Representative* Student Answers (each awarded a full six
points)
RHETORIC MIDTERM 2008:
Part A (Short Passages for Analysis)
(* but not exhaustive--other examples and other
interpretations are possible)
Go here for representative answers to Part C.
1. HYPOPHORA and PARALEPSIS (or
APOPHASIS)
But then the question arises, you say, "Well, how do you pay for
these and how can you do it legally?" And there are several ways that it can be done,
incidentally, and that it is done legally in the United States Senate and in the Congress.
The first way is to be a rich man. I don't happen to be a rich man so I couldn't use
that one.
Another way that is used is to put your wife on the payroll. Let me say, incidentally,
my opponent, my opposite number for the Vice Presidency on the Democratic ticket, does
have his wife on the payroll. And has had her on his payroll for the ten years—the
past ten years.
Now just let me say this. That's his business and I'm not critical of him for doing
that. You will have to pass judgment on that particular point. But I have never done that
for this reason. I have found that there are so many deserving stenographers and
secretaries in Washington that needed the work that I just didn't feel it was right to put
my wife on the payroll.
(Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech, September 23, 1952)
Sample Student Answer
In the "Checkers Speech," Nixon responds to allegations of shady
financial dealings by deflecting attention onto his opponent. First, he employs hypophora
(a rhetorical device in which one asks questions and then answers them) in the opening
paragraph of this excerpt. He does this to give the appearance that he is about
to answer the charges against him, though in fact he's going to focus on how other
politicians pay for campaign expenses. Paralepsis (emphasizing a
point by seeming to pass over it) is evident in both paragraphs three and four. He shifts
suspicion onto his opponent, whose wife is on the payroll, although he remarks that
"That's his business and I'm not critical." In paragraph three Nixon informs us
of his opponent's business "incidentally," as though the information he uses was
just casually remembered.
2. ENTHYMEME and
DIATYPOSIS (or DEHORTATIO)
. . . I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for Liberty cannot be Equally
Strong in the Breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow Creatures
of theirs. Of this I am certain that it is not founded upon the generous and Christian
principal of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us. . . .
Sample Student Answer
In this famous letter to her husband, Abigail Adams artfully and forcefully
encourages our country's "Founding Fathers" to also "Remember the
Ladies" in applying the principles of freedom and independence. The advice she offers
(diatyposis) along with a warning (dehortatio--dissuasive
advice given with authority) is based on a sequence of enthymemes
(an enthymeme is a truncated syllogism with an implied premise). The implied premise in
the first paragraph is "Men are accustomed to depriving their fellow
creatures--specifically, women--of liberty." Thus she questions whether men are
equipped by experience to understand and articulate the universal desire for
liberty. In the second paragraph she states more directly--through the dehortatio of
"Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands"--her argument
that without laws to curb their tyrannical impulses. The implied premise in the second
paragraph is that the country's political rebellion should be based on equal rights to
avoid further rebellions of a different order. Her final diatyposis--"Remember us
then as Beings . . ."--is both a an emotional and a logical plea for justice.
3. EPIMONE and POLYSYNDETON
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted
over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages,
or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at
my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me!
And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man--when I could get
it--and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and
seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but
Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? . . .
(Sojourner Truth, "Ain’t I a Woman?")
Sample Student Answer
To contrast her own social status and abilities with those of white men in order
to reveal the inherent evils and hypocrisy of slavery, Sojourner Truth uses polysyndeton
(a style that employs a great many conjunctions) and tricolons (series of three
items with similar structure) in an epimone that extends throughout the speech. (One
sense of epimone is "dwelling on a point.") By repeating
the polysyndetic tricolon "helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and
…have the best place everywhere –" with added significance, Sojourner
emphatically calls into question the perception that a black woman is somehow
"inferior" to others. The famous epimone (which also means
"frequent repetition of a phrase") of the title--which is also an example of
epiplexis (asking questions to reproach)--can then have only one answer: Sojourner
Truth was obviously a woman. Thus, her refrain of "Ain’t I a woman?" asks
and answers simultaneously. Again, the object is to expose hypocrisy.
4. METAPHOR and ELLIPSIS
There is no peace with you,
Nor any rest!
Your presence is a torture to the brain.
Your words are barbed arrows to the breast,
And one but greets To wish you sped again.
Frustrate you make desire
And action vain.
There is no peace with you .
No peace . . .
Nor any rest.
(Jessie Redmond Fauset, "Enigma")
Sample Student Answer
Metaphor is the implied comparison between two basically dissimilar
things that actually have something important in common. Ellipsis is the
omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the audience. The vehicle
of the main metaphor in "Enigma" is "barbed arrows to the breast"; the
other nine lines of this stanza essentially serve as the tenor, indicating that the
speaker's metaphorical heart is not merely "broken" by the cruel words of her
companion but that his hurtful speech sticks and the resultant pain persists (as suggested
by "barbed"). The ellipsis in line 2 simply invites the reader to complete
the syntax of the line (" . . .with you"), but in lines 9 and 10 the ellipses
seem also to suggest the speaker's exhaustion--lacking "peace" and needing
"rest," she uses as few words as possible to convey her weariness and
frustration.
5. EPANALEPSIS and ANTITHESIS
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may
hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe:
censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If
there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus'
love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against
Caesar, this is my answer:
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
(William Shakespeare, Act III, scene ii of Julius Caesar)
Sample Student Answer
Twice in this passage Brutus uses epanalepsis, or a clause or
sentence that begins and ends with the same word. By repeating "hear" and
"believe" at both the beginning and end of successive lines, Brutus emphasizes
to the crowd that these are the two main things he desires: for the crowd to
"hear" him and, more significantly, to "believe" him. The two
parts of the final compound sentence are antithetical (i.e.,
juxtaposing contrasting ideas in balanced phrases) in that they juxtapose the idea of
Brutus needing to kill Caesar, though he was his most devoted follower, because
the only greater love he had was for Rome. Thus, in balanced clauses that appear to
reduce "truth" to its simplest form, Brutus fashions an ethical appeal of an
honorable man wholeheartedly devoted to the good of Rome.
6. ETHOPOEIA and
TETRACOLON CLIMAX
It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a
healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the
mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This
man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were
working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming
– all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood
on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live.
His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered,
foresaw, reasoned--reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking
together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with
a sudden snap, one of us would be gone--one mind less, one world less.
(George Orwell, "A Hanging")
Sample Student Answer
The most significant factor here is the positioning of the ethopoeia
(i.e., putting oneself in place of another so as to both understand and express his or her
feelings more vividly) in the relative center of the narrative. As the narrator
describes the prisoner and his actions regarding the puddle, for the first time he has put
himself in the shoes of the prisoner to consider his plight . After offering only
generalized descriptions and dehumanized references to "the prisoner" in the
first half of the essay, the narrator now perceives the prisoner as a man. Orwell
further humanizes him with an effective tetracolon climax (series
of four parallel items), in an appositive where he lists "bowels digesting food, skin
renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming." This list of basic human
bodily functions invites identification with all other humans in that the natural
processes apply to everyone. Likewise, a second tetracolon climax ("seeing,
hearing, feeling, understanding the same world") also serves to embellish and support
the ethopoeia in this passage.
7. TRICOLONS and HYPERBOLE
.
. . If you so much as loosen your seatbelt or drop you ashes or pick your nose, then it's
an Alcatraz autopsy with the questions asked later. Any
indiscipline, you feel, any variation, and there=s a bullhorn, a set of scope sights, and a coptered pig drawing
a bead on your rug.
So what can a poor boy do?
You come out of the hotel, the Vraimont. Over
boiling Watts the downtown sky line carries a smear of God=s green snot. You
walk left, you walk right, you are a bank rat on a busy river. This restaurant serves no drink, this one serves no
meat, this one serves no heterosexuals. You
can get your chimp shampooed, you can get your dick tattooed, twenty-four hours, but can
you get lunch? And should you see a sign on
the far side of the street flashing BEEF -- BOOZE -- NO STRINGS, then you can forget it. The only way to get across the road is to be born
there.
(Martin Amis, Money)
Sample Student Answer
Through short representative lists (or tricolons--series of three
members), the speaker hyperbolically projects an infuriated, frustrated ethos. (Hyperbole
is the use of exaggerated terms to create a heightened effect.) The trivial activities
recounted in the tricolon in the first sentence ("loosen
your seatbelt or drop you ashes or pick your nose") are paralleled by the
extreme response of the police in the tricolon in the second sentence ("a bullhorn, a set of scope sights, and a coptered pig drawing a
bead on your rug"). The negative tricolon that makes up sentence five of
the next paragraph ("This restaurant . . . ") also contains a syllepsis
(a kind of ellipsis in which one word--here "serves"--is understood differently
in relation to two or more other words--"drink," "meat,"
"heterosexuals") and conveys a sense of absurd victimization, as do the crots
in the tricolon in sentence seven: "BEEF -- BOOZE --
NO STRINGS." As these strategies indicate, the speaker is not interested
in providing a quiet guided tour of Los Angeles; his point is to convey, through comic
exaggeration, his own persistent anger and frustration.
*Answers provided by English 5730 students, past and present.
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SECTION B: Familiar Passage for Rhetorical Analysis
Include in your analysis some consideration of rhetorical purpose and
situation as well as ethical,
pathetic, and logical appeals (with particular emphasis on invented ethos),
sense of audience, allusion, anaphora,
metaphors, enthymeme, epimone, gradatio, antithesis, tricolon, commoratio, parison, analogy, and parallelism. Feel free, of course, to discuss other devices as
wellBand
to relate your observations to parts of the speech not excerpted here.
See your class notes on our analysis of this speech on February 26 and 28 along with the postscripts
(at NOTES) to our classes on those
days and the handout on "Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' in Context:
Ceremonial Protest and African-American Jeremiad."
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Go here for representative answers to Part C.
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