reviewed by my group again. All the other group members commented that I had good ideas, but bad flow and grammatical errors. After revising their respective points and
In the scene where Lamb prepares to execute Dr. Newgate, he is shown a photograph of a drummer boy; a photograph that triggers a traumatic and dark memory in his past. The scene then shifts from the quiet asylum into Lamb’s memories, where he is inside of a hospital tent filled with dying soldiers. Desperately wanting to save them, Lamb kills them all, including the drummer boy. Later on, when the scene returns to the asylum, Lamb is shown to be mentally broken, as he is unable to do anything another than shake his head and say “I saved them all.”. These two short, significant scenes show the powerlessness of humans when they are faced with the mistakes of their past. Silas Lamb is reminded of his actions through the photograph he is shown, which symbolically represents his dark experiences and depicts one of the many people he has killed. As a result, Lamb hides the photograph so he can pretend it doesn’t exist and hide from the guilt it depicts. However, he can no longer hide, as Newgate reveals the photograph to him. The photograph of the drummer boy reminded him of the powerlessness he felt when he tried to “save” his comrades. He was incapable of doing anything once again when he failed to change his actions in the haunting recollection. In both events, Lamb could not do anything, as he did not have the power to work medical miracles or change the past. When he finally understood this, he broke apart mentally and became insane. Lamb conveys the inability of humans to control their past through his own experiences of the past and his dark persona. Moreover, he shows that all humans are powerless and afraid in the face of their past and their
Jonathan Kozol revealed the early period’s situation of education in American schools in his article Savage Inequalities. It seems like during that period, the inequality existed everywhere and no one had the ability to change it; however, Kozol tried his best to turn around this situation and keep track of all he saw. In the article, he used rhetorical strategies effectively to describe what he saw in that situation, such as pathos, logos and ethos.
Lamb is a man willing to give up a friendship in order to avoid leaving his home city. In his response to Wordsworth’s invitation he uses rhetorical devices such as hyperboles, personification, and comparisons to blatantly deny Wordsworth.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a lamb to the slaughter is essentially when someone doesn’t know what they’re getting themselves into and therefore, do not resist. Now, Patrick and Mary Maloney had a seemingly normal relationship. Mary played the perfect little housewife for her hardworking, investigator of a husband. Attending to his every need and then some, who would have ever thought she would commit the heinous crime that she did? Through dialogue and the actions of the character, Roald Dahl illustrates the change in emotion of the protagonist Mary Maloney in the short story “Lamb to the Slaughter.” Utilizing word choice to manipulate the tone, and in turn the mood, Dahl demonstrates the character fluidity flawlessly.
"The Poetry of William Wordsworth." SIRS Renaissance 20 May 2004: n.p. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 06 February 2010.