In the short story The Coment by W.E.B DuBois, there are many rhetorical devices used to show the racism still present in America. The three main rhetorical devices used by Du Bois were speculative fiction, post-apocalyptic storytelling, and allegory. Speculative fiction is present by using an different reality where a comet struck only New York which makes Jim, our main character, and Julia, a white woman Jim encounters later in the story. By introducing this altered reality, W.E.B DuBois was able to explore how social prejudice would impact people without worrying about a realistic setting. With Post-Apocalyptic Storytelling, DuBois showed how people can come together after a crisis, despite their being a difference in skin color. The use of allegory comes into play by showing the potential unity people can achieve if they were to put their skin color aside. DuBois shows how Jim and Julia navigated the wreckage together without thinking about skin color at the time and managed to later on find other survivors from a different state. Once other white people were found, Julia acts as if Jim did not exist and ignored him completely. This part of the story shows that skin color is the only thing holding society back from equality.
Month: April 2024
“Planet” no longer
In the excerpt “Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet” Margaret Atwood uses genre conventions in order to spark rhetorical effects throughout the whole piece.At first glance reading the title automatically made me feel the piece was going to be about a post-apocalyptic world which no longer was.The fact she doesn’t directly name the planet was very astute as I believe she decided to let us determine it.Some people would think she’s writing about a dead earth and this can convey a sense of guilt in the reader because humanity today is detrimental to the planet we inhabit.In the body of the text Atwood speaks of this “dead planet” using the structure from the book of genesis in the Holy Bible.I think the use of this structure is very ironic and shows the juxtaposition between the original book of genesis and her story.The book of genesis tells the story of the birth of the world and key aspects that helped create it while Atwood uses the structure to show what aspects of that world destroyed it.Money and religion go hand in hand in “Time capsule found on the dead planet” and eventually become the same thing.The creator of the time Capsule found in the story explains that humanity’s hunger to acquire money led to catastrophe and eventually blinded people from things that actually mattered.Living in a capitalist society where money drives everything made this very eerie to read and it did not seem too far fetched.I certainly believe the author tried to spark these emotions intentionally to promote ideas like a better tomorrow and positive change into the audience.The planet we live in today isn’t far from a dystopian one and this is something that might be inevitable.Humankind has truly reached a state of unconsciousness in very important issues that are shaping our lives and bringing uncertainty into the future. “Time capsule found on the dead planet” may be a fictional story but It tells the story of a world that we can make our own mirror.
Mmm…Collage
Making a collage was something I did not expect to be so intriguing and fun.The process of trying to express an idea without any of the structural burdens usually imposed in school was different.When I heard the term “Uncreative writing” and how my classmates compared it to other types of media like music or movies, i instantly thought of remixing or “biting” as I call it In the shoe world.All throughout fashion different types of remixed and inspired garments exist.With my collage I wanted to showcase this idea by showing the 2 different versions of some popular shoes today.Showing the original and then the “bite” helped me to show the contrast and similarities between both.Using mmm was very seamless and honestly fun.I can see myself utilizing the platform or similar types of programs where I can organize or disorganize thoughts in forms of images.
Analysis Reflection Mind Map
I particularly created my mind map showcasing different subjects that I would be interested in. That I would consider fun for my essay. I used Canva to put it together and like the collage from our last assignment, this was fun working on. I like putting this together because of the liberty I have to choose the format I want to use and the subjects I would want to research.
Using this mind map I separated each subject I would write about, and under it, I added some information as to where the course of my writing will go. I picked subjects that I feel that are gripping for the audience, and that would keep me interested all the way to finishing my essay. All the subject I am debating between are linked to social media and I wanted to do it this way since I believe that we are all attached to it somehow.
using this mind map helped me to put all of my ideas into the sheet so that I don’t forget any and that I can do deep research about each, and come to my conclusion. I am the kind of person who forgets most things if I don’t have them written down so this was a really helpful activity.
Mind Mapping
The subreddit community I investigated was the College Meme subreddit (r/CollegeMemes). Personally, I was interested in learning about this online community because I enjoy engaging with humorous content and am currently a college student.
Using the mindmap, I organized my findings into a few branches stemming from the central topic. I outlined the purpose, audience, language and tone, as well as community dynamics. The purpose was fairly simple, which was to share relatable, funny, college memes to build a sense of community for college students. I assumed that the primary audience was current or former college students since having a college experience would be necessary to find the memes funny or relatable. In terms of the language and tone, generally casual and humorous discourse was used across various posts and it was the opposite of the type of discourse that would be expected in most college classes. For community dynamics, I found that users engaged with other users and their content by upvoting, commenting and creating new memes.
Having a platform to freely organize my analyses into a mind map format helped me understand the relations between each point. When I flesh out more ideas for my analysis paper, perhaps I could add more points or reorganize it. This digital tool will be extremely useful for structuring a well organized rhetorical analysis paper and I look forward to using it for other projects as well.
