A Not So Nice Critical Analysis
Elouise Bell, in her article “When Nice Ain’t So Nice”, tackles the universal problem of bottling up one’s anger. Bell argues that being nice, when a situation calls for the opposite, is a problem that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints specifically have. While her assumptions may be correct, though contradictory to my experience, Bell’s examples fall short when trying to support her opinion. Bell also argues that nice people aren’t always so nice after all; that they are in fact the ones to be cautious of. While Bell’s arguments stem from mainstream thinking, it’s hard for one to agree with her due to her ineffective usage of hyperbole, metaphor, and examples that are not harmonious with her targeted Mormon audience.
Throughout Bell’s article, she lists various examples of nice deeds following them with acts of aggression. When describing how nice students at Brigham Young University are, Bell states that they would “…walk clear across campus to turn in stray Number Two pencils to the Lost-and-Found depository.” While this statement is a clear exaggeration, or hyperbole, it didn’t have to hurt Bell’s argument. However, Bell laid the groundwork of this particular paragraph on the basis that BYU students are nice. Bell’s desire to convince readers that the very same BYU students were writing “…letters dripping with innuendo, invective, and scripture-laden scourging” is not achieved due to her hyperbole. Students do not in reality walk across campus to return Number Two pencils. Readers will most likely question the validity of her argument due to part of it not being believable. This is not the only instance that Bell uses a hyperbole that does not have the desired effect.
Toward the end of Bell’s article, she mentions the Nicene Creed. She changes it into the Nice Creed and lists the beliefs of nice people. Much of the creed invokes laughter at nice people and the lengths they go to, to maintain their composure and niceness. Bell stretches herself too far on the creed though, going as far as to say that they would say “…nothing in response to…being run over by the bus”. This is yet another clear exaggeration calling into question Bell’s validity. If Bell has to exaggerate the points she is trying to make, she then leaves readers questioning how much of her argument is true. Instead of persuading her readers to believe as she does, even possibly to take action and end this fake niceness, Bell has the effect of making a reader question her credibility. Not only does Bell have the tendency to hyperbolize, but she also is also prone to digressing from her argument.
Bell creates a very detailed metaphor about a Queen who awakens to find that her newborn baby has been abducted. While metaphors are typically effective rhetorical tools expanding one’s understanding; this one is not. At first there are clues of the baby but as time passes the mother of the Queen urges her to break off the search, accuses her daughter of being selfish, and then even goes as far as to offer her another child that is much “nicer” than her own. This metaphor is ineffective for two main reasons. The first reason being that if such a situation were to happen in real life, the mother of the Queen would not have behaved at all the way she did. No mother would call her daughter selfish for trying to find her abducted child and then try to force another one upon her. Furthermore, this metaphor is ineffective because the point that Bell is trying to make is unclear. Niceness is not mentioned at all within the metaphor besides saying that the replacement baby is nicer. The resemblance or comparison that Bell tries to make is lost within her ineffectual metaphor.
Lastly, Bell argues that nice people do not like to know about poverty and death, for these are, respectfully, “distinctly not nice” and “unequivocally not nice”. Bell has made it clear that the church and its members are those especially guilty of niceness, which is what makes this argument so very confusing. Poverty is indeed a matter of concern for the church, not because it is un-nice though, but because the Lord has commanded church members to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. When it comes to living amongst those in poverty, Mormons are not alone in this. I would go as far as to say that all people would like to live in better neighborhoods where poverty is not an issue. As for death, LDS religion focuses on it and the afterlife heavily. Bell however states that they are “Not wanting to know, not willing to know, not about to know.” Death is not an occasion that anyone jumps for joy over, whether someone is nice or not does not matter. To say that Mormons are not willing to know about it is a mistaken belief. Here is yet another example of a futile argument made by Bell.
While there may have been some truth to Bell’s statement that “…it is niceness which can corrupt all other virtues”, she does a poor job of convincing her readers. Bell’s ineffective examples, hyperboles, and metaphor are but a few of the rhetorical tools that she failed to take advantage of to assert her view convincingly. After reading this article, I still feel comfortable in saying that I am a nice person, which is clearly not the outcome that Bell was aiming for.
Bell, Elouise.“When Nice Ain’t So Nice.” Readings for Intensive Writers. 5th ed. Comp. Susan Jorgensen. Provo: BYU Academic Publishing, 2007. 170-174. Print.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
GW Hunting Part two! (If you don't see this until you get to class and I'm not there, have no fear: Your first step of today's GW Hunt is to get a copy of the GW list from the Honors advisement Center downstairs!)
I hope Friday's MOA hunt was informative for you. But did you know that there are *more* great works categories than just Art? And that you have to write your GW papers on two different genres of Great Works? Yeah. You probably knew that.
Here's the thing. To write a paper about a great work, you have to, like, *be exposed* to great works. But there are a lot of those. How do you pick?
So here's what I want you to do with our class time this beautiful Halloween Monday (if you are wearing a costume while you do this, I will totally give you extra credit):
1) Obtain a copy of the Great Works list. You can get this from the student advisement center in the basement of the MSRB, or you can download it from online.
2) Next you need to *go* somewhere. Use the GW list to guide you. For example:
If you find that you're drawn to the theater/musical options of the list, go over to the HFAC, find out when stuff is playing; choose something you want to watch; maybe even buy your tickets. (You don't have to see anything *right then,* (unless you want to) but you want to be ready.)
If you want to do something sciency, walk yourself over to one of the science buildings. See if they have any special events planned. Talk to department offices or wander the halls looking for flyers. Find a professor and ask them if you can come observe a class. Make arrangements.
If you're interested in film, ask the Honors advisement center which films from the international cinema count this year. Then find a schedule and choose a time you'll go to a movie.
On the other hand, if you are a lover of literature, you could go to the library and find the book you need to read. Find books *about* the book you need to read. Check them out and start reading.
There are other options, right? I can't remember right now because I'm spacey like that. Consult the list and figure out an appropriate place to go.
3) I need to know that you actually *did* this assignment and didn't just use the hour to do your math homework, so I'm going to need proof. Take a picture of yourself wherever you end up and send it to me along with a half a paragraph about what you did.
You can do this alone or in groups or in pairs or even with your girlfriend or a random stranger. Have fun!
Here's the thing. To write a paper about a great work, you have to, like, *be exposed* to great works. But there are a lot of those. How do you pick?
So here's what I want you to do with our class time this beautiful Halloween Monday (if you are wearing a costume while you do this, I will totally give you extra credit):
1) Obtain a copy of the Great Works list. You can get this from the student advisement center in the basement of the MSRB, or you can download it from online.
2) Next you need to *go* somewhere. Use the GW list to guide you. For example:
If you find that you're drawn to the theater/musical options of the list, go over to the HFAC, find out when stuff is playing; choose something you want to watch; maybe even buy your tickets. (You don't have to see anything *right then,* (unless you want to) but you want to be ready.)
If you want to do something sciency, walk yourself over to one of the science buildings. See if they have any special events planned. Talk to department offices or wander the halls looking for flyers. Find a professor and ask them if you can come observe a class. Make arrangements.
If you're interested in film, ask the Honors advisement center which films from the international cinema count this year. Then find a schedule and choose a time you'll go to a movie.
On the other hand, if you are a lover of literature, you could go to the library and find the book you need to read. Find books *about* the book you need to read. Check them out and start reading.
There are other options, right? I can't remember right now because I'm spacey like that. Consult the list and figure out an appropriate place to go.
3) I need to know that you actually *did* this assignment and didn't just use the hour to do your math homework, so I'm going to need proof. Take a picture of yourself wherever you end up and send it to me along with a half a paragraph about what you did.
You can do this alone or in groups or in pairs or even with your girlfriend or a random stranger. Have fun!
Friday, October 28, 2011
Our First BPR papers! (BPR #1 and BPR #2)
I've posted two papers on Blackboard for all of us to peruse. Since these are our first BPR's let me remind y'all of the guidelines.
1) Read each paper, including the comments I made on them. They're under "Course Materials: BPR papers: Fall 2011." If you're having trouble accessing them, let me know in class and we'll see if we can figure out why.
2) Leave a comment on this post with some revision ideas for the authors, or general responses to the papers. The comment doesn't have to be long, you get credit for commenting no matter how short your response is. I mainly just want you to see some examples of papers in the revision-stage with my comments on them; hopefully this will help you as you write and revise your own papers and give you a sense of how I read/respond to papers.
3) The due date for your comments is technically the last day of class, but the sooner you read and comment, the more helpful you'll be to the authors of the papers. And also, you probably don't want to be stuck reading papers at the end of the semester when you'll be wanting to finish writing your own.
I've kept the authors of these anonymous, but don't use that as an excuse to be overly harsh in your comments. I know we've had some responses to the Critical Analysis papers that are less than productive. If you're going to offer advice for the papers, keep it constructive. That means that instead of saying, "I think you really messed this up," or "This just totally sux," you should say something like, "in your next draft, maybe consider adding..." Be Christlike, y'all. Imagine how you would feel if you were the author reading the comment.
And this is just a random point that came up. Remember, a Critical Analysis paper is a paper that 1)splits things into bits (tools) in order to make a 2) critical judgment. It is NOT a "deeper" look at a text. Nor does it necessarily deal with "what the author *really* meant." It simply looks at tools and how they're successfully or unsuccessfully used for a purpose. Make sense?
1) Read each paper, including the comments I made on them. They're under "Course Materials: BPR papers: Fall 2011." If you're having trouble accessing them, let me know in class and we'll see if we can figure out why.
2) Leave a comment on this post with some revision ideas for the authors, or general responses to the papers. The comment doesn't have to be long, you get credit for commenting no matter how short your response is. I mainly just want you to see some examples of papers in the revision-stage with my comments on them; hopefully this will help you as you write and revise your own papers and give you a sense of how I read/respond to papers.
3) The due date for your comments is technically the last day of class, but the sooner you read and comment, the more helpful you'll be to the authors of the papers. And also, you probably don't want to be stuck reading papers at the end of the semester when you'll be wanting to finish writing your own.
I've kept the authors of these anonymous, but don't use that as an excuse to be overly harsh in your comments. I know we've had some responses to the Critical Analysis papers that are less than productive. If you're going to offer advice for the papers, keep it constructive. That means that instead of saying, "I think you really messed this up," or "This just totally sux," you should say something like, "in your next draft, maybe consider adding..." Be Christlike, y'all. Imagine how you would feel if you were the author reading the comment.
And this is just a random point that came up. Remember, a Critical Analysis paper is a paper that 1)splits things into bits (tools) in order to make a 2) critical judgment. It is NOT a "deeper" look at a text. Nor does it necessarily deal with "what the author *really* meant." It simply looks at tools and how they're successfully or unsuccessfully used for a purpose. Make sense?
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Brandon's Analysis of "When Nice Ain't So Nice"
Brandon Harris
Professor Spencer/SWILUA
Writing 150H
25 October 2011
Infiltrating the Cult of Niceness
The concept of “niceness” is valued highly in Mormon culture, but what does niceness actually entail? In Eloise Bell’s work “When Nice Ain’t So Nice,” she effectively argues to a Mormon audience that the concept of niceness is vastly overrated and possibly quite destructive. She accomplishes this through use of allusions, contradictions from expectations, and metaphors.
Bell uses allusion to reiterate and emphasize her points by using a source other than herself. For instance, when she is trying to emphasize the particular dangerousness of the nicest women, she quotes Shakespeare’s saying, “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” Through this reference to an external literary work, Bell effectively links her idea about the potentially brutal nature of nice women to William Shakespeare, widely considered to be the greatest playwright of all time, which strengthens her argument.
More instances of allusion in Bell’s work come when she uses phraseology that her Mormon audience would recognize as a famous phrase from scripture. As an example, when describing how the concept of niceness hampers self-discovery through likening the true self to wicked desires that should be repressed, Bell refers to the “Natural Man (and thus an enemy of God),” referencing a very popular term among Mormons originating from the Book of Mormon, which states that “[t]he natural man is an enemy to God.” In referencing a scripture which virtually all Mormons know, Bell succeeds in tying her point that niceness distracts from the journey of self-discovery with what her Mormon audience will consider to be one of the most reputable sources in existence.
In addition to allusions, Bell uses examples that demonstrate a contradiction between expectations based on appearance and reality. She does this in order to demonstrate that the appearance niceness gives is in stark contrast to its true nature and effect on people’s emotions. One set of examples Bell used was a group of serial killers and otherwise morally reprehensible individuals who, according to all descriptions, were very nice people. The clear contradiction between their horrible actions and their nice appearance serves well to introduce Bell’s point that niceness does not necessarily indicate internal charity towards other people and, as she tries to show later, could easily cause a lack thereof.
Another example of this that she gives is BYU students. When the appearance of niceness is expected, as in direct interaction with other people, she describes the students as “neatly dressed, smiling youths who hold doors open for each other and walk clear across campus to turn in stray Number Two pencils to the Lost-and-Found depository.” However, this is in contrast to the hostility of students in their letters to the editor of the student newspaper, a case where they don’t know the person with whom they’re interacting. Bell says that the letters “drip with innuendo, invective, and scripture-laden scourging.” A difference clearly exists between the way the students behave to those within the protection of niceness and the strangers who provide a nice outlet for their pent-up frustration. Her Mormon audience is particularly swayed by this example because they probably know many youths who fit that external description exactly.
Finally, Bell uses metaphors to help her audience understand how the seeming contradictions she demonstrates could come about. She uses one such metaphor by describing self-discovery as a journey undertaken by a hero beset by many demons such as pride, avarice, and, of course, niceness. This helps the audience to understand how niceness distracts from self-discovery by pointing out that niceness seeks the promotion of a false persona and attempts to smother self-expression. Coming from a culture where metaphors are frequently used to describe the intangible, the Mormon readers access Bell’s points more easily by the inclusion of such metaphors.
Continuing to draw on her LDS audience’s familiarity with metaphors, Bell begins her next metaphor with the phrase, “permit me a metaphor.” Similarly to her previous one, it represents the quest to discover one’s self. However, in this one, the person seeking the inner self is represented by a queen searching for her abducted child. Niceness enters the scene by replacing her child with a “nicer” one and insisting that the queen is selfish and ridiculous for continuing to search for her real child. This metaphor elaborates even further on how niceness attempts to counterfeit personality, and it effectively conveys this to the audience.
In conclusion, Eloise Bell effectively conveys to her Mormon audience that niceness can hinder self-discovery and possibly be a factor in pent-up anger vented towards strangers, which she accomplishes through use of allusions, contradictions, and metaphors. Because of her effective use of these tools, her LDS audience will have to question the very niceness so prevalent in Mormon culture.
Professor Spencer/SWILUA
Writing 150H
25 October 2011
Infiltrating the Cult of Niceness
The concept of “niceness” is valued highly in Mormon culture, but what does niceness actually entail? In Eloise Bell’s work “When Nice Ain’t So Nice,” she effectively argues to a Mormon audience that the concept of niceness is vastly overrated and possibly quite destructive. She accomplishes this through use of allusions, contradictions from expectations, and metaphors.
Bell uses allusion to reiterate and emphasize her points by using a source other than herself. For instance, when she is trying to emphasize the particular dangerousness of the nicest women, she quotes Shakespeare’s saying, “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” Through this reference to an external literary work, Bell effectively links her idea about the potentially brutal nature of nice women to William Shakespeare, widely considered to be the greatest playwright of all time, which strengthens her argument.
More instances of allusion in Bell’s work come when she uses phraseology that her Mormon audience would recognize as a famous phrase from scripture. As an example, when describing how the concept of niceness hampers self-discovery through likening the true self to wicked desires that should be repressed, Bell refers to the “Natural Man (and thus an enemy of God),” referencing a very popular term among Mormons originating from the Book of Mormon, which states that “[t]he natural man is an enemy to God.” In referencing a scripture which virtually all Mormons know, Bell succeeds in tying her point that niceness distracts from the journey of self-discovery with what her Mormon audience will consider to be one of the most reputable sources in existence.
In addition to allusions, Bell uses examples that demonstrate a contradiction between expectations based on appearance and reality. She does this in order to demonstrate that the appearance niceness gives is in stark contrast to its true nature and effect on people’s emotions. One set of examples Bell used was a group of serial killers and otherwise morally reprehensible individuals who, according to all descriptions, were very nice people. The clear contradiction between their horrible actions and their nice appearance serves well to introduce Bell’s point that niceness does not necessarily indicate internal charity towards other people and, as she tries to show later, could easily cause a lack thereof.
Another example of this that she gives is BYU students. When the appearance of niceness is expected, as in direct interaction with other people, she describes the students as “neatly dressed, smiling youths who hold doors open for each other and walk clear across campus to turn in stray Number Two pencils to the Lost-and-Found depository.” However, this is in contrast to the hostility of students in their letters to the editor of the student newspaper, a case where they don’t know the person with whom they’re interacting. Bell says that the letters “drip with innuendo, invective, and scripture-laden scourging.” A difference clearly exists between the way the students behave to those within the protection of niceness and the strangers who provide a nice outlet for their pent-up frustration. Her Mormon audience is particularly swayed by this example because they probably know many youths who fit that external description exactly.
Finally, Bell uses metaphors to help her audience understand how the seeming contradictions she demonstrates could come about. She uses one such metaphor by describing self-discovery as a journey undertaken by a hero beset by many demons such as pride, avarice, and, of course, niceness. This helps the audience to understand how niceness distracts from self-discovery by pointing out that niceness seeks the promotion of a false persona and attempts to smother self-expression. Coming from a culture where metaphors are frequently used to describe the intangible, the Mormon readers access Bell’s points more easily by the inclusion of such metaphors.
Continuing to draw on her LDS audience’s familiarity with metaphors, Bell begins her next metaphor with the phrase, “permit me a metaphor.” Similarly to her previous one, it represents the quest to discover one’s self. However, in this one, the person seeking the inner self is represented by a queen searching for her abducted child. Niceness enters the scene by replacing her child with a “nicer” one and insisting that the queen is selfish and ridiculous for continuing to search for her real child. This metaphor elaborates even further on how niceness attempts to counterfeit personality, and it effectively conveys this to the audience.
In conclusion, Eloise Bell effectively conveys to her Mormon audience that niceness can hinder self-discovery and possibly be a factor in pent-up anger vented towards strangers, which she accomplishes through use of allusions, contradictions, and metaphors. Because of her effective use of these tools, her LDS audience will have to question the very niceness so prevalent in Mormon culture.
Heather's "When Nice Ain't So Nice"
A Not So Nice Critical Analysis
Elouise Bell, in her article “When Nice Ain’t So Nice”, tackles the universal problem of bottling up one’s anger. Bell argues that being nice, when a situation calls for the opposite, is a problem that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints specifically have. While her assumptions may be correct, though contradictory to my experience, Bell’s examples fall short when trying to support her opinion. Bell also argues that nice people aren’t always so nice after all; that they are in fact the ones to be cautious of. While Bell’s arguments stem from mainstream thinking, it’s hard for one to agree with her due to her ineffective usage of hyperbole, metaphor, and examples that are not harmonious with her targeted Mormon audience.
Throughout Bell’s article, she lists various examples of nice deeds following them with acts of aggression. When describing how nice students at Brigham Young University are, Bell states that they would “…walk clear across campus to turn in stray Number Two pencils to the Lost-and-Found depository.” While this statement is a clear exaggeration, or hyperbole, it didn’t have to hurt Bell’s argument. However, Bell laid the groundwork of this particular paragraph on the basis that BYU students are nice. Bell’s desire to convince readers that the very same BYU students were writing “…letters dripping with innuendo, invective, and scripture-laden scourging” is not achieved due to her hyperbole. Students do not in reality walk across campus to return Number Two pencils. If this part about the students is not true, then why should readers think the other half is? This is not the only instance that Bell uses a hyperbole that does not have the desired effect.
Toward the end of Bell’s article, she mentions the Nicene Creed. She changes it into the Nice Creed and lists the beliefs of nice people. Much of the creed invokes laughter at nice people and the lengths they go to, to maintain their composure and niceness. Bell stretches herself too far on the creed though, going as far as to say that they would say “…nothing in response to…being run over by the bus”. This is yet another clear exaggeration calling into question Bell’s validity. Instead of persuading her readers to believe as she does, even possibly to take action and end this fake niceness, Bell gives herself the appearance of an immature writer making readers question if they should even read any further.
Bell creates a very detailed metaphor about a Queen who awakens to find that her newborn baby has been abducted. While metaphors are typically effective rhetorical tools expanding one’s understanding; this one is not. At first there are clues of the baby but as time passes the mother of the Queen urges her to break off the search, accuses her daughter of being selfish, and then even goes as far as to offer her another child that is much “nicer” than her own. This metaphor is ineffective for two main reasons. The first reason being that if such a situation were to happen in real life, the mother of the Queen would not have behaved at all the way she did. No mother would call her daughter selfish for trying to find her abducted child and then try to force another one upon her. Furthermore, this metaphor is ineffective because the point that Bell is trying to make is unclear. Niceness is not mentioned at all within the metaphor besides saying that the replacement baby is nicer. The resemblance or comparison that Bell tries to make is lost within her ineffectual metaphor.
Lastly, Bell argues that nice people do not like to know about poverty and death, for these are, respectfully, “distinctly not nice” and “unequivocally not nice”. Bell has made it clear that the church and its members are those especially guilty of niceness, which is what makes this argument so very confusing. Poverty is indeed a matter of concern for the church, not because it is un-nice though, but because the Lord has commanded church members to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. As for death, LDS religion focuses on it and the afterlife heavily. The Prophet Joseph Smith went as far to say that if we had just a glimpse of the glory of heaven that we would all be tempted to commit suicide to get there. Here is yet another example of a futile argument made by Bell.
While there may have been some truth to Bell’s statement that “…it is niceness which can corrupt all other virtues”, she does a poor job of convincing her readers. Bell’s poor examples, hyperboles, and metaphor are but a few of the rhetorical tools that she failed to take advantage of to assert her view convincingly.
Elouise Bell, in her article “When Nice Ain’t So Nice”, tackles the universal problem of bottling up one’s anger. Bell argues that being nice, when a situation calls for the opposite, is a problem that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints specifically have. While her assumptions may be correct, though contradictory to my experience, Bell’s examples fall short when trying to support her opinion. Bell also argues that nice people aren’t always so nice after all; that they are in fact the ones to be cautious of. While Bell’s arguments stem from mainstream thinking, it’s hard for one to agree with her due to her ineffective usage of hyperbole, metaphor, and examples that are not harmonious with her targeted Mormon audience.
Throughout Bell’s article, she lists various examples of nice deeds following them with acts of aggression. When describing how nice students at Brigham Young University are, Bell states that they would “…walk clear across campus to turn in stray Number Two pencils to the Lost-and-Found depository.” While this statement is a clear exaggeration, or hyperbole, it didn’t have to hurt Bell’s argument. However, Bell laid the groundwork of this particular paragraph on the basis that BYU students are nice. Bell’s desire to convince readers that the very same BYU students were writing “…letters dripping with innuendo, invective, and scripture-laden scourging” is not achieved due to her hyperbole. Students do not in reality walk across campus to return Number Two pencils. If this part about the students is not true, then why should readers think the other half is? This is not the only instance that Bell uses a hyperbole that does not have the desired effect.
Toward the end of Bell’s article, she mentions the Nicene Creed. She changes it into the Nice Creed and lists the beliefs of nice people. Much of the creed invokes laughter at nice people and the lengths they go to, to maintain their composure and niceness. Bell stretches herself too far on the creed though, going as far as to say that they would say “…nothing in response to…being run over by the bus”. This is yet another clear exaggeration calling into question Bell’s validity. Instead of persuading her readers to believe as she does, even possibly to take action and end this fake niceness, Bell gives herself the appearance of an immature writer making readers question if they should even read any further.
Bell creates a very detailed metaphor about a Queen who awakens to find that her newborn baby has been abducted. While metaphors are typically effective rhetorical tools expanding one’s understanding; this one is not. At first there are clues of the baby but as time passes the mother of the Queen urges her to break off the search, accuses her daughter of being selfish, and then even goes as far as to offer her another child that is much “nicer” than her own. This metaphor is ineffective for two main reasons. The first reason being that if such a situation were to happen in real life, the mother of the Queen would not have behaved at all the way she did. No mother would call her daughter selfish for trying to find her abducted child and then try to force another one upon her. Furthermore, this metaphor is ineffective because the point that Bell is trying to make is unclear. Niceness is not mentioned at all within the metaphor besides saying that the replacement baby is nicer. The resemblance or comparison that Bell tries to make is lost within her ineffectual metaphor.
Lastly, Bell argues that nice people do not like to know about poverty and death, for these are, respectfully, “distinctly not nice” and “unequivocally not nice”. Bell has made it clear that the church and its members are those especially guilty of niceness, which is what makes this argument so very confusing. Poverty is indeed a matter of concern for the church, not because it is un-nice though, but because the Lord has commanded church members to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. As for death, LDS religion focuses on it and the afterlife heavily. The Prophet Joseph Smith went as far to say that if we had just a glimpse of the glory of heaven that we would all be tempted to commit suicide to get there. Here is yet another example of a futile argument made by Bell.
While there may have been some truth to Bell’s statement that “…it is niceness which can corrupt all other virtues”, she does a poor job of convincing her readers. Bell’s poor examples, hyperboles, and metaphor are but a few of the rhetorical tools that she failed to take advantage of to assert her view convincingly.
Christopher's Analysis of "When Nice Ain't So Nice"
Christopher Romney
Dr. Spencer
Writing 150H
10/4/11
A Critical Analysis of “When Nice Ain’t So Nice”
Oxford Dictionaries define nice as “pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory”, but so many times terrible crimes are committed by so called “nice” people. Is there a connection to crime and nice? Elouise Bell believes there is. In her essay, “When Nice Ain’t So Nice” she persuades her Mormon audience that being “nice” is a tool of deceit used by bad people, In order to portray this, Bell uses diction associated with crime, familiar settings and words, extreme examples, and metaphors.
First, Bell uses diction that has denotations and or connotations associated with crime. She does this to create a mood that contrasts with the pleasant connotations associated with “nice”. Because criminal words and “nice” are continuously juxtaposed and used synonymously, the connotation of “nice” changes dramatically throughout the essay. An example of this is in the first paragraph: “more crimes have been committed behind the mask of niceness than behind all the ski masks worn to all the convenience store stickups ever perpetrated.” By intertwining “nice” with words like mask, the reader begins to associate the word with false identity and crime. The same can be said for the words “crime”, “stickup” and “perpetrated”. By beginning her essay in this manner, Bell is able to plant a seed that will grow throughout the essay. The seed is the idea that “nice ain’t so nice.” Nice, in reality, can bedeceitful.
Second, Bell uses phrases and settings that are familiar to her audience. In order to persuade someone, first you must be able to make a personal connection with them. To make a connection with her Mormon audience Bell uses examples from Utah, which is known for its Mormon culture, and is believed to be a place full of good people. Because this place is so familiar to the reader, fear is triggered when the reader discovers the terrible acts that these so called “nice” people commit. This fear helps Bell to change the connotation of the word “nice”. Another example of Bell’s use of familiar cities is Bell’s reference to “Happy Valley”, a nickname for Utah Valley.
I fantasize about what life in Happy Valley might be like if the lid of niceness were eased off the pressure cooker of emotions. —I worry about hostility on the highways and depression in the home. I worry about battering and abuse, both physical and sexual that seem to be on the rise in places where you wouldn’t expect it.
This triggers worry in the reader, because a “nice” member of their ward could be abusive to his wife and no one would ever know it. In Utah Valley a majority of the people are Mormons and by talking about the issues that “niceness” causes there, the reader relates it to his or her own culture and becomes concerned. Bell does this to open the reader’s eyes to the reality of the problem and to change his or her perspective on the meaning of “nice”. Moreover, creating worry by referring to a place that is familiar to her audience is an effective tool in convincing them that “nice” may be a façade.
Yet another example of using familiarities is Bell’s statement that “niceness” causes a misconception between the True Self and the False self, or the Natural Man. The phrase natural man is a common phrase used by Mormons to describe the sinful side of man. By using this familiar phrase instead of only “False self”, Bell is able to focus the readers’ attention on the subject while explaining why the aforementioned misconception is false.
Third, Examples of “nice” people doing bad things are spread throughout the essay. Because bad people use “niceness” as a facade, it is inherently bad due to its deceitful qualities. In the second paragraph Bell names Mark Hoffman, Alan Hadfield, and Ted Bundy who were all “nice” men, but terrible people. By beginning her essay with such examples, the readers’ perspective of “nice” immediately begins to change.
Furthermore, Bell discusses BYU students who would “turn in stray Number Two pencils to the Lost-and-Found depository,” but also write malicious letters to the editor of the student newspaper. By mentioning BYU, college age Mormon readers are immediately engaged because BYU is an LDS private school. Moreover, it makes the readers realize that anyone around them could be wearing a “nice” mask, but could truly be a dangerous and hateful person.
Fourth, Bell uses metaphor that appeal to pathos. One example of this is a mother whose child is abducted. The mother searches everywhere but cannot find her child. The mothers loved ones “try to press a different child on her, insisting that this one is much ‘nicer than her own.’” The mother is called selfish and crazy. “Devotees of the cult of niceness abandon the True Self and promote the False Self” just like they tried to give the mother a new child. This metaphor appeals to the pathos, especially to Mormon mothers whom might read Bell’s essay. Motherhood, abduction, and childhood, are subjects that carry a lot of emotion, especially to Mormons because they are so family oriented. By using these subjects in her metaphor, Bell is able to appeal to the pathos of her readers and convince them that “nice” is not good.
Though Oxford Dictionaries define nice as “pleasant, agreeable, satisfactory,” Bell clearly redefines “nice” as being dangerous, deceiving, and not nice. Bell warns her Mormon audience of the threat that “nice” poses to people everywhere: “the creed of niceness does damage to the Self, to the soul.” Through her diction, connection with her Mormon audience, examples, and metaphor she changes the readers perspective, and redefines the word “nice”. In short “Nice Ain’t so Nice”
Dr. Spencer
Writing 150H
10/4/11
A Critical Analysis of “When Nice Ain’t So Nice”
Oxford Dictionaries define nice as “pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory”, but so many times terrible crimes are committed by so called “nice” people. Is there a connection to crime and nice? Elouise Bell believes there is. In her essay, “When Nice Ain’t So Nice” she persuades her Mormon audience that being “nice” is a tool of deceit used by bad people, In order to portray this, Bell uses diction associated with crime, familiar settings and words, extreme examples, and metaphors.
First, Bell uses diction that has denotations and or connotations associated with crime. She does this to create a mood that contrasts with the pleasant connotations associated with “nice”. Because criminal words and “nice” are continuously juxtaposed and used synonymously, the connotation of “nice” changes dramatically throughout the essay. An example of this is in the first paragraph: “more crimes have been committed behind the mask of niceness than behind all the ski masks worn to all the convenience store stickups ever perpetrated.” By intertwining “nice” with words like mask, the reader begins to associate the word with false identity and crime. The same can be said for the words “crime”, “stickup” and “perpetrated”. By beginning her essay in this manner, Bell is able to plant a seed that will grow throughout the essay. The seed is the idea that “nice ain’t so nice.” Nice, in reality, can bedeceitful.
Second, Bell uses phrases and settings that are familiar to her audience. In order to persuade someone, first you must be able to make a personal connection with them. To make a connection with her Mormon audience Bell uses examples from Utah, which is known for its Mormon culture, and is believed to be a place full of good people. Because this place is so familiar to the reader, fear is triggered when the reader discovers the terrible acts that these so called “nice” people commit. This fear helps Bell to change the connotation of the word “nice”. Another example of Bell’s use of familiar cities is Bell’s reference to “Happy Valley”, a nickname for Utah Valley.
I fantasize about what life in Happy Valley might be like if the lid of niceness were eased off the pressure cooker of emotions. —I worry about hostility on the highways and depression in the home. I worry about battering and abuse, both physical and sexual that seem to be on the rise in places where you wouldn’t expect it.
This triggers worry in the reader, because a “nice” member of their ward could be abusive to his wife and no one would ever know it. In Utah Valley a majority of the people are Mormons and by talking about the issues that “niceness” causes there, the reader relates it to his or her own culture and becomes concerned. Bell does this to open the reader’s eyes to the reality of the problem and to change his or her perspective on the meaning of “nice”. Moreover, creating worry by referring to a place that is familiar to her audience is an effective tool in convincing them that “nice” may be a façade.
Yet another example of using familiarities is Bell’s statement that “niceness” causes a misconception between the True Self and the False self, or the Natural Man. The phrase natural man is a common phrase used by Mormons to describe the sinful side of man. By using this familiar phrase instead of only “False self”, Bell is able to focus the readers’ attention on the subject while explaining why the aforementioned misconception is false.
Third, Examples of “nice” people doing bad things are spread throughout the essay. Because bad people use “niceness” as a facade, it is inherently bad due to its deceitful qualities. In the second paragraph Bell names Mark Hoffman, Alan Hadfield, and Ted Bundy who were all “nice” men, but terrible people. By beginning her essay with such examples, the readers’ perspective of “nice” immediately begins to change.
Furthermore, Bell discusses BYU students who would “turn in stray Number Two pencils to the Lost-and-Found depository,” but also write malicious letters to the editor of the student newspaper. By mentioning BYU, college age Mormon readers are immediately engaged because BYU is an LDS private school. Moreover, it makes the readers realize that anyone around them could be wearing a “nice” mask, but could truly be a dangerous and hateful person.
Fourth, Bell uses metaphor that appeal to pathos. One example of this is a mother whose child is abducted. The mother searches everywhere but cannot find her child. The mothers loved ones “try to press a different child on her, insisting that this one is much ‘nicer than her own.’” The mother is called selfish and crazy. “Devotees of the cult of niceness abandon the True Self and promote the False Self” just like they tried to give the mother a new child. This metaphor appeals to the pathos, especially to Mormon mothers whom might read Bell’s essay. Motherhood, abduction, and childhood, are subjects that carry a lot of emotion, especially to Mormons because they are so family oriented. By using these subjects in her metaphor, Bell is able to appeal to the pathos of her readers and convince them that “nice” is not good.
Though Oxford Dictionaries define nice as “pleasant, agreeable, satisfactory,” Bell clearly redefines “nice” as being dangerous, deceiving, and not nice. Bell warns her Mormon audience of the threat that “nice” poses to people everywhere: “the creed of niceness does damage to the Self, to the soul.” Through her diction, connection with her Mormon audience, examples, and metaphor she changes the readers perspective, and redefines the word “nice”. In short “Nice Ain’t so Nice”
Marisa's Analysis of "When Nice Ain't So Nice"
Marisa Barth
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Honors Writing 150
22 October 2011
The Meaning of Nice
Early in life, children are told to be nice and love one another; however, perhaps love and niceness are not as complementary one thinks. Elouise Bell certainly had something to say about what it means to be nice. In her personal essay titled, “When Nice Ain’t So Nice,” Bell successfully uses the literary devices personification, antithesis, and irony to convince her audience that nice may have a whole other side that’s anything but pleasant.
In the very beginning of this essay, the word “nice” is immediately personified as it is capitalized like a proper noun. Nice is given characteristics that a criminal might have like “dangerous” and being a “culprit.” Later in the essay, Bell further vilifies Niceness as something that, “edits the truth, dilutes loyalty, makes a caricature of patriotism…. hobbles Justice, short-circuits Honor, and counterfeits Mercy, Compassion, and Love” (Jorgenson 171). She has applied personification to all sorts of adjectives and nouns and made them interact in a very un-nice way. Nice progressively receives a negative persona throughout the essay. The reader is shown that aggressive Utah drivers and the abnormally high anti-depression pill intake could be a result of repressed anger disguised by Niceness. The audience also reads that playing nice is how successful bomb killers, rapists, and abusive husbands easily fooled their peers and got away with their felonies.
The negative nice persona is consistently contrasted throughout the article with images of our “neighborhoods, campus, community, and the church” (171). Bell uses antithesis to convince the reader to change their views on what it means to be nice. She appeals particularly to the LDS readers by the use of pathos as their own state, school, and religion are factored in. The reader is convinced that the people of Utah who are nationally known to be genuine, happy, and, of course, nice are shown to have darker natures when the author employs antithesis. She describes neighbors who “smilingly put up with” each other but as soon as they are out of the neighborhood, the urge for “angry honking, cutting in, heading off, not-so-muted swearing, and flipping the bird” overcome them (171-72). This is likely to make the reader pause and reflect on the contrasts of their own situational behavior, and thus allows them to personally interact with Bell’s essay. Nice becomes a mask that disguises anger and Bell makes the point that perhaps if people did not hide anger beneath a kind façade, it is possible that they would not be so aggressive in other settings, such as the freeway.
Toward the end of the essay, Bell brings irony when she utilizes the original meaning of nice instead of the modern definition. Currently nice can be defined as pleasing, agreeable, or delightful. Bell explains that when traced back to Middle English, Old French, and Latin roots, nice meant strange, lazy, foolish, or ignorant. The reader, with two definitions of nice in mind, can be fully immersed in the irony of the article. Previously in the article Bell stated, “More deadly is the Nice Lady who never raises her voice, never utters the slightest profanity, but whose devastating words and emotional abuse leave permanent scars as disfiguring to the soul as any physical battering is to the body” (172). The audience originally reads this with the image of a pleasing, agreeable and delightful woman but with Bell’s new definition of nice, the reader now sees the flaw within a woman who never voices anger. It is the irony of the definition of nice that gives the second woman a negative connotation and allows the reader to be persuaded by Bell’s argument.
There is a new perspective on what nice is after the reading of Elouise Bell’s article, When Nice Ain’t So Nice. Nice, which was previously used to describe something or someone amiable has received a new meaning of something disagreeable or even dangerous. Bell has effectively, with the tools of personification, antithesis and irony, convinced her audience that nice may not be as complaisant as previously perceived.
Work Cited
Bell, Elouise. “When Nice Ain’t So Nice.” Reading For Intensive Writers. 5th ed. Comp. Susan Jorgensen. Provo: BYU Academic Publishing, 2007. Print.
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Honors Writing 150
22 October 2011
The Meaning of Nice
Early in life, children are told to be nice and love one another; however, perhaps love and niceness are not as complementary one thinks. Elouise Bell certainly had something to say about what it means to be nice. In her personal essay titled, “When Nice Ain’t So Nice,” Bell successfully uses the literary devices personification, antithesis, and irony to convince her audience that nice may have a whole other side that’s anything but pleasant.
In the very beginning of this essay, the word “nice” is immediately personified as it is capitalized like a proper noun. Nice is given characteristics that a criminal might have like “dangerous” and being a “culprit.” Later in the essay, Bell further vilifies Niceness as something that, “edits the truth, dilutes loyalty, makes a caricature of patriotism…. hobbles Justice, short-circuits Honor, and counterfeits Mercy, Compassion, and Love” (Jorgenson 171). She has applied personification to all sorts of adjectives and nouns and made them interact in a very un-nice way. Nice progressively receives a negative persona throughout the essay. The reader is shown that aggressive Utah drivers and the abnormally high anti-depression pill intake could be a result of repressed anger disguised by Niceness. The audience also reads that playing nice is how successful bomb killers, rapists, and abusive husbands easily fooled their peers and got away with their felonies.
The negative nice persona is consistently contrasted throughout the article with images of our “neighborhoods, campus, community, and the church” (171). Bell uses antithesis to convince the reader to change their views on what it means to be nice. She appeals particularly to the LDS readers by the use of pathos as their own state, school, and religion are factored in. The reader is convinced that the people of Utah who are nationally known to be genuine, happy, and, of course, nice are shown to have darker natures when the author employs antithesis. She describes neighbors who “smilingly put up with” each other but as soon as they are out of the neighborhood, the urge for “angry honking, cutting in, heading off, not-so-muted swearing, and flipping the bird” overcome them (171-72). This is likely to make the reader pause and reflect on the contrasts of their own situational behavior, and thus allows them to personally interact with Bell’s essay. Nice becomes a mask that disguises anger and Bell makes the point that perhaps if people did not hide anger beneath a kind façade, it is possible that they would not be so aggressive in other settings, such as the freeway.
Toward the end of the essay, Bell brings irony when she utilizes the original meaning of nice instead of the modern definition. Currently nice can be defined as pleasing, agreeable, or delightful. Bell explains that when traced back to Middle English, Old French, and Latin roots, nice meant strange, lazy, foolish, or ignorant. The reader, with two definitions of nice in mind, can be fully immersed in the irony of the article. Previously in the article Bell stated, “More deadly is the Nice Lady who never raises her voice, never utters the slightest profanity, but whose devastating words and emotional abuse leave permanent scars as disfiguring to the soul as any physical battering is to the body” (172). The audience originally reads this with the image of a pleasing, agreeable and delightful woman but with Bell’s new definition of nice, the reader now sees the flaw within a woman who never voices anger. It is the irony of the definition of nice that gives the second woman a negative connotation and allows the reader to be persuaded by Bell’s argument.
There is a new perspective on what nice is after the reading of Elouise Bell’s article, When Nice Ain’t So Nice. Nice, which was previously used to describe something or someone amiable has received a new meaning of something disagreeable or even dangerous. Bell has effectively, with the tools of personification, antithesis and irony, convinced her audience that nice may not be as complaisant as previously perceived.
Work Cited
Bell, Elouise. “When Nice Ain’t So Nice.” Reading For Intensive Writers. 5th ed. Comp. Susan Jorgensen. Provo: BYU Academic Publishing, 2007. Print.
Christina's Analysis of "When Nice Ain't So Nice"
Christina Wise
Critical Analysis 10/24/11
Exposing Evils Behind the Mask of Niceness
If you consider yourself a nice person, you may want to change that immediately. The quality of a person is too often gauged on how nice they are to others. In reality, such quality should be measured by a person’s ability to stay true to themselves. In her eye-opening article “When Nice Ain’t So Nice”, Elouise Bell uses Satire, Personification, and Word-Choice to successfully expose the overlooked dangers of “niceness” to her conservative audience.
Bell utilizes satire to show that those deemed “nice” by the general public can use that title to mask their darker sides. She introduces her examples one by one. “Grant Affleck was a really nice guy. (Nice cuts both ways in giving Utah its title as Fraud Capitol of the nation: we produce con men so nice they can’t be doubted, and victims so nice they “cain’t say no.” Document forger and bomb killer Mark Hoffman, they said, was nice. Likewise convicted child sex abuser Alan Hadfield--so nice that an entire community rose up to vilify the victims and slander the message rather than accept the verdict on their nice-guy neighbor. Apparently, Ted Bundy was as nice as they come” (170). Bell’s words drip with sarcasm and irony every time she calls one of these criminals a “nice guy.” By putting a description of detestable crimes side-by-side with the description of niceness, Bell changes the readers thinking about this over-rated quality, which is exactly her goal. She infers that it is not entirely the fault of the criminals for this deception, but the public is at fault too. Due to their lack of cautiousness, they are the one’s who deem these men “nice” in the first place. Bell addresses the ignorance of the public by displaying instances where the seemingly minute mistake of being too trusting of a smiling face, may result in horrid crimes. Bell not only informs but shocks her audience by revealing that assuming niceness, something they most likely all have been guilty of at some point, can result in them helping and defending those who threaten the community.
Also supporting that “niceness” can be used as a deceptive facade, Bell uses satire in presenting examples from her own experiences. Bell relates that in her “nice young-executive neighborhood of about fifteen homes, at least five wives are beaten regularly by their husbands” (172). Bell clearly states in the article that she is a resident of the state of Utah, one that is known for being primarily conservative and clean cut. She starts off by mocking the stereotype her neighborhood has by describing it as “nice young-executive.” She then strikes the reader by opposing that stereotype completely with the ugly truth. With this tool, she exposes the dangers of assuming, stereotyping, and avoiding truth when it is unpleasant. She reveals niceness as the means by which these harmful habits work. In speaking of an instance where she had been fooled by the pretense of niceness, she states: “Absolutely the nicest elder I knew in the mission field afterward had to uproot his wife and family and give up his profession because he had been found guilty of molesting preschoolers” (172). Missionaries are already supposed to be some of the most upright people, so by Bell stating that this man was “Absolutely the nicest missionary” means he was convincingly moral. Because of this, finding out that he has committed a immoral crime makes one question if they can trust even the nicest of the nice. Also, by stating that she too was tricked into thinking that someone capable of doing malicious crimes to be “nice guy,” she enforces the fact that this error can be made by anybody and everybody.
Additionally, Bell personifies “niceness,” putting it into a light where it is not often put in order to warn her audience of it’s detrimental qualities. Bell states that “Niceness edits the truth, dilutes loyalty, makes a caricature of patriotism. It hobbles Justice, shortcircuits Honor, and counterfeits Mercy, Compassion, and Love” (171). Bell says this in contrasting niceness to courage, which is said to protect all other virtues. By giving niceness these unfavorable human-like abilities, Bell gives it more accountability. When niceness is presented in this way, it becomes a tangible enemy rather than a desired quality. In explaining how this quality attacks the qualities that are held so close by many, it puts the reader in defense-mode, which successfully achieves Bell’s incentive to warn. Again giving this attribute life-like qualities, Bell states that “Nice flies under false colors, wants the reputation of the gentle dove without the wisdom of the wise serpent” (174). Nice is presented with the ability to want, giving it intentions and Bell infers these intentions to be those of deception. Due to the associations with images of the dove and the serpent, the reader is better able to understand just how gentle Nice wants to seem and just how unwise Nice is. Those who intend to deceive are those to beware of and such precautions are what Bell is successful in getting the reader have.
Lastly, Bell’s skillful use of word choice effectively executes the ideas and connotations that she intends to support her steadfast point. In talking about the road-rage that spurts out among Utah drivers, she uses the term “zucchini-sharing” (171) to describe these residents. This term is one that expresses that these people are so nice that they are willing to share their home grown vegetables with one another in order to seem giving and nice. The point is later made that when these same neighbors get behind the wheel, they are no longer willing to be so nice. So much is said with just that single hyphenated word. It encompasses a stereotype and sets Bell up to later contradict it to make her point. Still referring to Utah drivers, Bell expresses that they are just “waiting to slosh out on Interstate-15.” The phrase “slosh out” infers the carelessness of the drivers. She communicates that behind this seemingly caring and nice population, hostile and heedless feelings hide. It also gives the reader a visual image of these drivers that opposes their typical image of the population. Bell concludes the article by stating that niceness is “considerably more dangerous than luke-warmth” (174). The word “luke-warmth” appeals to the sense of feel and has a connotation associated with comfort and a lack of conviction. She says that this word is far from describing the danger that comes with niceness therefore communicating that being nice is very dangerous. Bell’s use of this word is successful because of the association with one of the five senses, the reader can not only know but feel the intensity of the danger.
Bell’s ironic and sarcastic tone, skillfully-chosen words, and giving of human-like abilities to a sought-after quality all serve to warn her intended audience against this cunning threat that niceness imposes on the lives of many. Although Bell is apparently arguing against niceness, she more importantly insists that this quality is not to be used to mask other feelings and intentions that can thrash out and hurt other people. Readers need to realize that communicating feelings up front and staying true to ourselves instead being subject to the pressures of being seen as a nice person will serve to protect us from our dark sides that should never have to be uncovered.
Critical Analysis 10/24/11
Exposing Evils Behind the Mask of Niceness
If you consider yourself a nice person, you may want to change that immediately. The quality of a person is too often gauged on how nice they are to others. In reality, such quality should be measured by a person’s ability to stay true to themselves. In her eye-opening article “When Nice Ain’t So Nice”, Elouise Bell uses Satire, Personification, and Word-Choice to successfully expose the overlooked dangers of “niceness” to her conservative audience.
Bell utilizes satire to show that those deemed “nice” by the general public can use that title to mask their darker sides. She introduces her examples one by one. “Grant Affleck was a really nice guy. (Nice cuts both ways in giving Utah its title as Fraud Capitol of the nation: we produce con men so nice they can’t be doubted, and victims so nice they “cain’t say no.” Document forger and bomb killer Mark Hoffman, they said, was nice. Likewise convicted child sex abuser Alan Hadfield--so nice that an entire community rose up to vilify the victims and slander the message rather than accept the verdict on their nice-guy neighbor. Apparently, Ted Bundy was as nice as they come” (170). Bell’s words drip with sarcasm and irony every time she calls one of these criminals a “nice guy.” By putting a description of detestable crimes side-by-side with the description of niceness, Bell changes the readers thinking about this over-rated quality, which is exactly her goal. She infers that it is not entirely the fault of the criminals for this deception, but the public is at fault too. Due to their lack of cautiousness, they are the one’s who deem these men “nice” in the first place. Bell addresses the ignorance of the public by displaying instances where the seemingly minute mistake of being too trusting of a smiling face, may result in horrid crimes. Bell not only informs but shocks her audience by revealing that assuming niceness, something they most likely all have been guilty of at some point, can result in them helping and defending those who threaten the community.
Also supporting that “niceness” can be used as a deceptive facade, Bell uses satire in presenting examples from her own experiences. Bell relates that in her “nice young-executive neighborhood of about fifteen homes, at least five wives are beaten regularly by their husbands” (172). Bell clearly states in the article that she is a resident of the state of Utah, one that is known for being primarily conservative and clean cut. She starts off by mocking the stereotype her neighborhood has by describing it as “nice young-executive.” She then strikes the reader by opposing that stereotype completely with the ugly truth. With this tool, she exposes the dangers of assuming, stereotyping, and avoiding truth when it is unpleasant. She reveals niceness as the means by which these harmful habits work. In speaking of an instance where she had been fooled by the pretense of niceness, she states: “Absolutely the nicest elder I knew in the mission field afterward had to uproot his wife and family and give up his profession because he had been found guilty of molesting preschoolers” (172). Missionaries are already supposed to be some of the most upright people, so by Bell stating that this man was “Absolutely the nicest missionary” means he was convincingly moral. Because of this, finding out that he has committed a immoral crime makes one question if they can trust even the nicest of the nice. Also, by stating that she too was tricked into thinking that someone capable of doing malicious crimes to be “nice guy,” she enforces the fact that this error can be made by anybody and everybody.
Additionally, Bell personifies “niceness,” putting it into a light where it is not often put in order to warn her audience of it’s detrimental qualities. Bell states that “Niceness edits the truth, dilutes loyalty, makes a caricature of patriotism. It hobbles Justice, shortcircuits Honor, and counterfeits Mercy, Compassion, and Love” (171). Bell says this in contrasting niceness to courage, which is said to protect all other virtues. By giving niceness these unfavorable human-like abilities, Bell gives it more accountability. When niceness is presented in this way, it becomes a tangible enemy rather than a desired quality. In explaining how this quality attacks the qualities that are held so close by many, it puts the reader in defense-mode, which successfully achieves Bell’s incentive to warn. Again giving this attribute life-like qualities, Bell states that “Nice flies under false colors, wants the reputation of the gentle dove without the wisdom of the wise serpent” (174). Nice is presented with the ability to want, giving it intentions and Bell infers these intentions to be those of deception. Due to the associations with images of the dove and the serpent, the reader is better able to understand just how gentle Nice wants to seem and just how unwise Nice is. Those who intend to deceive are those to beware of and such precautions are what Bell is successful in getting the reader have.
Lastly, Bell’s skillful use of word choice effectively executes the ideas and connotations that she intends to support her steadfast point. In talking about the road-rage that spurts out among Utah drivers, she uses the term “zucchini-sharing” (171) to describe these residents. This term is one that expresses that these people are so nice that they are willing to share their home grown vegetables with one another in order to seem giving and nice. The point is later made that when these same neighbors get behind the wheel, they are no longer willing to be so nice. So much is said with just that single hyphenated word. It encompasses a stereotype and sets Bell up to later contradict it to make her point. Still referring to Utah drivers, Bell expresses that they are just “waiting to slosh out on Interstate-15.” The phrase “slosh out” infers the carelessness of the drivers. She communicates that behind this seemingly caring and nice population, hostile and heedless feelings hide. It also gives the reader a visual image of these drivers that opposes their typical image of the population. Bell concludes the article by stating that niceness is “considerably more dangerous than luke-warmth” (174). The word “luke-warmth” appeals to the sense of feel and has a connotation associated with comfort and a lack of conviction. She says that this word is far from describing the danger that comes with niceness therefore communicating that being nice is very dangerous. Bell’s use of this word is successful because of the association with one of the five senses, the reader can not only know but feel the intensity of the danger.
Bell’s ironic and sarcastic tone, skillfully-chosen words, and giving of human-like abilities to a sought-after quality all serve to warn her intended audience against this cunning threat that niceness imposes on the lives of many. Although Bell is apparently arguing against niceness, she more importantly insists that this quality is not to be used to mask other feelings and intentions that can thrash out and hurt other people. Readers need to realize that communicating feelings up front and staying true to ourselves instead being subject to the pressures of being seen as a nice person will serve to protect us from our dark sides that should never have to be uncovered.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Special Instructions for Today's ICPP's!
You may notice I'm not in class today. That is because I'm puking my guts out and you don't want to be near me.
Here is what I want y'all to do:
1) pick a class captain who can pretend to be me and who'll run class. (this shouldn't be too hard since class is just two paper presentations. all the captain has to do is make sure they happen.)
2) do the ICPP just like you would if I were there with you.
3) people presenting feel free to email me a copy of your paper and I'll give you my own thoughts on it over the internet.
4) hold on to your eBay and NSAL rough drafts until next Monday. Or email them to me.
If you have questions, have the class captain email me and we can chat on Monday. Or you can email me yourself and I'll do my best to answer.
good luck!
Here is what I want y'all to do:
1) pick a class captain who can pretend to be me and who'll run class. (this shouldn't be too hard since class is just two paper presentations. all the captain has to do is make sure they happen.)
2) do the ICPP just like you would if I were there with you.
3) people presenting feel free to email me a copy of your paper and I'll give you my own thoughts on it over the internet.
4) hold on to your eBay and NSAL rough drafts until next Monday. Or email them to me.
If you have questions, have the class captain email me and we can chat on Monday. Or you can email me yourself and I'll do my best to answer.
good luck!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Kelsee's Analysis of "We Do Abortions Here"
Kelsee Jackson
October 15, 2011
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Honors Writing 150
The Complexity of the Issue Surrounding Abortion
Abortion is a common subject for many debates in the political, ethical and moral world today. This dispute is argued now just has it has been discussed in the past and will continue to be a subject of disagreement in the future. Since there are many opposing opinions and backgrounds of this issue, it is natural that any laws that have been and will be established are bound to please some while highly disappointing others. In her article “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale effectively appeals to her audience by means of pathos and using literary devices such as amplification, imagery and personal anecdote to show that when it comes to abortion, there is just no easily justified, simple conclusion.
The author makes extensive use of amplification to show the audience the overwhelming emotional quality of what she does at the abortion clinic. When describing the process of discarding a fetus, instead of stating the smell to be rich and humid, she tells of a “…rich and humid smell, hot, earthy, and moldering”. (188) By doing this, the author is giving her audience more information to create an image emphasizing elements of the story that stood out to her. In one passage she explains: “Women have abortions because they are too old, and too young, too poor and too rich, too stupid and too smart.” (187) Instead of just saying that women have abortions for various reasons, Tisdale uses amplification to give this line a particular feel and give the audience added information. These are small examples of the many times the author emphasizes experiences by adding further, often times quite graphic, information in order to have them stand out in the reader’s mind. The author’s use of amplification in this text creates a more detailed knowledge of how she felt about the work she did. Perhaps even more importantly, it appeals to the reader’s emotions, whether they be in disgust, pity, or something else entirely. This manner of using amplification is also necessary in helping to establish the author’s use of imagery in the text.
The author branches from amplification to imagery in order to serve her purposes. The additional information given allows the audience to use imagery to picture the events in more detail. She often emphasizes in detail the youthfulness of many of the girls she has worked with, using descriptions such as, “They come so young, snapping gum, sockless and sneakered, and their shakily applied eyeliner smears when they cry,” (188) and, “A sleepy-eyed girl, just 14, watched me with a slight and goofy smile…” (185). The author uses imagery like this to her advantage. By using detailed descriptions to create an image, the stories she tells become more effecting to the reader and creating an emotional tie to the text. These sentences, like so many others, serve the purpose of evoking emotion by displaying an image of the young girls that is easily connected with. The audience can clearly tell that these girls are not only young but very much like a teenager they may have known. With such emotional ties, Tisdale continues her emphasis on imagery throughout the text, painting a picture in the heads of her readers, which in turn helps her audience understand that there may not be a clear answer to this problem.
In a third instance, and perhaps the most obvious of them, the author comprehensively uses personal anecdote in appealing to the emotions of her audience. As a matter of fact, most of her article is written like a story, telling of her first-hand experiences in the clinic and explaining about both the procedural processes and the people who come in for abortions. One more personal example of this is the recalling of her dreams. “I have fetus dreams, we all do here,” (188) she explains, before shaping her story with elaborate detail. Her personal stories and experiences are always used to prove a point. In this illustration of the dream, her point to show the violence in abortions is effectively portrayed in her account, bringing to light one of the many complexities of this situation.
When it comes to abortion, there are many complexities. It not only impacts physically the people involved, but affects them emotionally as well. Although Tisdale’s article shows the emotional characteristics of abortion, she doesn’t take a definite side on the issue. Instead, she focuses on the density of the subject, making it clear this is a difficult concern to give a specific answer to. Using emotional aspects, she successfully employs amplification, imagery, and personal anecdote to show her audience that argument concerning abortion is, in fact, an extremely difficult and complex one; one without a definite solution.
October 15, 2011
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Honors Writing 150
The Complexity of the Issue Surrounding Abortion
Abortion is a common subject for many debates in the political, ethical and moral world today. This dispute is argued now just has it has been discussed in the past and will continue to be a subject of disagreement in the future. Since there are many opposing opinions and backgrounds of this issue, it is natural that any laws that have been and will be established are bound to please some while highly disappointing others. In her article “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale effectively appeals to her audience by means of pathos and using literary devices such as amplification, imagery and personal anecdote to show that when it comes to abortion, there is just no easily justified, simple conclusion.
The author makes extensive use of amplification to show the audience the overwhelming emotional quality of what she does at the abortion clinic. When describing the process of discarding a fetus, instead of stating the smell to be rich and humid, she tells of a “…rich and humid smell, hot, earthy, and moldering”. (188) By doing this, the author is giving her audience more information to create an image emphasizing elements of the story that stood out to her. In one passage she explains: “Women have abortions because they are too old, and too young, too poor and too rich, too stupid and too smart.” (187) Instead of just saying that women have abortions for various reasons, Tisdale uses amplification to give this line a particular feel and give the audience added information. These are small examples of the many times the author emphasizes experiences by adding further, often times quite graphic, information in order to have them stand out in the reader’s mind. The author’s use of amplification in this text creates a more detailed knowledge of how she felt about the work she did. Perhaps even more importantly, it appeals to the reader’s emotions, whether they be in disgust, pity, or something else entirely. This manner of using amplification is also necessary in helping to establish the author’s use of imagery in the text.
The author branches from amplification to imagery in order to serve her purposes. The additional information given allows the audience to use imagery to picture the events in more detail. She often emphasizes in detail the youthfulness of many of the girls she has worked with, using descriptions such as, “They come so young, snapping gum, sockless and sneakered, and their shakily applied eyeliner smears when they cry,” (188) and, “A sleepy-eyed girl, just 14, watched me with a slight and goofy smile…” (185). The author uses imagery like this to her advantage. By using detailed descriptions to create an image, the stories she tells become more effecting to the reader and creating an emotional tie to the text. These sentences, like so many others, serve the purpose of evoking emotion by displaying an image of the young girls that is easily connected with. The audience can clearly tell that these girls are not only young but very much like a teenager they may have known. With such emotional ties, Tisdale continues her emphasis on imagery throughout the text, painting a picture in the heads of her readers, which in turn helps her audience understand that there may not be a clear answer to this problem.
In a third instance, and perhaps the most obvious of them, the author comprehensively uses personal anecdote in appealing to the emotions of her audience. As a matter of fact, most of her article is written like a story, telling of her first-hand experiences in the clinic and explaining about both the procedural processes and the people who come in for abortions. One more personal example of this is the recalling of her dreams. “I have fetus dreams, we all do here,” (188) she explains, before shaping her story with elaborate detail. Her personal stories and experiences are always used to prove a point. In this illustration of the dream, her point to show the violence in abortions is effectively portrayed in her account, bringing to light one of the many complexities of this situation.
When it comes to abortion, there are many complexities. It not only impacts physically the people involved, but affects them emotionally as well. Although Tisdale’s article shows the emotional characteristics of abortion, she doesn’t take a definite side on the issue. Instead, she focuses on the density of the subject, making it clear this is a difficult concern to give a specific answer to. Using emotional aspects, she successfully employs amplification, imagery, and personal anecdote to show her audience that argument concerning abortion is, in fact, an extremely difficult and complex one; one without a definite solution.
Lauren's Analysis of "We Do Abortions Here"
Lauren Archibald
Professor Kerry Spencer
Honors Writing 150
17 October 2011
Abortion from a Different Perspective
Few subjects are more controversial than abortion. It generates heated political and moral disputes in which debate contributors voice their opinions on when life begins and who has the right to take it away. Much of society is familiar with these arguments posed by opinionated and influential individuals, but it is likely that these prominent people have never actually experienced or witnessed an abortion. They do not understand the complicated emotions involved in an abortion and they have not gathered their own evidence for their case. A truly persuasive argument would be from a person who is familiar with abortion, one who is involved in the practice. In “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale addresses the issue from a perspective not often revealed: the point of view of one performing the abortions. Using anecdotal experiences, blunt diction, and an inverted appeal to pathos, Tisdale displays abortion from a qualified point of view to successfully persuade the audience of the injustice of abortion.
Primarily, Tisdale uses her experiences with the patients at the abortion clinic to strengthen her underlying argument against abortion. She describes the women at the clinic, from the young and ignorant to the “statistical misfits.” However, a common reaction occurs in the differing women once the procedure begins: “A well of woe seems to open beneath many women when they hear the thumping sound. The anticipation of the moment has finally come to fruit; the moment has arrived when the loss is no longer an imagined one. It has come true.” Even though all of the women had decided that they wanted an abortion, when it was finally done they were confused and sorrowful. Just as with many major moments of change in our lives, even if it is anticipated, the change fills us with disbelief and confusion. A similar thing happened to these women, except the major change in their lives was the ending of another life and another future, both for themselves and their unborn children. The sadness expressed by those who actually support and choose to participate in abortion supports the author’s opinion of its inhumanity.
Not only does Tisdale utilize her involvements with patients to illustrate the unkindness of abortion, but she also applies her own personal experience to show the affects abortion has on the frame of mind of those who perform the procedure. The narrator and her colleagues prefer a broad view, to “survey the scene in all its distance and size,” rather than to “focus on the small details, suddenly so close.” This general standpoint on their occupation shows that, due to the controversial and delicate work they do, they must ignore the specifics of their procedures to allow themselves to do them. Dwelling on the reality that they are destroying a vulnerable being would prevent them from doing their job. The author confesses that “abortion requires of [her] an entirely new set of assumptions,” further supporting the notion that the work of abortion is so merciless that a person with an ordinary state of mind would not be able to do it. By using the personal experiences of herself and her colleagues, the author demonstrates that the nurses and doctors have to have a different and calloused set of views for their vocation because of the degree of injustice in abortion.
Additionally, Tisdale uses matter-of-fact diction to further support her argument against abortion. By using blunt and realistic language, the author makes her argument seem more credible and furthers the idea of the necessity for impassive thinking when surrounded by abortion. For example, when the narrator describes an dead fetus she says, “but when I look in the basin, among the curdlike blood clots, I see an elfin thorax, attenuated, its pencil like ribs all in parallel rows with tiny knobs of spine rounding upwards. A translucent arm and hand swim beside.” Instead of using strong and passionate connotation in this graphic description of an aborted fetus, a situation wherein persuasive emotion would typically be applied, Tisdale uses professional and unaffected language. This makes her argument appear more sensible and reliable, while simultaneously advancing the idea of the required emotionless stance needed to work with abortion. Tisdale’s matter-of-fact diction contributes to convincing the audience of the wrongness of abortion.
In connection with the use of blunt diction, Tisdale employs an inverted appeal to pathos to capture the emotional attachment of the audience; by explaining the absence of compassion involved in the procedure of abortion, the author inversely arouses emotion in the reader. Throughout the article, she speaks of the “cultivated disregard” developed in her occupation. As she says, it is a “sweet brutality we practice here, a stark and loving dispassion.” Rather than passionately expounding upon the atrocities of abortion, she simply describes the lack of emotion in her work. Once again, we see that in order to perform the procedure, workers must to take on a different conscious state. This deficiency of sentiment awakens a strong emotion in the reader as they recognize that the already inhumane act is intensified by the ruthless way in which it is conducted. Furthermore, the pitiless way in which the aborted fetuses are described provokes sympathetic responses to the end of a life not yet begun. Through an inverted appeal to pathos, the author continues to persuade the audience of the cruelty of abortion.
Tisdale doesn’t write this article just as someone who has researched or studied the subject; she writes it as a woman who actually has experience executing abortions. Though she works for an abortion clinic and acknowledges several cases where abortion seems justified, the reader senses an underlying opposition with the practice through her personal experiences, blunt diction, and an inverted appeal to pathos. We are able to see abortion in another context through her unique perspective, from inner disagreement to acceptance of its existence, in which she “imagine(s) a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return(s) to the world where it is.”
Professor Kerry Spencer
Honors Writing 150
17 October 2011
Abortion from a Different Perspective
Few subjects are more controversial than abortion. It generates heated political and moral disputes in which debate contributors voice their opinions on when life begins and who has the right to take it away. Much of society is familiar with these arguments posed by opinionated and influential individuals, but it is likely that these prominent people have never actually experienced or witnessed an abortion. They do not understand the complicated emotions involved in an abortion and they have not gathered their own evidence for their case. A truly persuasive argument would be from a person who is familiar with abortion, one who is involved in the practice. In “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale addresses the issue from a perspective not often revealed: the point of view of one performing the abortions. Using anecdotal experiences, blunt diction, and an inverted appeal to pathos, Tisdale displays abortion from a qualified point of view to successfully persuade the audience of the injustice of abortion.
Primarily, Tisdale uses her experiences with the patients at the abortion clinic to strengthen her underlying argument against abortion. She describes the women at the clinic, from the young and ignorant to the “statistical misfits.” However, a common reaction occurs in the differing women once the procedure begins: “A well of woe seems to open beneath many women when they hear the thumping sound. The anticipation of the moment has finally come to fruit; the moment has arrived when the loss is no longer an imagined one. It has come true.” Even though all of the women had decided that they wanted an abortion, when it was finally done they were confused and sorrowful. Just as with many major moments of change in our lives, even if it is anticipated, the change fills us with disbelief and confusion. A similar thing happened to these women, except the major change in their lives was the ending of another life and another future, both for themselves and their unborn children. The sadness expressed by those who actually support and choose to participate in abortion supports the author’s opinion of its inhumanity.
Not only does Tisdale utilize her involvements with patients to illustrate the unkindness of abortion, but she also applies her own personal experience to show the affects abortion has on the frame of mind of those who perform the procedure. The narrator and her colleagues prefer a broad view, to “survey the scene in all its distance and size,” rather than to “focus on the small details, suddenly so close.” This general standpoint on their occupation shows that, due to the controversial and delicate work they do, they must ignore the specifics of their procedures to allow themselves to do them. Dwelling on the reality that they are destroying a vulnerable being would prevent them from doing their job. The author confesses that “abortion requires of [her] an entirely new set of assumptions,” further supporting the notion that the work of abortion is so merciless that a person with an ordinary state of mind would not be able to do it. By using the personal experiences of herself and her colleagues, the author demonstrates that the nurses and doctors have to have a different and calloused set of views for their vocation because of the degree of injustice in abortion.
Additionally, Tisdale uses matter-of-fact diction to further support her argument against abortion. By using blunt and realistic language, the author makes her argument seem more credible and furthers the idea of the necessity for impassive thinking when surrounded by abortion. For example, when the narrator describes an dead fetus she says, “but when I look in the basin, among the curdlike blood clots, I see an elfin thorax, attenuated, its pencil like ribs all in parallel rows with tiny knobs of spine rounding upwards. A translucent arm and hand swim beside.” Instead of using strong and passionate connotation in this graphic description of an aborted fetus, a situation wherein persuasive emotion would typically be applied, Tisdale uses professional and unaffected language. This makes her argument appear more sensible and reliable, while simultaneously advancing the idea of the required emotionless stance needed to work with abortion. Tisdale’s matter-of-fact diction contributes to convincing the audience of the wrongness of abortion.
In connection with the use of blunt diction, Tisdale employs an inverted appeal to pathos to capture the emotional attachment of the audience; by explaining the absence of compassion involved in the procedure of abortion, the author inversely arouses emotion in the reader. Throughout the article, she speaks of the “cultivated disregard” developed in her occupation. As she says, it is a “sweet brutality we practice here, a stark and loving dispassion.” Rather than passionately expounding upon the atrocities of abortion, she simply describes the lack of emotion in her work. Once again, we see that in order to perform the procedure, workers must to take on a different conscious state. This deficiency of sentiment awakens a strong emotion in the reader as they recognize that the already inhumane act is intensified by the ruthless way in which it is conducted. Furthermore, the pitiless way in which the aborted fetuses are described provokes sympathetic responses to the end of a life not yet begun. Through an inverted appeal to pathos, the author continues to persuade the audience of the cruelty of abortion.
Tisdale doesn’t write this article just as someone who has researched or studied the subject; she writes it as a woman who actually has experience executing abortions. Though she works for an abortion clinic and acknowledges several cases where abortion seems justified, the reader senses an underlying opposition with the practice through her personal experiences, blunt diction, and an inverted appeal to pathos. We are able to see abortion in another context through her unique perspective, from inner disagreement to acceptance of its existence, in which she “imagine(s) a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return(s) to the world where it is.”
Sariah's Analysis of "We Do Abortions Here"
Sariah Morey
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Writing 150
October 17, 2011
We do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story
In 1973 the Supreme Court made a landmark controversial decision deciding that it is a woman’s right to choose abortion in the court case Roe v. Wade. Due to that decision, abortion has become a way to prevent unexpected pregnancies, control whether or not parents have a handicapped child, and much more. A registered nurse Sallie Tisdale wrote the essay “We do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story” from her own personal experiences in the world of medicine. Throughout the essay it is apparent that Sallie is using emotional appeal to evoke a response out of the reader, yet she never lets the reader know whether or not she agrees with abortion to allow her audience to make their own decision on the matter.
Sallie Tisdale’s essay describes the emotions, thoughts, and procedures that she as a nurse in an abortion clinic had to deal with daily. She even goes so far as to explicitly describe the contents of the basin after the abortion is complete. The grief and the pain, as well as the strength and bonding experienced in her job are all talked about. Another thing that Sallie does is show the variety of women with whom she deals with, and the differences in their experience at the clinic.
Sallie uses very descriptive phrases to help her convey her emotions throughout her interactions with the women. Such phrases include “chafing loss,” “numbing sameness,” and “sweet brutality (183).” By doing this she allows the reader to visualize the scene that she deals with every day. It helps her audience to be able to more fully understand the situation that she is in.
Another aspect of Sallie’s essay that helps appeal to the emotions is describing each situation with such detail and clarity so as to make the reader feel as if they are standing by witnessing the experiences. On page 184 she goes through the process of an abortion step by step. Starting with “I give a woman a small yellow Valium” to the actual procedure, and ending with the sorrow the women feel once they realize what they have done (184). Beyond describing the steps, she also very clearly paints a picture of the range of women that she works with. She portrays her experience with girls as young as a 14-year old to women in their 40s all dealing with the same pain and heartbreak. Without such thorough descriptions the reader would not connect as well with Sallie, and then misjudge her as to why she still works in such a clinic.
As the reader finishes the essay, they expect Sallie to address the question of whether or not abortion is a good or bad thing. While she says “we’re too busy to chew over ethics,” it never answers that question. A major reason for her to leave that up in the air is so to allow the reader can think for themself. She provides all of the information by talking about the good the bad and the ugly associated with her job. Some of the good include “what I offer is not power, but solidness, offered almost eagerly,” and “It’s nice to be with women all day. I like the sudden, transient bonds I forge with some clients: moments when I am in my strength (183).” Some of the bad and the ugly is that “there are weary, grim moments when I…cannot bear another basin of bloody remains,” and “ my own belly flip-flops with sorrow…there is a numbing sameness lurking in this job…and the worst is the sameness of human failure (183).” With this information, she skillfully never talks about one side too much to make the reader believe that she favors one side over the other. By doing this her true opinion remains unknown.
In the last sentence of the essay Sallie states “I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return to the world where it is (189).” This sentence gives a little glimpse into Sallie’s mind as to what her views are on abortion, but is still phrased in a way to leave it open for discussion. It was a very brave decision for Sallie to leave her audience with such an open ended question. Without it the essay would be weakened and would lack the impact that that question gives it. By requiring the reader to think, the essay will make more of an impression than if she had spouted off the answer at the end.
Through her use of emotion as well as leaving a question unanswered, Sallie Tisdale’s essay has a tremendous impact on her readers. The reader is more informed on abortion, obtaining information from a primary source, and can leave having a more informed opinion. While no one will truly know why she does her job, Sally can at least be respected for being willing to help the women in need of her strength.
Work Cited
Tisdale, Sallie. “We do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story.” Reading For Intensive Writers. 5th ed. Comp. Susan Jorgensen. Provo: BYU Academic Publishing, 2007
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Writing 150
October 17, 2011
We do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story
In 1973 the Supreme Court made a landmark controversial decision deciding that it is a woman’s right to choose abortion in the court case Roe v. Wade. Due to that decision, abortion has become a way to prevent unexpected pregnancies, control whether or not parents have a handicapped child, and much more. A registered nurse Sallie Tisdale wrote the essay “We do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story” from her own personal experiences in the world of medicine. Throughout the essay it is apparent that Sallie is using emotional appeal to evoke a response out of the reader, yet she never lets the reader know whether or not she agrees with abortion to allow her audience to make their own decision on the matter.
Sallie Tisdale’s essay describes the emotions, thoughts, and procedures that she as a nurse in an abortion clinic had to deal with daily. She even goes so far as to explicitly describe the contents of the basin after the abortion is complete. The grief and the pain, as well as the strength and bonding experienced in her job are all talked about. Another thing that Sallie does is show the variety of women with whom she deals with, and the differences in their experience at the clinic.
Sallie uses very descriptive phrases to help her convey her emotions throughout her interactions with the women. Such phrases include “chafing loss,” “numbing sameness,” and “sweet brutality (183).” By doing this she allows the reader to visualize the scene that she deals with every day. It helps her audience to be able to more fully understand the situation that she is in.
Another aspect of Sallie’s essay that helps appeal to the emotions is describing each situation with such detail and clarity so as to make the reader feel as if they are standing by witnessing the experiences. On page 184 she goes through the process of an abortion step by step. Starting with “I give a woman a small yellow Valium” to the actual procedure, and ending with the sorrow the women feel once they realize what they have done (184). Beyond describing the steps, she also very clearly paints a picture of the range of women that she works with. She portrays her experience with girls as young as a 14-year old to women in their 40s all dealing with the same pain and heartbreak. Without such thorough descriptions the reader would not connect as well with Sallie, and then misjudge her as to why she still works in such a clinic.
As the reader finishes the essay, they expect Sallie to address the question of whether or not abortion is a good or bad thing. While she says “we’re too busy to chew over ethics,” it never answers that question. A major reason for her to leave that up in the air is so to allow the reader can think for themself. She provides all of the information by talking about the good the bad and the ugly associated with her job. Some of the good include “what I offer is not power, but solidness, offered almost eagerly,” and “It’s nice to be with women all day. I like the sudden, transient bonds I forge with some clients: moments when I am in my strength (183).” Some of the bad and the ugly is that “there are weary, grim moments when I…cannot bear another basin of bloody remains,” and “ my own belly flip-flops with sorrow…there is a numbing sameness lurking in this job…and the worst is the sameness of human failure (183).” With this information, she skillfully never talks about one side too much to make the reader believe that she favors one side over the other. By doing this her true opinion remains unknown.
In the last sentence of the essay Sallie states “I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return to the world where it is (189).” This sentence gives a little glimpse into Sallie’s mind as to what her views are on abortion, but is still phrased in a way to leave it open for discussion. It was a very brave decision for Sallie to leave her audience with such an open ended question. Without it the essay would be weakened and would lack the impact that that question gives it. By requiring the reader to think, the essay will make more of an impression than if she had spouted off the answer at the end.
Through her use of emotion as well as leaving a question unanswered, Sallie Tisdale’s essay has a tremendous impact on her readers. The reader is more informed on abortion, obtaining information from a primary source, and can leave having a more informed opinion. While no one will truly know why she does her job, Sally can at least be respected for being willing to help the women in need of her strength.
Work Cited
Tisdale, Sallie. “We do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story.” Reading For Intensive Writers. 5th ed. Comp. Susan Jorgensen. Provo: BYU Academic Publishing, 2007
Zack's Analysis of "We do Abortions Here"
Zack Yancey
WRTG 150, sec. 105
17 October 2011
“We Do Abortions Here” Critical Analysis
There are few topics more controversial than abortion. The merits and morality of legalizing and having an abortion can and have been argued to no end. However, there’s one part of the story that’s often overlooked. In “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale uses strong appeals to pathos in the form of specific stories and vivid imagery, as well as conflicting imagery and themes to effectively convey the moral and psychological conflict that comes with working in an abortion clinic to those who haven’t ever been in such a situation, before finally asserting her position on the matter.
Throughout her essay, Tisdale relates several accounts about her experiences with different clients at the clinic. She tells stories of “An eighteen-year-old woman pregnant for the fourth time... [who] has been so hungry for her drug that she has taken to using the loose skin of her upper arms” (183), “a sleepy-eyed girl, just 14... with a slight and goofy smile” (185), and “a 16-year-old uneducated girl who was raped” (185). These stories show the many backgrounds from which women come for abortions, and are intended to evoke sympathy in the reader for these women. Tisdale does this so that the reader can better understand her feelings of compassion towards the women. She seems to be arguing, with concern for the mother in mind, that abortion is a necessary practice.
While her stories make it appear that Tisdale believes abortion to be beneficial, her descriptions of the process itself indicate otherwise. Tisdale uses vivid imagery and detailed descriptions of the bloody procedure and its aftermath. She describes the actual fetus as such: “When I look into the basin, among the curdlike blood clots, I see an elfin thorax, attenuated, its pencil line ribs all in parallel rows with tiny knobs of spine rounding upwards. A translucent arm and hand swim beside” (185). She also recalls a fellow worker describing a particularly developed abortion as “just like a little kitten... Everything was still attached.” (188) These descriptions remind the reader that although potentially a threat to the mother, these fetuses are still living things. The descriptions quickly jerk the reader into a realization of the brutal nature of the practice of abortion, and leads the reader to share in Tisdale’s feelings of guilt.
The conflict between the sympathy Tisdale feels for the mothers and the brutallity of the abortions is also evident in Tisdale’s choice of diction. She often puts conflicting words together when referring to the practice of abortion. She calls it a “sweet brutality,” a “loving dispassion.” (183) She claims to be “struck by the sameness and... by the variety” (184) of the clinic. These conflicting, almost oxymoronic statements show the confusion Tisdale has about her own feelings towards abortion.
The conflict of ideas isn’t just limited to Tisdale’s choice of diction. Throughout her essay, Tisdale switches between talking about the necessity of abortions and the guilt behind them. She logically justifies abortion, describing the fetus as “at least incovenient, sometimes quite literally dangerous” (187) and as “a thing whose creation has been actively worked against. Its existence is an error” (187). However, she also feels guilty for facilitating the abortion. Looking at the fetus in an ultrasound, she comments that she “[knows] how heavy and correct a newborn cradled feels. The creature... requires nothing from [her] but to be left alone” (187). Her guilt also manifests itself in the form of “fetus dreams”:
dreams of abortions one after the other; of buckets of blood splashed on the walls; trees full of crawling fetuses. I dreamed that two men grabbed me and began to drag me away. ‘Let’s do an abortion’ they said with a sickening leer, and I began to scream, plunged into a vision of sucking, scraping pain, and being spread and torn by impartial instruments that do only what they are bidden. (188)
By switching back and forth between logically asserting that abortion is necessary and reflecting on her guilt, Tisdale effectively conveys to the reader the torn mental state that results from working in an abortion clinic.
Despite her internal conflict, Tisdale does come to a conclusion at the end of her essay. She decides that abortion is painful, but necessary. “Abortion,” she explains, “requires of me an entirely new set of assumptions. It requires a willingness to live with conflict, fearlessness, and grief. As I close the freezer door, I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, then return to the world where it is.” (189) She asserts that although abortions are difficult to live with, they are something that must be lived with.
For Tisdale, working in an abortion clinic is the cause of much conflict and confusion. In “We Do Abortions Here,” she attempts to convey this conflicted mental state to her audience-- and does so successfully. She also asserts that, although uncomfortable, abortions are important. Despite her guilt and the nightmares it gives her, she continues to do what she does because of her compassion for the women who need her.
WRTG 150, sec. 105
17 October 2011
“We Do Abortions Here” Critical Analysis
There are few topics more controversial than abortion. The merits and morality of legalizing and having an abortion can and have been argued to no end. However, there’s one part of the story that’s often overlooked. In “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale uses strong appeals to pathos in the form of specific stories and vivid imagery, as well as conflicting imagery and themes to effectively convey the moral and psychological conflict that comes with working in an abortion clinic to those who haven’t ever been in such a situation, before finally asserting her position on the matter.
Throughout her essay, Tisdale relates several accounts about her experiences with different clients at the clinic. She tells stories of “An eighteen-year-old woman pregnant for the fourth time... [who] has been so hungry for her drug that she has taken to using the loose skin of her upper arms” (183), “a sleepy-eyed girl, just 14... with a slight and goofy smile” (185), and “a 16-year-old uneducated girl who was raped” (185). These stories show the many backgrounds from which women come for abortions, and are intended to evoke sympathy in the reader for these women. Tisdale does this so that the reader can better understand her feelings of compassion towards the women. She seems to be arguing, with concern for the mother in mind, that abortion is a necessary practice.
While her stories make it appear that Tisdale believes abortion to be beneficial, her descriptions of the process itself indicate otherwise. Tisdale uses vivid imagery and detailed descriptions of the bloody procedure and its aftermath. She describes the actual fetus as such: “When I look into the basin, among the curdlike blood clots, I see an elfin thorax, attenuated, its pencil line ribs all in parallel rows with tiny knobs of spine rounding upwards. A translucent arm and hand swim beside” (185). She also recalls a fellow worker describing a particularly developed abortion as “just like a little kitten... Everything was still attached.” (188) These descriptions remind the reader that although potentially a threat to the mother, these fetuses are still living things. The descriptions quickly jerk the reader into a realization of the brutal nature of the practice of abortion, and leads the reader to share in Tisdale’s feelings of guilt.
The conflict between the sympathy Tisdale feels for the mothers and the brutallity of the abortions is also evident in Tisdale’s choice of diction. She often puts conflicting words together when referring to the practice of abortion. She calls it a “sweet brutality,” a “loving dispassion.” (183) She claims to be “struck by the sameness and... by the variety” (184) of the clinic. These conflicting, almost oxymoronic statements show the confusion Tisdale has about her own feelings towards abortion.
The conflict of ideas isn’t just limited to Tisdale’s choice of diction. Throughout her essay, Tisdale switches between talking about the necessity of abortions and the guilt behind them. She logically justifies abortion, describing the fetus as “at least incovenient, sometimes quite literally dangerous” (187) and as “a thing whose creation has been actively worked against. Its existence is an error” (187). However, she also feels guilty for facilitating the abortion. Looking at the fetus in an ultrasound, she comments that she “[knows] how heavy and correct a newborn cradled feels. The creature... requires nothing from [her] but to be left alone” (187). Her guilt also manifests itself in the form of “fetus dreams”:
dreams of abortions one after the other; of buckets of blood splashed on the walls; trees full of crawling fetuses. I dreamed that two men grabbed me and began to drag me away. ‘Let’s do an abortion’ they said with a sickening leer, and I began to scream, plunged into a vision of sucking, scraping pain, and being spread and torn by impartial instruments that do only what they are bidden. (188)
By switching back and forth between logically asserting that abortion is necessary and reflecting on her guilt, Tisdale effectively conveys to the reader the torn mental state that results from working in an abortion clinic.
Despite her internal conflict, Tisdale does come to a conclusion at the end of her essay. She decides that abortion is painful, but necessary. “Abortion,” she explains, “requires of me an entirely new set of assumptions. It requires a willingness to live with conflict, fearlessness, and grief. As I close the freezer door, I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, then return to the world where it is.” (189) She asserts that although abortions are difficult to live with, they are something that must be lived with.
For Tisdale, working in an abortion clinic is the cause of much conflict and confusion. In “We Do Abortions Here,” she attempts to convey this conflicted mental state to her audience-- and does so successfully. She also asserts that, although uncomfortable, abortions are important. Despite her guilt and the nightmares it gives her, she continues to do what she does because of her compassion for the women who need her.
Jarom's Analysis of "When Life Begins"
The title of the essay “When Life Begins” is a highly charged query, and Spencer perhaps senses that she cannot answer such a complicated question with a traditional "yes" or "no." Rather, through the tools of logos, pathos, and narrative organization, she successfully shares her sorrow in grappling with the unanswerable question: “When does life begin?”
Spencer reminds us of death at the very beginning of the essay. The scene is opened with a gravestone that is "old and covered with some sort of green fungus." Death is provides a powerful link of empathy between humans, and Spencer uses it to forge sympathy with her audience as she shares her pain in pondering the question "When does life begin?"
Spencer acquaints us with her story through paragraph two, explaining the process of in vitro fertilization, but yet she frames the narrative with her question, "At what point does life begin? It's something I've thought about since the day that we found out in vitro fertilization was the only way to have a baby." Spencer's question invites the audience to ponder this question along with her, and the audience sympathizes with her plight, introducing pathos.
Spencer includes a paragraph describing her uncomfortable state in the graveyard. "I push my way through grass that hasn't been mowed in months. I think I can feel insects creeping across my arms and legs as I push through. The sun glares to my left, and I am squinting against a massive headache." Physical discomfort is common to all human beings, and Spencer uses this description to appeal to our sense of pathos and increase our sympathy for her. She is suffering both physically from the heat, and mentally from the question, "When does life begin? Is life really full of death and pain?" As Spencer stands with potential life inside of her gut, and a spent life under the gravestone, she delivers the following emotional dialogue: "I don't want life to begin at the moment of conception. Because that means that life is just too full of death. There would be just too much to mourn."
Having emotionally connected to her audience, Spencer drops the narrative and shares some of the things she has pondered regarding when life begins. These facts will later become appeal powerfully to her audiences’ emotions, but for now they are presented in a dry, logical manner. "Janet Shibley Hyde and John D. DeLamater argue that as many as forty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage...in God's way, statistically speaking, it takes several embryos to create one human life…2 blastocysts= 0.5 human beings."
These simple facts, delivered calmly and factually, let the audience see what Spencer has been thinking, and allows them to more fully understand her sorrow which comes at the end of the essay upon learning that another two of her blastocysts have perished.
These logical musings are interrupted by a familiar sound...the sound of a lawn mower. "A man with a lawn mower fastidiously mows and re-mows the newer plots at the edge of the cemetery." By reminding the audience of the physical world outside of Spencer's pondering, we see the scene as she must see it; floating between sorrowful preoccupation and the ordinary bustle of the real world. We experience this juxtaposition between life, which is so often taken for granted, and the awful contemplation of death that Spencer privately entertains. Spencer again manages to connect to the audience through narrative organization, concluding the factual section of the essay with a reminder (the lawn mower) that Spencer is a real person in a real situation.
Having firmly captured her audiences' sympathies through scenic detail, shared with them her thoughts regarding the question, and brought them back to the scene, Spencer moves forward with the narrative, yet even as we receive physical descriptions of her actions, "[Steve] has taken out the camera and is taking pictures of the inscriptions on the small, rose-colored tomb of an ancestor," Spencer shares even more information regarding her pondering on the question, "when does life begin" by inserting such abstract thoughts as “the embryos in my gut have a fifty percent chance of death. Or life." This rhetorical device of contrast between the actions of life, and Spencer's musings on death, allow Spencer to share the pain she is feeling by reminding the audience that this question haunts her, even through such mundane activities as genealogy.
The narrative then moves forward to the emotional climax of the piece.
"It is when we get home to our one-room, overheated, London flat that we get the messages."
"The fertility clinic has been trying to call us over and over."
Spencer has successfully established enough rapport with the audience that we feel a surge of anxiety--pathos if you will-- when we hear this statement. Spencer has shared her pain and suffering, and now it is our pain as well. The audience, having seen Spencer's thoughts and watched Spencer's actions, anticipates what comes next with nearly as much dread as Spencer herself. Spencer has connected with the audience, and managed to share her emotions.
"Your embryos," they say when we finally get ahold of them. "We thought two of them were dead, but they weren't. They started dividing again. But now it's too late."
The narrative switches from the phone message to Spencer's thought of horror:
“Too late?”
The audiences’ heart churns along with Spencer's, and we listen numbly to the rest of the message.
"They're too big to be frozen now; they won't survive."
Spencer again reminds us of the logic that has caused her so much pain:
"Two blastocysts in my gut.”
“Two blastocysts dying in the lab.”
“4 blastocysts = 1 human being.”
But now it's too late. I am crying before I am off the phone.”
The audience, having been shown Spencer's thoughts, and pictured her in sympathy in their minds, is caught up in Spencer's suffering. Through logos, pathos, and a careful pattern of narrative and inner pondering, Spencer has successfully shared her experience, and consequent suffering in pondering the question, "When does life begin?"
Spencer reminds us of death at the very beginning of the essay. The scene is opened with a gravestone that is "old and covered with some sort of green fungus." Death is provides a powerful link of empathy between humans, and Spencer uses it to forge sympathy with her audience as she shares her pain in pondering the question "When does life begin?"
Spencer acquaints us with her story through paragraph two, explaining the process of in vitro fertilization, but yet she frames the narrative with her question, "At what point does life begin? It's something I've thought about since the day that we found out in vitro fertilization was the only way to have a baby." Spencer's question invites the audience to ponder this question along with her, and the audience sympathizes with her plight, introducing pathos.
Spencer includes a paragraph describing her uncomfortable state in the graveyard. "I push my way through grass that hasn't been mowed in months. I think I can feel insects creeping across my arms and legs as I push through. The sun glares to my left, and I am squinting against a massive headache." Physical discomfort is common to all human beings, and Spencer uses this description to appeal to our sense of pathos and increase our sympathy for her. She is suffering both physically from the heat, and mentally from the question, "When does life begin? Is life really full of death and pain?" As Spencer stands with potential life inside of her gut, and a spent life under the gravestone, she delivers the following emotional dialogue: "I don't want life to begin at the moment of conception. Because that means that life is just too full of death. There would be just too much to mourn."
Having emotionally connected to her audience, Spencer drops the narrative and shares some of the things she has pondered regarding when life begins. These facts will later become appeal powerfully to her audiences’ emotions, but for now they are presented in a dry, logical manner. "Janet Shibley Hyde and John D. DeLamater argue that as many as forty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage...in God's way, statistically speaking, it takes several embryos to create one human life…2 blastocysts= 0.5 human beings."
These simple facts, delivered calmly and factually, let the audience see what Spencer has been thinking, and allows them to more fully understand her sorrow which comes at the end of the essay upon learning that another two of her blastocysts have perished.
These logical musings are interrupted by a familiar sound...the sound of a lawn mower. "A man with a lawn mower fastidiously mows and re-mows the newer plots at the edge of the cemetery." By reminding the audience of the physical world outside of Spencer's pondering, we see the scene as she must see it; floating between sorrowful preoccupation and the ordinary bustle of the real world. We experience this juxtaposition between life, which is so often taken for granted, and the awful contemplation of death that Spencer privately entertains. Spencer again manages to connect to the audience through narrative organization, concluding the factual section of the essay with a reminder (the lawn mower) that Spencer is a real person in a real situation.
Having firmly captured her audiences' sympathies through scenic detail, shared with them her thoughts regarding the question, and brought them back to the scene, Spencer moves forward with the narrative, yet even as we receive physical descriptions of her actions, "[Steve] has taken out the camera and is taking pictures of the inscriptions on the small, rose-colored tomb of an ancestor," Spencer shares even more information regarding her pondering on the question, "when does life begin" by inserting such abstract thoughts as “the embryos in my gut have a fifty percent chance of death. Or life." This rhetorical device of contrast between the actions of life, and Spencer's musings on death, allow Spencer to share the pain she is feeling by reminding the audience that this question haunts her, even through such mundane activities as genealogy.
The narrative then moves forward to the emotional climax of the piece.
"It is when we get home to our one-room, overheated, London flat that we get the messages."
"The fertility clinic has been trying to call us over and over."
Spencer has successfully established enough rapport with the audience that we feel a surge of anxiety--pathos if you will-- when we hear this statement. Spencer has shared her pain and suffering, and now it is our pain as well. The audience, having seen Spencer's thoughts and watched Spencer's actions, anticipates what comes next with nearly as much dread as Spencer herself. Spencer has connected with the audience, and managed to share her emotions.
"Your embryos," they say when we finally get ahold of them. "We thought two of them were dead, but they weren't. They started dividing again. But now it's too late."
The narrative switches from the phone message to Spencer's thought of horror:
“Too late?”
The audiences’ heart churns along with Spencer's, and we listen numbly to the rest of the message.
"They're too big to be frozen now; they won't survive."
Spencer again reminds us of the logic that has caused her so much pain:
"Two blastocysts in my gut.”
“Two blastocysts dying in the lab.”
“4 blastocysts = 1 human being.”
But now it's too late. I am crying before I am off the phone.”
The audience, having been shown Spencer's thoughts, and pictured her in sympathy in their minds, is caught up in Spencer's suffering. Through logos, pathos, and a careful pattern of narrative and inner pondering, Spencer has successfully shared her experience, and consequent suffering in pondering the question, "When does life begin?"
Rosalind's Analysis of "We Do Abortions Here"
Rosalind Decker
Kerry Spencer
H English 150
October 16, 2011
Abortion: Where Black and White Flushes Scarlet
When conflict arises, we seek relief. Human nature is adverse to pain and suffering. We naturally shrink from difficult situations and decisions. We cling to hope, searching for a solution with minimal discomfort. Sometimes we get lucky, finding a clear answer. But sometimes there is no beaten path to follow, no obvious right and wrong. There is only sorrow. Abortion cannot be classified as black or white. It is a completely different kind of path—a red one. As Latter-day Saints, we are given no clear instruction concerning certain abortions. In cases of rape, incest, and danger to the health of the mother or child, the church abstains. The burden of choice falls upon the individual. In “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale successfully uses paradox, point of view, and metaphor to force the reader to face the difficulty and pain surrounding this choice: either way, there is no happy ending.
Tisdale proves through paradox that abortion cannot be viewed simply as good or evil. In her description of her work, she says, “It is a sweet brutality we practice here.” In this paradox, Tisdale acknowledges the harshness of abortion. Abortion ends the life of a fetus before it has the chance to grow into a child. This is a brutal truth. But according to Tisdale, it is also sweet. The coupling of these words suggests that abortion is merciful. A burden lifted, perhaps, for a mother that cannot carry her child.
Tisdale also says that she feels a “loving dispassion” in her duties. She feels compassion for her helpless clients. “Certain clients waken in me every tender urge I have,” she says. But the other half of the paradox acknowledges the detachment necessary to conduct this procedure. This particular paradox successfully emphasizes the fact that Tisdale cannot care for both mother and child. If she provides relief to the mother, it means death for the child.
Tisdale states, “Abortion is the narrowest edge between kindness and cruelty.” She expounds by adding, “Done as well as it can be, it is still violence—merciful violence, like putting a suffering animal to death.” Merciful violence, kindness and cruelty—these words conflict with one another. The paradox of these words effectively underlines the bigger conflict, the conflict of choice. To whom is the kindness assigned, and to whom the cruelty? Either choice is tied to sorrow and regret.
In addition to using paradox to highlight the conflict, Tisdale chooses to write her story in first person present tense. This point of view personalizes the text to the reader. Every event described happens as it is read, as if the reader were there, acting it out themselves. The reader sees the world through Tisdale’s eyes, and follows Tisdale’s thoughts. “I watch a woman’s swollen abdomen sink to softness in a few stuttering moments and my own belly flip-flops with sorrow.” In this passage, the reader is provoked to feel as the author feels. The present tense makes the emotion current, and therefore more powerful. In one passage, Tisdale summarizes the bare truth of the conflict. “When I am struck in the moment by the contents in the basin, I am careful to remember the context, to note the tearful teenager and the women sighing with something more than relief.” Here, the reader sees the destruction of abortion, and also sees the anguish and sorrow of the women. First person present tense allows the reader to experience the conflict of the nurse themselves. This point of view makes the story much more real to the reader.
Throughout her vivid story, Tisdale uses the continued metaphor of a broken promise to describe her patient’s experiences. To Tisdale, the lives of her patients are full of shattered hopes and dreams. She says, “I see all the broken promises in lives lived like a series of impromptu obstacles. There are sweet, light promises of love and intimacy, the glittering promise of education and progress, the warm promise of safe families….And there is the promise of freedom: freedom from failure, from faithlessness.” Each of Tisdale’s patients has lost something they were counting on, and they lose another in her clinic: “the promise of pregnancy.”
Tisdale also describes in her patients “the sameness of human failure, of inadequacy in the face of each day’s dull demands.” The connotation surrounding promises is that of anticipation, of dreams and joy. Connecting abortion with a broken promise accentuates the misery surrounding each ordeal. In her own sorrow, Tisdale asks, “How can we do this? How can we refuse? Each abortion is a measure of our failure to protect, to nourish our own. Each basin I empty is a promise—but a promise broken a long time ago.” Claiming that the promise was broken long ago, Tisdale insinuates that these women failed before they came to her clinic. She suggests that the pain of an abortion lies in more than the loss of a child—it lies in the failures of a lifetime. Tisdale’s continuing metaphor of a broken promise reinforces her argument that abortion is a complicated act. No one makes a sincere promise with the intent of breaking it. Abortion is as undesirable and painful as a broken promise. Tisdale’s account is full of the guilt and sorrow she sees every day. It relays each patient’s shame, each mother’s blame, and each girl’s regrets. These women feel deeply their failure to keep their promise: the promise of life, retracted from an innocent being. By using this particular metaphor, Tisdale clearly communicates the difficulty of her patient’s choices.
Abortion is a topic replete with conflict. This conflict is the very reason it is so distressing, for it prevents us from determining a comfortable solution. Tisdale makes it very clear through her use of paradox, point of view, and extended metaphor that abortion is not an easy way out. She effectively implements these literary devices to convince her audience of the struggle surrounding this choice, and the sting connected with any resolution. Abortion is merciful and yet terrible. It cannot be labeled all good or all bad. Where black and white flushes scarlet, abortion can be found. This depiction is unclear, but realistic. Tisdale encourages us to accept that abortion is a confusing and painful subject, but deal with it anyway. In her final statement, Sallie Tisdale says resignedly, “I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return to the world where it is.”
Kerry Spencer
H English 150
October 16, 2011
Abortion: Where Black and White Flushes Scarlet
When conflict arises, we seek relief. Human nature is adverse to pain and suffering. We naturally shrink from difficult situations and decisions. We cling to hope, searching for a solution with minimal discomfort. Sometimes we get lucky, finding a clear answer. But sometimes there is no beaten path to follow, no obvious right and wrong. There is only sorrow. Abortion cannot be classified as black or white. It is a completely different kind of path—a red one. As Latter-day Saints, we are given no clear instruction concerning certain abortions. In cases of rape, incest, and danger to the health of the mother or child, the church abstains. The burden of choice falls upon the individual. In “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale successfully uses paradox, point of view, and metaphor to force the reader to face the difficulty and pain surrounding this choice: either way, there is no happy ending.
Tisdale proves through paradox that abortion cannot be viewed simply as good or evil. In her description of her work, she says, “It is a sweet brutality we practice here.” In this paradox, Tisdale acknowledges the harshness of abortion. Abortion ends the life of a fetus before it has the chance to grow into a child. This is a brutal truth. But according to Tisdale, it is also sweet. The coupling of these words suggests that abortion is merciful. A burden lifted, perhaps, for a mother that cannot carry her child.
Tisdale also says that she feels a “loving dispassion” in her duties. She feels compassion for her helpless clients. “Certain clients waken in me every tender urge I have,” she says. But the other half of the paradox acknowledges the detachment necessary to conduct this procedure. This particular paradox successfully emphasizes the fact that Tisdale cannot care for both mother and child. If she provides relief to the mother, it means death for the child.
Tisdale states, “Abortion is the narrowest edge between kindness and cruelty.” She expounds by adding, “Done as well as it can be, it is still violence—merciful violence, like putting a suffering animal to death.” Merciful violence, kindness and cruelty—these words conflict with one another. The paradox of these words effectively underlines the bigger conflict, the conflict of choice. To whom is the kindness assigned, and to whom the cruelty? Either choice is tied to sorrow and regret.
In addition to using paradox to highlight the conflict, Tisdale chooses to write her story in first person present tense. This point of view personalizes the text to the reader. Every event described happens as it is read, as if the reader were there, acting it out themselves. The reader sees the world through Tisdale’s eyes, and follows Tisdale’s thoughts. “I watch a woman’s swollen abdomen sink to softness in a few stuttering moments and my own belly flip-flops with sorrow.” In this passage, the reader is provoked to feel as the author feels. The present tense makes the emotion current, and therefore more powerful. In one passage, Tisdale summarizes the bare truth of the conflict. “When I am struck in the moment by the contents in the basin, I am careful to remember the context, to note the tearful teenager and the women sighing with something more than relief.” Here, the reader sees the destruction of abortion, and also sees the anguish and sorrow of the women. First person present tense allows the reader to experience the conflict of the nurse themselves. This point of view makes the story much more real to the reader.
Throughout her vivid story, Tisdale uses the continued metaphor of a broken promise to describe her patient’s experiences. To Tisdale, the lives of her patients are full of shattered hopes and dreams. She says, “I see all the broken promises in lives lived like a series of impromptu obstacles. There are sweet, light promises of love and intimacy, the glittering promise of education and progress, the warm promise of safe families….And there is the promise of freedom: freedom from failure, from faithlessness.” Each of Tisdale’s patients has lost something they were counting on, and they lose another in her clinic: “the promise of pregnancy.”
Tisdale also describes in her patients “the sameness of human failure, of inadequacy in the face of each day’s dull demands.” The connotation surrounding promises is that of anticipation, of dreams and joy. Connecting abortion with a broken promise accentuates the misery surrounding each ordeal. In her own sorrow, Tisdale asks, “How can we do this? How can we refuse? Each abortion is a measure of our failure to protect, to nourish our own. Each basin I empty is a promise—but a promise broken a long time ago.” Claiming that the promise was broken long ago, Tisdale insinuates that these women failed before they came to her clinic. She suggests that the pain of an abortion lies in more than the loss of a child—it lies in the failures of a lifetime. Tisdale’s continuing metaphor of a broken promise reinforces her argument that abortion is a complicated act. No one makes a sincere promise with the intent of breaking it. Abortion is as undesirable and painful as a broken promise. Tisdale’s account is full of the guilt and sorrow she sees every day. It relays each patient’s shame, each mother’s blame, and each girl’s regrets. These women feel deeply their failure to keep their promise: the promise of life, retracted from an innocent being. By using this particular metaphor, Tisdale clearly communicates the difficulty of her patient’s choices.
Abortion is a topic replete with conflict. This conflict is the very reason it is so distressing, for it prevents us from determining a comfortable solution. Tisdale makes it very clear through her use of paradox, point of view, and extended metaphor that abortion is not an easy way out. She effectively implements these literary devices to convince her audience of the struggle surrounding this choice, and the sting connected with any resolution. Abortion is merciful and yet terrible. It cannot be labeled all good or all bad. Where black and white flushes scarlet, abortion can be found. This depiction is unclear, but realistic. Tisdale encourages us to accept that abortion is a confusing and painful subject, but deal with it anyway. In her final statement, Sallie Tisdale says resignedly, “I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return to the world where it is.”
Monday, October 17, 2011
Francesca's Analysis of "When Life Begins"
Francesca Bruno
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Writing 150 Section 100
10 October 2011
The Unanswerable Question: When Does Life Begins
Scientists and politicians have spent countless hours pondering this seemingly unanswerable question, but it is one that no one is able to answer perhaps because there is no finite answer. The truth is no one really knows when life begins. If they did, there would be no debate on whether abortion was right or wrong, and women who miscarried would not feel so frustrated and guilty. Kerry Spencer ponders this baffling question when she explains the complicated and emotional journey that is in vitro fertilization. In the essay When Life Begins, Kerry Spencer effectively relates to the general audience the uncertainty of life’s beginnings by using diction and imagery to appeal to pathos and logical fallacies and statistics to appeal to logos.
Since this essay is related to a subject of child-bearing, it is almost impossible not to react emotionally to the subject. Whether pro or anti-family, everyone has an opinion. In the LDS culture, the ability to procreate is considered one of God’s greatest gifts. In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, it states that a woman’s most important role in life is to nurture her children. Spencer explains that “if there is any way you can get an embryo to turn into a baby, you do it” (Jorgensen 190). She uses diction to portray grief because with the right connotation of words, the audience can more effectively feel the range of emotions that an author is feeling. The diction used throughout the essay has the connotation of mourning and pain. The essay begins with Spencer at a graveyard. The graveyard automatically foreshadows eeriness and death. By describing the tombstones as “degraded by elemental wrath,” the reader can feel a sort of tension building (190). The thought of wrath and degradation connote to anger and embarrassment which are very strong emotions. She also references physical pain she is experiencing such as a massive headache and stinging legs alluding to discomfort. This mood is appropriate for the essay because of the discomfort and pain that IVF treatments can cause. The emotional climax of this essay appears after Spencer receives the call from the clinic. The diction is frenzied. Spencer uses words such as hysterical, cry, mourning, and upset. This response is only logical upon receiving the news that the prize so time and energy-consuming was lost because of a silly fluke. The diction used provides the article with the overwhelming sense of emotion that Spencer is feeling, and it appeals to the audience’s sense of ethos.
Likewise, the imagery used in this essay appeals to the audience’s sense of ethos. Spencer describes “the green fungus,” (190) “the hum of the mower slowly fading to an insect-like background,” (191) and “the small, rose-colored tomb of an ancestor” (191). These descriptions appeal to the audience’s senses and paint a picture in their minds. When the audience is able to envision the events Spencer is going through, they can connect to her writing on a higher level. The audience feels included in the hysteria her sister felt when Spencer describes her “holding a chocolate muffin and smears of chocolate encrust the bottoms of her fingernails” and the audience is reminded of a time when they were not concerned with anything but the solemn matter at hand (191). The “tiny blue bathroom” reminds the audience of the chance the IVF had of working, and the color is certainly applicable. The imagery used helped make Spencer more relatable and helped describe the situation she was in.
Because of the emotional connection that Spencer has for the experience she wrote, it was difficult to use her best logical judgment. Because of the lack of logic, she uses logical fallacies. One fallacy used was argument to the person. This fallacy occurs when she “curse[s] the ghosts of [her] ancestors” (192). It is highly unlikely that her dead ancestors had anything to do with the missed opportunity, but because of the emotions she felt at the time, she associated the blame with her ancestors, who were irrelevant. She also places blame on “the leftover hormones” she has for being grumpy (191). She is not concerned with being reasonable; she has other things to worry about. Although she is so emotionally invested in the experience she is going through, Spencer includes more logic.
She includes some statistics with the embryo process. She knows that they have “lost fourteen embryos so far in the process… [and] there are two embryos floating somewhere in [her] gut” (190-191). The IVF doctors have told her that there is “a fifty percent chance of conception” (191) with the two embryos she has left, but the frightening statistic is that “a single embryo can become two or three human beings. Two embryos can fuse into a single fetus with a double genotype. And fourteen embryos can die and no human beings ever result in the meshing of their cells” (191). These statistics are important for the audience to realize. It makes the idea of IVF seem grueling, and it makes people question, when does life begin? A woman could have several embryos but never get pregnant, but it is impossible to know if those embryos are considered human life. An even scarier statistic she mentions comes from Janet Shibley Hyde and John D. Delamater. They say, “As many as forty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. About half of them occur before the mother even knows she’s pregnant” (191). If a person thought they knew when life began before, this statistic would certainly baffle them. The statistics used by Spencer create a compelling case for people to question when life begins.
It is uncertain because there are many processes that lead to the creation of a child. Does life begin when there is an embryo inside a woman, when there is a fetus, or when a child exits its mother’s womb?
Spencer admits neither she, nor her husband “knows when life begins” (192). It’s likely to say that no one really does. Despite the fact that she does not answer the looming question proposed at the beginning of the essay, Spencer appeals to logos and ethos in her essay to relay the message that the question is irrelevant. The fact that she has lost something so precious to her is the real message.
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Writing 150 Section 100
10 October 2011
The Unanswerable Question: When Does Life Begins
Scientists and politicians have spent countless hours pondering this seemingly unanswerable question, but it is one that no one is able to answer perhaps because there is no finite answer. The truth is no one really knows when life begins. If they did, there would be no debate on whether abortion was right or wrong, and women who miscarried would not feel so frustrated and guilty. Kerry Spencer ponders this baffling question when she explains the complicated and emotional journey that is in vitro fertilization. In the essay When Life Begins, Kerry Spencer effectively relates to the general audience the uncertainty of life’s beginnings by using diction and imagery to appeal to pathos and logical fallacies and statistics to appeal to logos.
Since this essay is related to a subject of child-bearing, it is almost impossible not to react emotionally to the subject. Whether pro or anti-family, everyone has an opinion. In the LDS culture, the ability to procreate is considered one of God’s greatest gifts. In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, it states that a woman’s most important role in life is to nurture her children. Spencer explains that “if there is any way you can get an embryo to turn into a baby, you do it” (Jorgensen 190). She uses diction to portray grief because with the right connotation of words, the audience can more effectively feel the range of emotions that an author is feeling. The diction used throughout the essay has the connotation of mourning and pain. The essay begins with Spencer at a graveyard. The graveyard automatically foreshadows eeriness and death. By describing the tombstones as “degraded by elemental wrath,” the reader can feel a sort of tension building (190). The thought of wrath and degradation connote to anger and embarrassment which are very strong emotions. She also references physical pain she is experiencing such as a massive headache and stinging legs alluding to discomfort. This mood is appropriate for the essay because of the discomfort and pain that IVF treatments can cause. The emotional climax of this essay appears after Spencer receives the call from the clinic. The diction is frenzied. Spencer uses words such as hysterical, cry, mourning, and upset. This response is only logical upon receiving the news that the prize so time and energy-consuming was lost because of a silly fluke. The diction used provides the article with the overwhelming sense of emotion that Spencer is feeling, and it appeals to the audience’s sense of ethos.
Likewise, the imagery used in this essay appeals to the audience’s sense of ethos. Spencer describes “the green fungus,” (190) “the hum of the mower slowly fading to an insect-like background,” (191) and “the small, rose-colored tomb of an ancestor” (191). These descriptions appeal to the audience’s senses and paint a picture in their minds. When the audience is able to envision the events Spencer is going through, they can connect to her writing on a higher level. The audience feels included in the hysteria her sister felt when Spencer describes her “holding a chocolate muffin and smears of chocolate encrust the bottoms of her fingernails” and the audience is reminded of a time when they were not concerned with anything but the solemn matter at hand (191). The “tiny blue bathroom” reminds the audience of the chance the IVF had of working, and the color is certainly applicable. The imagery used helped make Spencer more relatable and helped describe the situation she was in.
Because of the emotional connection that Spencer has for the experience she wrote, it was difficult to use her best logical judgment. Because of the lack of logic, she uses logical fallacies. One fallacy used was argument to the person. This fallacy occurs when she “curse[s] the ghosts of [her] ancestors” (192). It is highly unlikely that her dead ancestors had anything to do with the missed opportunity, but because of the emotions she felt at the time, she associated the blame with her ancestors, who were irrelevant. She also places blame on “the leftover hormones” she has for being grumpy (191). She is not concerned with being reasonable; she has other things to worry about. Although she is so emotionally invested in the experience she is going through, Spencer includes more logic.
She includes some statistics with the embryo process. She knows that they have “lost fourteen embryos so far in the process… [and] there are two embryos floating somewhere in [her] gut” (190-191). The IVF doctors have told her that there is “a fifty percent chance of conception” (191) with the two embryos she has left, but the frightening statistic is that “a single embryo can become two or three human beings. Two embryos can fuse into a single fetus with a double genotype. And fourteen embryos can die and no human beings ever result in the meshing of their cells” (191). These statistics are important for the audience to realize. It makes the idea of IVF seem grueling, and it makes people question, when does life begin? A woman could have several embryos but never get pregnant, but it is impossible to know if those embryos are considered human life. An even scarier statistic she mentions comes from Janet Shibley Hyde and John D. Delamater. They say, “As many as forty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. About half of them occur before the mother even knows she’s pregnant” (191). If a person thought they knew when life began before, this statistic would certainly baffle them. The statistics used by Spencer create a compelling case for people to question when life begins.
It is uncertain because there are many processes that lead to the creation of a child. Does life begin when there is an embryo inside a woman, when there is a fetus, or when a child exits its mother’s womb?
Spencer admits neither she, nor her husband “knows when life begins” (192). It’s likely to say that no one really does. Despite the fact that she does not answer the looming question proposed at the beginning of the essay, Spencer appeals to logos and ethos in her essay to relay the message that the question is irrelevant. The fact that she has lost something so precious to her is the real message.
Elise's Analysis of "When Life Begins"
Elise Petersen
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Writing 150H
10/17/2011
One Half of a Human Being
Sixteen embryos.
Two blastocysts.
One half of a human being—if you’re lucky.
In its spring 2006 issue, Segullah Journal featured an essay entitled, “When Life Begins.” Written for an audience of LDS women, the piece relates Dr. Kerry Spencer’s personal struggle with infertility and thoughts about life.
In the essay, Spencer contemplates the point at which human life begins. Two displays of kairos produce bold, compelling appeals to readers’ pathos, and subtler lacing of antithesis, juxtaposition, and epistrophe throughout the text gives plain words profound meaning.
In the beginning of her essay, Spencer writes, “At what point does life begin?” We read her question for the first time, and it seems harmless—even lighthearted—until we read, “It’s something I’ve thought about since the day that we found out in vitro fertilization was the only way to have a baby” (190). She tosses us a stick of dynamite, and we don’t realize it until it’s in our hands. In a moment of recognition—a moment of kairos—we see that when she asks, “When does life begin?” she is not introducing a scientific treatise or an opinion piece. She is beginning a heavy personal narrative.
She proceeds to recount a personal experience with in vitro fertilization, blended with her thoughts about life in general. She waits until the end to surprise us again: “It is when we get home to our one-room, overheated, London flat that we get the messages,” she writes. “The fertility clinic has been trying to call us over and over... ‘Your embryos,’ they say... ‘We thought they were dead, but they weren’t...But now it’s too late” (192). With the use of kairos, Spencer does more than recount her shocked, heartbroken reaction. She sets her reader up to feel shocked and heartbroken, too.
After we experience her kairos for the first time—after realizing the personal relevance of her essay and sampling its emotional appeals—subsequent readings reveal deeper devices and deeper thoughts.
Spencer asks, as she is still introducing her topic, “When does life become life, and when can you call the loss of it death?” (190). One of many antitheses in the piece, the question places “life” and “death” in such proximity to one another that we are prompted to consider them at the same time, in relation to each other. Like white against black, life seems especially valuable when cast against death.
She continues her thoughts, and later employs another antithetic sentence carrying a similar effect: “In God’s way,” she writes, “it takes several embryos to create one human life. All [in vitro fertilization] does is make you aware of what is being lost” (191). Spencer’s casting of God against medical procedure connotes the latter with cold artificiality—a connotation which readers might not consider given different context. Her opposing diction choices provoke thought: “create” and “life” draw an especially emotional response to the word “lost.”
Spencer builds a parallel effect with juxtaposition. Unlike antithesis, though, which manifests its impact in individual sentences, her juxtaposition characterizes the work as a whole. Setting her narrative in an English graveyard, she spends the entire essay bouncing her focus between a search for family headstones and an unfolding of her IVF experience.
Discussing the dissimilar topics as one synthesized flow of ideas allows her to convey deep meanings without delving into great detail. She writes, “We’ve lost fourteen embryos so far in the process. I scan the names on the stone to see if any of them are my ancestors, whom we’re here looking for, but the ancestors remain elusive. Beneath lies only an unrelated someone who was once an embryo” (190). Whereas the loss of an embryo can sometimes seem an abstract, scientific concept, the cemetery setting helps Spencer convey the message that a lost embryo is a lost life.
Results of the juxtaposition are fourfold: The value of life becomes a powerful concept as she considers both the deceased and the unborn. Spencer’s introducing of her ancestors as she simultaneously considers her own unborn children brings the concept of family—an entity undoubtedly valued by her female, Latter-day Saint audience—into central focus. In between the lines, she urges us to wonder why some are allowed to live long, full lives, while others live barely beyond conception. And, finally, she stirs our sense of pathos: to think of a lost embryo as a lost human being is a radically different emotional experience than the simple dismissal of a lost embryo as a petri dish fluke.
Points delivered throughout the essay are reinforced and stamped into our memories via Spencer’s use of epistrophe. She writes, “...if there is any way on earth you can get an embryo to turn into a baby, you do it. If you have to freeze it and use it later, you do it” (190, Emphasis added). In this manner, she repeats key phrases at the ends of several sentences, writing them in an ink transcendent of the physical page: we remember them.
Her most poignant use of epistrophe reveals a fundamental thesis. Speaking of her husband, Steve, and remembering something he says to her in the cemetery, she writes, “I want it to have been something about life—that life matters. As short as it is and as hard as it is, it matters” (191). Here is the backbone of her essay, for without such a conviction—that life matters—Spencer’s ponderings would be meaningless. Her use of epistrophe draws attention to that key phrase and helps her deliver and emphasize it.
Her four devices carry thoughts from author to reader with great impact: kairos appeal to pathos and challenge our emotions. Juxtaposition and antithesis guide her reader’s focus and give her words depth. Epistrophe gives her points lasting impact.
She tugs at our emotions. As we surrender them, we come to feel her hopes, her irritations, her pains—and gain a better understanding of the human condition overall.
Thirty-two embryos and four blastocysts—according to science—equal one human being.
One human being—according to the human condition—can only be as whole as its capacity to internalize works like Spencer’s; works with something to say and with something to teach.
When does life begin?
Why does it matter?
Because life matters.
Works Cited
Spencer, Kerry. “When Life Begins.” Readings for Intensive Writers. 5th ed. Comp. Susan Jorgensen. Provo: BYU Academic Publishing, 2007. 190-192. Print.
Dr. Kerry Spencer
Writing 150H
10/17/2011
One Half of a Human Being
Sixteen embryos.
Two blastocysts.
One half of a human being—if you’re lucky.
In its spring 2006 issue, Segullah Journal featured an essay entitled, “When Life Begins.” Written for an audience of LDS women, the piece relates Dr. Kerry Spencer’s personal struggle with infertility and thoughts about life.
In the essay, Spencer contemplates the point at which human life begins. Two displays of kairos produce bold, compelling appeals to readers’ pathos, and subtler lacing of antithesis, juxtaposition, and epistrophe throughout the text gives plain words profound meaning.
In the beginning of her essay, Spencer writes, “At what point does life begin?” We read her question for the first time, and it seems harmless—even lighthearted—until we read, “It’s something I’ve thought about since the day that we found out in vitro fertilization was the only way to have a baby” (190). She tosses us a stick of dynamite, and we don’t realize it until it’s in our hands. In a moment of recognition—a moment of kairos—we see that when she asks, “When does life begin?” she is not introducing a scientific treatise or an opinion piece. She is beginning a heavy personal narrative.
She proceeds to recount a personal experience with in vitro fertilization, blended with her thoughts about life in general. She waits until the end to surprise us again: “It is when we get home to our one-room, overheated, London flat that we get the messages,” she writes. “The fertility clinic has been trying to call us over and over... ‘Your embryos,’ they say... ‘We thought they were dead, but they weren’t...But now it’s too late” (192). With the use of kairos, Spencer does more than recount her shocked, heartbroken reaction. She sets her reader up to feel shocked and heartbroken, too.
After we experience her kairos for the first time—after realizing the personal relevance of her essay and sampling its emotional appeals—subsequent readings reveal deeper devices and deeper thoughts.
Spencer asks, as she is still introducing her topic, “When does life become life, and when can you call the loss of it death?” (190). One of many antitheses in the piece, the question places “life” and “death” in such proximity to one another that we are prompted to consider them at the same time, in relation to each other. Like white against black, life seems especially valuable when cast against death.
She continues her thoughts, and later employs another antithetic sentence carrying a similar effect: “In God’s way,” she writes, “it takes several embryos to create one human life. All [in vitro fertilization] does is make you aware of what is being lost” (191). Spencer’s casting of God against medical procedure connotes the latter with cold artificiality—a connotation which readers might not consider given different context. Her opposing diction choices provoke thought: “create” and “life” draw an especially emotional response to the word “lost.”
Spencer builds a parallel effect with juxtaposition. Unlike antithesis, though, which manifests its impact in individual sentences, her juxtaposition characterizes the work as a whole. Setting her narrative in an English graveyard, she spends the entire essay bouncing her focus between a search for family headstones and an unfolding of her IVF experience.
Discussing the dissimilar topics as one synthesized flow of ideas allows her to convey deep meanings without delving into great detail. She writes, “We’ve lost fourteen embryos so far in the process. I scan the names on the stone to see if any of them are my ancestors, whom we’re here looking for, but the ancestors remain elusive. Beneath lies only an unrelated someone who was once an embryo” (190). Whereas the loss of an embryo can sometimes seem an abstract, scientific concept, the cemetery setting helps Spencer convey the message that a lost embryo is a lost life.
Results of the juxtaposition are fourfold: The value of life becomes a powerful concept as she considers both the deceased and the unborn. Spencer’s introducing of her ancestors as she simultaneously considers her own unborn children brings the concept of family—an entity undoubtedly valued by her female, Latter-day Saint audience—into central focus. In between the lines, she urges us to wonder why some are allowed to live long, full lives, while others live barely beyond conception. And, finally, she stirs our sense of pathos: to think of a lost embryo as a lost human being is a radically different emotional experience than the simple dismissal of a lost embryo as a petri dish fluke.
Points delivered throughout the essay are reinforced and stamped into our memories via Spencer’s use of epistrophe. She writes, “...if there is any way on earth you can get an embryo to turn into a baby, you do it. If you have to freeze it and use it later, you do it” (190, Emphasis added). In this manner, she repeats key phrases at the ends of several sentences, writing them in an ink transcendent of the physical page: we remember them.
Her most poignant use of epistrophe reveals a fundamental thesis. Speaking of her husband, Steve, and remembering something he says to her in the cemetery, she writes, “I want it to have been something about life—that life matters. As short as it is and as hard as it is, it matters” (191). Here is the backbone of her essay, for without such a conviction—that life matters—Spencer’s ponderings would be meaningless. Her use of epistrophe draws attention to that key phrase and helps her deliver and emphasize it.
Her four devices carry thoughts from author to reader with great impact: kairos appeal to pathos and challenge our emotions. Juxtaposition and antithesis guide her reader’s focus and give her words depth. Epistrophe gives her points lasting impact.
She tugs at our emotions. As we surrender them, we come to feel her hopes, her irritations, her pains—and gain a better understanding of the human condition overall.
Thirty-two embryos and four blastocysts—according to science—equal one human being.
One human being—according to the human condition—can only be as whole as its capacity to internalize works like Spencer’s; works with something to say and with something to teach.
When does life begin?
Why does it matter?
Because life matters.
Works Cited
Spencer, Kerry. “When Life Begins.” Readings for Intensive Writers. 5th ed. Comp. Susan Jorgensen. Provo: BYU Academic Publishing, 2007. 190-192. Print.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
JD's Analysis of "What Christians Believe"
James Goates
Kerry Spencer
Writing 150
October 10, 2011
What Christians Believe: The Difference Between Christianity and Everything Else
C.S. Lewis writes of his logical understanding of the Christian faith after his conversion from atheism in “What Christians Believe.” To establish an understanding of the Christian faith as he has seen the religion, Lewis brilliantly appeals to a competent believer’s (atheist, Christian, Jewish, etc.) sense of logos and pathos with analogies, satire, and his dissection of religious belief.
Lewis draws strongly on the audience’s logos and pathos with reasonable analogies that bring a familiar understanding. Lewis uses the analogy of a surgeon and a cancer cell to contradict the view that God is above good and evil. He points out a logical flaw in this train of thought, that with this view the surgeon can be seen as bad because of his “killing of cancer.” He also uses the analogy of the mother and her untidy children to show a reasonable situation where will allows action against will. The audience can then identify and feel a familiarity for anytime that an event similar to the situation has occurred. He even goes on to directly address the audience by saying, “[it] is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.” These feelings of logical understanding and familiarity help Lewis to bring his audience towards a comprehension of his beliefs.
Satire is one of Lewis’ greatest techniques for bringing his audience to understanding and accepting his beliefs. Lewis points out the weakness and flaws of the opposing these ideas to bring the audience to his beliefs. He makes the audience question the validity of the ideas by directly calling them “silly.” He even goes to the point of implying ignorance of those that attempt to destroy Christianity by pointing out the flaws in the attackers’ arguments when sarcastically commenting “as if ‘religion’ were something God created.” Through the logical identification of human ignorance and vices, Lewis appeals to the pathos through the logos to draw his audience to his views.
Lewis starts one of his most prominent ideas with a large group of people and divides them into two, those who believe and those who do not. From there he examines believers and divides them into the Pantheists and a group that includes Christians, Jews, and Muslims; he especially contrasts Christians with Pantheists. As he funnels down through the ideas, Lewis meticulously depicts each thought like, “God is quite definitely ‘good’ or ‘righteous,’ a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred, who wants us to behave in one way and not in another” to show his thought pattern. But most important is how he connects all the pathways together. For example, “Atheism is too simple. And I will tell you another view that is also too simple. ” Lewis fuses the ideas of each pathway in such a way that the audience transitions from thoughts quickly in a way that seems natural. In other instances throughout the article Lewis writes in a way where if the reader stops to argue, Lewis is already on to another idea and the audience is forced to follow his thought pattern to get from point A to point B. Once there, the audience understands Lewis’ idea and feels that it is the logical pathway because they understand the passage of A to B.
Lewis’ point in this story is not that of conversion but understanding. He uses his sense of logic to show others with a sense of logic how he came to his conclusion. While Lewis may not have converted anyone to a belief in a God or the Christian faith, he effectively displayed his beliefs in a way that a competent audience could logically understand his beliefs and conclusions of the Christian faith.
Kerry Spencer
Writing 150
October 10, 2011
What Christians Believe: The Difference Between Christianity and Everything Else
C.S. Lewis writes of his logical understanding of the Christian faith after his conversion from atheism in “What Christians Believe.” To establish an understanding of the Christian faith as he has seen the religion, Lewis brilliantly appeals to a competent believer’s (atheist, Christian, Jewish, etc.) sense of logos and pathos with analogies, satire, and his dissection of religious belief.
Lewis draws strongly on the audience’s logos and pathos with reasonable analogies that bring a familiar understanding. Lewis uses the analogy of a surgeon and a cancer cell to contradict the view that God is above good and evil. He points out a logical flaw in this train of thought, that with this view the surgeon can be seen as bad because of his “killing of cancer.” He also uses the analogy of the mother and her untidy children to show a reasonable situation where will allows action against will. The audience can then identify and feel a familiarity for anytime that an event similar to the situation has occurred. He even goes on to directly address the audience by saying, “[it] is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.” These feelings of logical understanding and familiarity help Lewis to bring his audience towards a comprehension of his beliefs.
Satire is one of Lewis’ greatest techniques for bringing his audience to understanding and accepting his beliefs. Lewis points out the weakness and flaws of the opposing these ideas to bring the audience to his beliefs. He makes the audience question the validity of the ideas by directly calling them “silly.” He even goes to the point of implying ignorance of those that attempt to destroy Christianity by pointing out the flaws in the attackers’ arguments when sarcastically commenting “as if ‘religion’ were something God created.” Through the logical identification of human ignorance and vices, Lewis appeals to the pathos through the logos to draw his audience to his views.
Lewis starts one of his most prominent ideas with a large group of people and divides them into two, those who believe and those who do not. From there he examines believers and divides them into the Pantheists and a group that includes Christians, Jews, and Muslims; he especially contrasts Christians with Pantheists. As he funnels down through the ideas, Lewis meticulously depicts each thought like, “God is quite definitely ‘good’ or ‘righteous,’ a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred, who wants us to behave in one way and not in another” to show his thought pattern. But most important is how he connects all the pathways together. For example, “Atheism is too simple. And I will tell you another view that is also too simple. ” Lewis fuses the ideas of each pathway in such a way that the audience transitions from thoughts quickly in a way that seems natural. In other instances throughout the article Lewis writes in a way where if the reader stops to argue, Lewis is already on to another idea and the audience is forced to follow his thought pattern to get from point A to point B. Once there, the audience understands Lewis’ idea and feels that it is the logical pathway because they understand the passage of A to B.
Lewis’ point in this story is not that of conversion but understanding. He uses his sense of logic to show others with a sense of logic how he came to his conclusion. While Lewis may not have converted anyone to a belief in a God or the Christian faith, he effectively displayed his beliefs in a way that a competent audience could logically understand his beliefs and conclusions of the Christian faith.
Lindsay's Analysis of "What Christians Believe"
Lindsay Painter
Spencer
Writing 150 H MWF 12pm
10 October 2011
Logically, What Christians Believe
A great controversy in the world today questions religion on the basis that it seems illogical. In fact, that appears the problem with convincing anyone of truth. In persuasion, an appeal to the emotions proves the strongest approach to call people to action, but in changing one’s attitude or opinion, an appeal to logos, or the logical approach to an argument, remains the most effective method. Lewis employs an appeal to logos throughout his article, “What Christians Believe,” to describe his case and persuade his audience to agree with his definition of Christian beliefs.
As with all good arguments, Lewis opens his argument where his audience and he share a common belief. He states that being Christian does not mean you “have to believe that all other religions are simply wrong all through” (175). By stating this, he sooths the immediate reaction of most to being told what they believe. This statement is logical, general and not offensive. Then Lewis proceeds to make clear that Christians agree with most of the world that deity exists. This faith lines up with a vast majority of the world. Again, this simple and gentle logic leads his reader in the pattern of agreeing with Lewis’ statements. Lewis proceeds further to embellish on his own experience in accepting the existence of God. He logically follows his own thought process in determining that God does indeed live. He explains it in his own ideal of justice. His logical argument in the past against the existence of God relied on the fact that the world seemed unjust. However, for Lewis to see the world as unjust there had to be some alternative that he could compare it with. Lewis reasons that there has to be opposition for one to recognize the state of one or the other. He could not know what unjust was unless there was a God who was just. Lewis states that if he were to relinquish the idea of just and unjust, then his argument against there being a God would also crumble. He found that “in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist… I found that I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense,” and so he could not claim that there was no God because of the logic of opposition (177).
Up to this point, Lewis has only argued logically for principles that most Christians would naturally agree with. His second section in his article takes that same logical approach to prove ideas that some Christians would find contentious. However, he uses natural laws to support his statements giving his claims logical foundations. He begins by establishing that religion is not simple by stating “real things are not simple” (177). This statement seems obvious, but it proves a natural law that may be applied to religion and therefore, logically, ground Lewis’ point. He then almost mocks the idea of simple religion by questioning people believing that God would make religion simple “as if ‘religion’ were something God invented, and not His statement to us of certain quite unalterable facts about His own nature” (177). By drawing this rational conclusion he convinces his reader, almost unnoticeably, that religion is complicated and it is unalterably so. He continues by explaining that “besides being complicated, reality… is usually odd” (177). He says that one of the reasons he believes it is because “it is not a religion you could have guessed” (178). If it had been predictable, it would be reasonable to assume that men made it up. But, because it is so unexpected, it is more plausible.
Lewis even goes so far as to explain the nature of “bad” or “evil” in a logical manner. He defines “bad” as pursuing good things—money, or power, or safety—by the wrong method (179). He claims it is “the pursuit of some good in the wrong way” (179). It is an easy thing to believe when examined in this way. So, when Lewis proposes that “badness is only spoiled goodness” it is easy to agree with him on a logical base. We believe him because his logic holds no fault that we can see. And this makes it simple to believe his ideas surrounding Dualism and the notion that the world is in a civil war between spoiled goodness in the form of a fallen angel; Satan, and Christ, the perfect example of goodness. His logical approach to all of his assertions being based in natural laws allows the reader to easily be swayed into agreeing with Lewis.
Lewis concludes in his final section by explaining why God allows sin and evil to exist logically. He opens this with another example, a natural occurrence in the home, of a mother giving her children the agency to pick up after themselves or to live in a messy environment (180). This is a highly relatable example and one that people believe is an action on the mother’s part of a caring and wise parent. Lewis parallels this example to what he believes God does for us. He gives his children free will as it is “the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having” (180). In using this simple story, not only does Lewis explain the existence of evil, but logically shows God to be a loving and nurturing parent. He then follows by explaining, then, what was the original sin. He explains that “putting yourself first—wanting to be the center—wanting to be God” was the original sin; this “was the sin of Satan” (181). Lewis is again starting from a point where it is easy to agree and by following his logic, his audience is more willing and more able to agree with his stronger, harder concepts. When his hard concept that “the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy” explains the misery in the world, his readers almost unwittingly agree with a statement that they may not have been willing to concede without his logical foundation.
The last point C.S. Lewis makes in his article, is the hardest; it is the Christian ultimatum. He explains the nature of Christ as either being “the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse” (182). People try to rationalize that, even if Jesus was not the Son of God, he was still a great moral teacher, but Lewis logically explains this cannot be so. If he is not deity, he is heretic. There is no middle ground. This is what Lewis builds up to in all his logical foundations. This is the keystone of Christian religion; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
By logically setting up a foundation for each of his claims, Lewis slowly leads his audience to agree with his statements concerning what Christians believe. He masterfully uses concepts that are familiar and accepted to stabilize and support his claims. Because he relies so heavily on an appeal to logos, his article is neither offending nor unreasonable. He succeeds in his purpose because he does not waver from logic to emotional appeals or fall into logical fallacies. Lewis’ argument is sound and logical and therefore, effectively persuasive.
Spencer
Writing 150 H MWF 12pm
10 October 2011
Logically, What Christians Believe
A great controversy in the world today questions religion on the basis that it seems illogical. In fact, that appears the problem with convincing anyone of truth. In persuasion, an appeal to the emotions proves the strongest approach to call people to action, but in changing one’s attitude or opinion, an appeal to logos, or the logical approach to an argument, remains the most effective method. Lewis employs an appeal to logos throughout his article, “What Christians Believe,” to describe his case and persuade his audience to agree with his definition of Christian beliefs.
As with all good arguments, Lewis opens his argument where his audience and he share a common belief. He states that being Christian does not mean you “have to believe that all other religions are simply wrong all through” (175). By stating this, he sooths the immediate reaction of most to being told what they believe. This statement is logical, general and not offensive. Then Lewis proceeds to make clear that Christians agree with most of the world that deity exists. This faith lines up with a vast majority of the world. Again, this simple and gentle logic leads his reader in the pattern of agreeing with Lewis’ statements. Lewis proceeds further to embellish on his own experience in accepting the existence of God. He logically follows his own thought process in determining that God does indeed live. He explains it in his own ideal of justice. His logical argument in the past against the existence of God relied on the fact that the world seemed unjust. However, for Lewis to see the world as unjust there had to be some alternative that he could compare it with. Lewis reasons that there has to be opposition for one to recognize the state of one or the other. He could not know what unjust was unless there was a God who was just. Lewis states that if he were to relinquish the idea of just and unjust, then his argument against there being a God would also crumble. He found that “in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist… I found that I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense,” and so he could not claim that there was no God because of the logic of opposition (177).
Up to this point, Lewis has only argued logically for principles that most Christians would naturally agree with. His second section in his article takes that same logical approach to prove ideas that some Christians would find contentious. However, he uses natural laws to support his statements giving his claims logical foundations. He begins by establishing that religion is not simple by stating “real things are not simple” (177). This statement seems obvious, but it proves a natural law that may be applied to religion and therefore, logically, ground Lewis’ point. He then almost mocks the idea of simple religion by questioning people believing that God would make religion simple “as if ‘religion’ were something God invented, and not His statement to us of certain quite unalterable facts about His own nature” (177). By drawing this rational conclusion he convinces his reader, almost unnoticeably, that religion is complicated and it is unalterably so. He continues by explaining that “besides being complicated, reality… is usually odd” (177). He says that one of the reasons he believes it is because “it is not a religion you could have guessed” (178). If it had been predictable, it would be reasonable to assume that men made it up. But, because it is so unexpected, it is more plausible.
Lewis even goes so far as to explain the nature of “bad” or “evil” in a logical manner. He defines “bad” as pursuing good things—money, or power, or safety—by the wrong method (179). He claims it is “the pursuit of some good in the wrong way” (179). It is an easy thing to believe when examined in this way. So, when Lewis proposes that “badness is only spoiled goodness” it is easy to agree with him on a logical base. We believe him because his logic holds no fault that we can see. And this makes it simple to believe his ideas surrounding Dualism and the notion that the world is in a civil war between spoiled goodness in the form of a fallen angel; Satan, and Christ, the perfect example of goodness. His logical approach to all of his assertions being based in natural laws allows the reader to easily be swayed into agreeing with Lewis.
Lewis concludes in his final section by explaining why God allows sin and evil to exist logically. He opens this with another example, a natural occurrence in the home, of a mother giving her children the agency to pick up after themselves or to live in a messy environment (180). This is a highly relatable example and one that people believe is an action on the mother’s part of a caring and wise parent. Lewis parallels this example to what he believes God does for us. He gives his children free will as it is “the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having” (180). In using this simple story, not only does Lewis explain the existence of evil, but logically shows God to be a loving and nurturing parent. He then follows by explaining, then, what was the original sin. He explains that “putting yourself first—wanting to be the center—wanting to be God” was the original sin; this “was the sin of Satan” (181). Lewis is again starting from a point where it is easy to agree and by following his logic, his audience is more willing and more able to agree with his stronger, harder concepts. When his hard concept that “the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy” explains the misery in the world, his readers almost unwittingly agree with a statement that they may not have been willing to concede without his logical foundation.
The last point C.S. Lewis makes in his article, is the hardest; it is the Christian ultimatum. He explains the nature of Christ as either being “the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse” (182). People try to rationalize that, even if Jesus was not the Son of God, he was still a great moral teacher, but Lewis logically explains this cannot be so. If he is not deity, he is heretic. There is no middle ground. This is what Lewis builds up to in all his logical foundations. This is the keystone of Christian religion; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
By logically setting up a foundation for each of his claims, Lewis slowly leads his audience to agree with his statements concerning what Christians believe. He masterfully uses concepts that are familiar and accepted to stabilize and support his claims. Because he relies so heavily on an appeal to logos, his article is neither offending nor unreasonable. He succeeds in his purpose because he does not waver from logic to emotional appeals or fall into logical fallacies. Lewis’ argument is sound and logical and therefore, effectively persuasive.
Zach's Analysis of "What Christians Believe"
Zachary Ellis
Professor Kerry Spencer
Writing 150H
October 10th, 2011
Logic of Christianity
Sharing one’s beliefs with someone else can be hard, especially if they don’t know how much they trust them. Often this can be most easily overcome by saying what makes most sense to say and not worrying too much if they take offense; these are their own beliefs, not someone else’s! This is exactly what C.S. Lewis does in his work What Christians Believe. He attempts to convince people some views that are necessary about Christianity through appeal to Logos and effective speech.
Throughout the work C.S. Lewis juxtaposes one idea to Christianity and proves it cannot coexist through an appeal to Logos. The first example he provides is with Atheism. “If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.” (175). To C.S. Lewis atheism made him single minded that there was no God. C.S. Lewis could not hold this belief for long because it did not stand, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?” (176). To him, he had to have gotten his sense of justice from something more just. This did however leave the possibility of denial based on the idea the universe was senseless. But it did not make sense to him because, “...my idea of justice--was full of sense.” (177). To him existence had meaning, and that meant there had to be something to compare it to. “[J]ust as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creature with eyes, we should never know it was dark.” (177). He gives the example of knowing light from dark, which would only be possible with eyes. Eyesight gives meaning to all that can be seen; so if he had no eyes, or sense of justice, he thinks there would be no meaning. To C.S. Lewis there was sense in his idea of justice and atheism did not have sense.
His appeal to Logos is also seen when he establishes evident truth. Beginning with, “atheism is too simple.” and so is “the view I call Christianity-and-water" (177). Atheism and ‘I believe’ Christians do not have the sense C.S. Lewis seeks. He thinks that since the world is incredibly complicated religion cannot be simple. People may argue against saying God would have make religion simple but C.S. Lewis states simply,”as if ‘religion’ were something God invented.” (177). He makes it clear that Christianity is not what you would expect, just like so many of the things in this world. To him, people are not inherently evil. No one, “... likes badness for its own sake.” (178). People are sometimes cruel, but they do so to seek things that are not bad of themselves. People torture, kill, and rob, seeking for things like safety, food, and money, which of themselves are not bad things. This reinforces his argument that there was a right way, and we fell from God. We are in, “[e]nemy-occupied territory--that is what this world is.” (179). This would explain why he feels both a sense of justice and why it is hard for people to feel that sense. Some people willingly cut themselves off, he argues, because of, “...conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery.” (179). This makes sense to people, if they think they are above something they will not bother to hear it. So C.S. Lewis starts with small truths that people can accept and works up to his final declaration, “I am trying to prevent anyone saying ... ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’” (182). To him only 3 options are avaliable. He is who he claimed to be, he’s a crazy who spoke good words, or he was the Devil of Hell. This is the culmination of all his appeals; he now requires the reader to make a choice regarding the nature and divinity of Jesus Christ.
C.S. Lewis’ argument is well constructed. Beginning with the simple introduction about how he was a former atheist and slowing working his way up. He hooks his reader from the start with, “I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe.” (175). He outlines what he is going to do and provides an anecdote to catch attention. At the next paragraph he makes the focus a little larger by bringing up, “...the majority, who believe in some kind of God or gods, and the minority who do not.” (175). This allows the reader to easily follow the argument he presents. The next few paragraphs deal with the type of God people believe in. Whether it is that God is, “...beyond good or evil.” or, “...that God is definitely ‘good’ or ‘righteous’.”(175-6). He continues to develop his argument after this manner and creates an effective and well communicated work.
All in all What Christians Believe is an effective work. This is easily demonstrated by the multiple times that C.S. Lewis presents his argument and shows the logical response. From his sense of justice to the divinity of Jesus Christ he appeals to Logos. His argument was definitely written for people to read, not just for him to read to himself. The work is well presented in writing by linking arguments and taking one step at a time. This also appeals to Logos because it creates a sense of order and construction in his argument. There is definitely applaud due to him because of how he presented this; with both appeal to Logos, and effective, well communicated speech.
Professor Kerry Spencer
Writing 150H
October 10th, 2011
Logic of Christianity
Sharing one’s beliefs with someone else can be hard, especially if they don’t know how much they trust them. Often this can be most easily overcome by saying what makes most sense to say and not worrying too much if they take offense; these are their own beliefs, not someone else’s! This is exactly what C.S. Lewis does in his work What Christians Believe. He attempts to convince people some views that are necessary about Christianity through appeal to Logos and effective speech.
Throughout the work C.S. Lewis juxtaposes one idea to Christianity and proves it cannot coexist through an appeal to Logos. The first example he provides is with Atheism. “If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.” (175). To C.S. Lewis atheism made him single minded that there was no God. C.S. Lewis could not hold this belief for long because it did not stand, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?” (176). To him, he had to have gotten his sense of justice from something more just. This did however leave the possibility of denial based on the idea the universe was senseless. But it did not make sense to him because, “...my idea of justice--was full of sense.” (177). To him existence had meaning, and that meant there had to be something to compare it to. “[J]ust as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creature with eyes, we should never know it was dark.” (177). He gives the example of knowing light from dark, which would only be possible with eyes. Eyesight gives meaning to all that can be seen; so if he had no eyes, or sense of justice, he thinks there would be no meaning. To C.S. Lewis there was sense in his idea of justice and atheism did not have sense.
His appeal to Logos is also seen when he establishes evident truth. Beginning with, “atheism is too simple.” and so is “the view I call Christianity-and-water" (177). Atheism and ‘I believe’ Christians do not have the sense C.S. Lewis seeks. He thinks that since the world is incredibly complicated religion cannot be simple. People may argue against saying God would have make religion simple but C.S. Lewis states simply,”as if ‘religion’ were something God invented.” (177). He makes it clear that Christianity is not what you would expect, just like so many of the things in this world. To him, people are not inherently evil. No one, “... likes badness for its own sake.” (178). People are sometimes cruel, but they do so to seek things that are not bad of themselves. People torture, kill, and rob, seeking for things like safety, food, and money, which of themselves are not bad things. This reinforces his argument that there was a right way, and we fell from God. We are in, “[e]nemy-occupied territory--that is what this world is.” (179). This would explain why he feels both a sense of justice and why it is hard for people to feel that sense. Some people willingly cut themselves off, he argues, because of, “...conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery.” (179). This makes sense to people, if they think they are above something they will not bother to hear it. So C.S. Lewis starts with small truths that people can accept and works up to his final declaration, “I am trying to prevent anyone saying ... ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’” (182). To him only 3 options are avaliable. He is who he claimed to be, he’s a crazy who spoke good words, or he was the Devil of Hell. This is the culmination of all his appeals; he now requires the reader to make a choice regarding the nature and divinity of Jesus Christ.
C.S. Lewis’ argument is well constructed. Beginning with the simple introduction about how he was a former atheist and slowing working his way up. He hooks his reader from the start with, “I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe.” (175). He outlines what he is going to do and provides an anecdote to catch attention. At the next paragraph he makes the focus a little larger by bringing up, “...the majority, who believe in some kind of God or gods, and the minority who do not.” (175). This allows the reader to easily follow the argument he presents. The next few paragraphs deal with the type of God people believe in. Whether it is that God is, “...beyond good or evil.” or, “...that God is definitely ‘good’ or ‘righteous’.”(175-6). He continues to develop his argument after this manner and creates an effective and well communicated work.
All in all What Christians Believe is an effective work. This is easily demonstrated by the multiple times that C.S. Lewis presents his argument and shows the logical response. From his sense of justice to the divinity of Jesus Christ he appeals to Logos. His argument was definitely written for people to read, not just for him to read to himself. The work is well presented in writing by linking arguments and taking one step at a time. This also appeals to Logos because it creates a sense of order and construction in his argument. There is definitely applaud due to him because of how he presented this; with both appeal to Logos, and effective, well communicated speech.
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