TOW #13 - How to Read and Why (IRB 2.1)

I chose my IRB, How to Read and Why, because I am very interested in literature. It is a field I may want to go into when I get older. However, as I’ve discovered this year, I am not the best at analyzing the texts that I read – or at least fully illustrating my thoughts on paper. So, I chose this book. The writer, Harold Bloom, looks to take his reader beyond pure summary and analysis and provide the ability to apply a text to the real world. In his piece, How to Read and Why, Bloom uses a repeated rhetorical question and exemplification to attempt to explain to the reader the true purpose of reading in the modern day.

In the very beginning of section “Short Stories,” Harold Bloom introduces the rhetorical question, “How does one read a short story?” (31). He claims that he will go on to answer it through the use of many famous literary examples. This question, in theory, should serve as the foundation of his entire piece. However, in my opinion, Bloom did not take advantage of the original question. He sort of just left it. He goes on to identify multiple world-renowned authors. One by one, Bloom lists the authors, while highlighting some of his favorite pieces. Bloom summarizes each piece of work, which would be okay as long as he went on to give a more general approach the reader could take. But after analyzing, Bloom gives his own analysis of the text. My issue with this is that the reader is not necessarily being given a lesson on how to analyze, but is rather shown some examples of analysis with no guidance. Ultimately, I think that Bloom attempts to teach the reader his lesson through rhetorical question and exemplification, but it is to no avail (as of now).

At least to this point, I don’t think that Harold Bloom has been successful in answering his original question about why we should read. This seems to be more of an analysis than an argument – beyond that, an analysis on texts that I have never read (or even heard of). At the moment, I am not particularly enjoying How to Read and Why, but hopefully that changes in the second half of the book!

TOW #12 - Tourists Gone Wild

Over the last few decades, Chinese tourists have become accused of running rampantly when they travel. However, it seems that other groups of tourists have been disliked, too – not just the Chinese. In his piece, “Tourists Gone Wild,” Tony Perrottet uses examples of other “obnoxious” tourists, as well as lighthearted sarcasm, to argue that the Chinese are doing nothing new – they are just the next nationality to claim this title.

Perrottet provides examples of other nations’ tourists “running wild,” such as the Romans, British, and French, in order to demonstrate a theme throughout history, and that the Chinese are not the first group to misbehave when traveling. When explaining an instance of old Americans, Perrottet explains that “the city slickers of the 1870s washed their socks in hot springs, carved their names on fragile volcanic rocks and chipped off fragments for their mantelpieces. And they gunned down any wildlife they could find.” Giving a concrete example allows Perrottet to give evidence of past groups of tourists running wild. This particular instance pertains to American tourists, and this shows that at least Americans have created a bad reputation for themselves. However, since Perrottet is able to give examples for many groups of people, it is clear that the Chinese are not alone in terms of their supposed obnoxiousness.

In his conclusion, Perrottet used some lighthearted sarcasm to show that the “tourism running wild” isn’t that major of an issue. He claims that if we are so worried about misbehaving in public, then maybe “none of us should be allowed to travel. Then we can all just misbehave at home.” Such a sarcastic remark almost suggests that tourists “running wild” is inevitable. It would obviously be ridiculous if nobody was allowed to travel – this is the first significant piece of his quote. He follows that up with the claim that we could rather just misbehave at home, arguing that people are going to act a certain way, whether they are in their own bedroom or halfway across the world. In this sense, Perrottet argues that the Chinese are doing nothing new in the way that they are doing what they have always done: be themselves. This is not meant to be taken negatively, but rather it is meant to demonstrate stagnancy.

Ultimately, Tony Perrottet is successful in making his argument. Through exemplification and sarcasm, he was able to prove that the Chinese tourists are not the first to cause outrage – tourism has caused problems for many years, among many different communities. Not only that, but a lot of what is angering residents has existed in their own communities for years – they just were not aware.

TOW #11 - The American Crisis (Thomas Paine)

Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, a pro-revolution pamphlet from the 1700s, was a passionate Patriot. He was heavily in favor of separating from the oppressive British, and because of this, he wrote “The Crisis” – a call to action aimed at the American people. He specifically targets his fellow Patriots, rather than the Tories, who he believed to be traitors. In his piece, Paine makes a comparison to slavery and writes with a motivational tone to rally the American people to fight back against the British.

In the very beginning of his piece, Paine compares the treatment of the Americans to slavery to intensify and prioritize the issue at hand. He claims that Britain “has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but ‘to bind us in all cases whatsoever,’ and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth.” As enslavers themselves, the American people have a good understanding of what enslavement entails. Therefore, when Paine associates Britain’s treatment with slavery, he really tries to strike a nerve. His comparison almost exaggerates what is going on. The British are not actually treating the Americans like slaves – they are just taxing them. However, it is much more infuriating to the people that they are being enslaved rather than paying money. This makes the conflict with Britain a priority; the people cannot sit back and suffer the abuse.

In addition to this comparison, Thomas Paine uses a motivating tone in an attempt to rally the American people to fight back against the British. First, he insults the Tories, the group of people who supported Britain during the conflict, saying that “Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.” Through this statement, Paine essentially divides America into two groups: the ones who can fight and the ones who can’t (in his opinion, the Tories). By calling them “cowardly,” he creates a greater need for the Whigs (the non-Tories) to get out and fight, because if they don’t, nobody will. Paine goes on to claim that “there are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one […] It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both.” He considers the British “cunning” and “murderous” – two adjectives with extremely negative connotation. By using these terms to describe the “enemy,” Paine once again tries to increase the American desire to fight. He claims that the conflict can only be solved through violence, and through doing so, attempts to motivate the people to fight.

Through his comparison to slavery and his motivational tone, Thomas Paine eventually rallied the people fight back against the British. Thus, he was ultimately successful in making his argument.