Category Archives: Literature

by

Rhetoric, Kairos, and reading a blog backwards

This post is rhetorically analyzing the High Heels and Dirty Dishes post from Thursday, October 10, 2013. This post didn’t have the typical numerical assignment like all other posts.

For the sake of this post, we are going to assume that I am a new reader to this blog. I have only read the previous post, #13. Now let’s analyze the kairos and rhetoric of this post.

“I have at this point ended my weekly column, and I really have no regrets or any ill feelings toward the newspaper. It was my segway into me realizing that writing makes me happy.”

The rhetor has informed us the she has ended her weekly column in a newspaper. Next she tells us that she has no negative feelings towards the newspaper. Lastly she tells us because the experience has brought to the knowledge that matters the most: writing makes her happy.

The post could be deemed kairotic. The timing seems appropriate. The break between her and the newspaper has recently happened. There doesn’t seem to be anything tasteless in her words.

But let’s look at kairos and the audience and the circumstance. If I as a new reader am now just looking at this post, after having only read post #13. There is some additional information that I may want. Let’s read on into her post to see if the information is given, before I argue whether the kairos is effective.

“I know that some people are upset about me stopping, but the truth is I do write about real things, and real can be scary. So maybe everyone didn’t like what I wrote about. But these are the people that obviously don’t go the bathroom, have experienced facial hair, adult acne, teenage kids, or friends that know way too much about you.”

Additional information has been shared. It becomes clear that some readers didn’t like the topics the rhetor covered in the column. It’s the next line that gives me the information, that as a reader I was wanting to know.

“I could change my writings but you know what I won’t do it.”

Now it becomes clear that the newspaper asked her to change what she was writing about. I think a reader could infer this from the first couple of sentences. But, like Walker and Longaker say, the textualized rhetorical situation becomes more complex compared to the oral rhetorical situation. The rhetor needs to imagine her audience and their response.

“What I write is relatable, and people like to be able to relate to something. I find that it makes situations less uncomfortable and people are truly themselves. I could have caved and went with the “Norm”, but lets be truthful there is nothing normal about life these days.”

Though the rhetor doesn’t make it explicit who her intended audience is, we can make a few inferences:
* The rhetor assumes that whoever is reading this knows about her weekly column in the newspaper
* The newspaper circulation would occupy a certain geographic area of readers, but the platform of this blog is one that is technological, so the reader must also be an internet user.
* That people will be relate to what she writes about

In this case I am the actual reader. I do not know about her newspaper column.

The actual rhetor seems to be the implied rhetor. Reading her post we can pick up on her values and beliefs. The rhetor’s text addresses her intended audience as having the same values and beliefs as her.

From the text, I as the reader, have deduced that the rhetor believes in writing about the reality of her life. That the rhetor won’t change what she writes about even when pressured to do so. The text addresses its audience assuming that the audience will agree with the rhetor’s decisions.

Another actual reader could be someone who disagrees with what the rhetor has to say. He/she may find the entire post completely unkairotic. His/her values and beliefs could differ greatly than the rhetor’s. He/she will probably not be persuaded.

I came across this blog, doing an internet search for “mom blogs.” The rhetor possibly should also think about the possible new readers she may gain through the wide-reaching ability of the internet.

As someone who is also from northwestern Minnesota, the values and beliefs of her readers of the newspaper column that didn’t like what she had to say are obvious to me. But they may not be obvious for an actual reader from an urban area, or a different part of the country, or even from a different country.

Actual readers may not be persuaded because the actual textual evidence of the post, leaves out a lot of specific information. Where is the newspaper located? What specific information written about in the past did readers have a problem with? Why did they have a problem with it? I.e. how were their values and beliefs violated.

We are given an idea about this with these two lines:

“So maybe everyone didn’t like what I wrote about. But these are the people that obviously don’t go the bathroom, have experienced facial hair, adult acne, teenage kids, or friends that know way too much about you.”

But is that enough information for the actual audience?

The end of the post brings up another question for me. Why does the rhetor believe that a newspaper would be able to get her more circulation than a blog that has the ability to reach millions? But I also infer that the rhetor wants to have her readership grow. I’m not sure what to make this final section.

“I am honoured to be able to write, and maybe this blog will not get the circulation that the paper received. That’s ok, because the moment that I start writing for other people instead of myself … well the moment that I need to stop take a look around and smell the vodka injected oranges … cause they do smell as good as they taste.”

I will follow up with a second post shortly, looking specifically at the logos, ethos, and pathos from this same blog post.

by

Thoughts on The Professor’s House by Willa Cather

I read The Professor’s House last week, by Willa Cather. I first read Tom Outland’s Story (book 2 of TPH) in the Fall of 2011 for my Willa Cather lit class. We were only assigned Tom’s story in class and it is such a strong story by itself. I had meant to return to the book and read The Family and The Professor, but I also had some reservations because I didn’t anything to change my feelings towards Tom Outland’s Story.  After I finished The Family, I couldn’t continue into Tom Outland’s Story, my brain was telling me to jump over into The Professor. I couldn’t help but think that I would alter Tom’s story if I read it sandwiched in between the arc of the professor’s life.   

I’ve found that I enjoy the way Cather separates her novels into books. IMO Cather takes on more than a story of a character, she takes on the arc of her character. The Professor’s House has two arcs, that of the professor, Godfrey St. Peter and that of Tom Outland, his student.

Cather’s characters and settings are grounded in their concrete details. She describes the physical attributes, like she has a photograph of each one in front of her. “He had a long brown face, with an oval chin over which he wore a close-trimmed Van Dyke, like a tuft of shiny black fur. With this silky, very black hair, he had a tawny skin with gold lights in it, a hawk nose, and hawk-like eyes– brown and gold and green. They were set in amply cavities, with plenty of room to move about, under thick, curly, black eyebrows that turned up sharply at the outer ends, like military moustaches.” Cather’s ability to describe is something I admire about her writing and that has helped me to realize that I need to work more at describing people, landscapes, houses, dogs, cats, well you get the idea.

Cather’s observations hold true to this day, the separation of the educated and the religious. But also the point that there can be harmony between the two if the people involved are open and excepting of each other. Cather gives the reader this ideal through the relationship of St. Peter and Augusta, forced to share a workroom, they find comfort in the other’s bothersome presence.

St. Peter’s daughters, are as different as he and his wife, yet he works hard to not meddle in their personal wars and to love them both differently, yet as equally as he can manage.

What I didn’t see coming, was St. Peter’s flippant attitude about his own life towards the end of the book and yet after my initial repulsion I found that Cather was right as usual. St. Peter is a tired man, a man who worked and worked for the success he has now gained, but this success has also brought much of the work to an end. I could relate to his letdown.

After I read The Professor I went back and reread Tom Outland’s Story. I found that the only thing that really changed, is that I had a better understanding of Tom, of the man telling his professor a story of his youth. In a way it made Tom’s disappointment,  that much more sincere to me, and also that much more sad. I simply understood Tom’s decisions better, his ability to have the happiest period in his life after he suffered the deepest heartbreak. Also, Tom’s ability to let Roddy go, which is something I struggled with, I believed Tom this time that it was his foolish youth that let him go because he was able to trick himself into believing that he could find Roddy again. I felt the weight of his prediction, “I understand what is was I did that night on the mesa. Anyone who requites faith and friendship as I did, will have to pay for it.”

I still need to finish the experience and visit some cliff dwellings for myself.