Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetorical Analysis for Project 3

Film: Shot Through the Heart:
Pathos: This film appeals strongly to the emotions. The story is about two life friends, one Muslim, one Serb, and both are sharpshooters, who end up being on different sides when the Bosnian war breaks out. In Sarajevo, there is a serious of impossible murders being that were the victim was there was no way that someone could have shot them. It turns out to be the Serb friend and the Muslim one must kill him.

Ethos: Along with Pathos, there is a definite Ethos appeal evident in the film. The Serb friend obviously takes the values of the Serbs to heart and begins doing horrible things. Such as killing little kids and innocent people, but still remaining friends with the Muslim guy. The Muslim guy finds out about his friend being responsible for this and must make the decision, to kill his friend that is seriously violating basic human values.
Logos: There does not seem to be a strong Logos element in the film. It is a media used strictly for entertainment and there is no requirement for it to present a Logos argument.

Picture: The Peace Palace
Pathos: The building certainly has a Pathos element to it. First of all, it is very important to know that it houses the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. Second, it is named The Peace Palace. Couple these two facts together and its name has more relevance. The ICJ is meant to settle disputes between two states and has successfully done so in a peaceful manner. Also, on an unrelated topic, it could be argued that most architecture is designed with invoking emotions, which this one does. Simply by the design you can tell this structure houses something very important.
Ethos: Values does not play a large role in this picture. The ascetics of a structure seem to be mostly designed to invoke an emotion. Although, it could be said that persons from different cultures probably interpret the design differently, it seems hard to argue that one could fail to realize the significance of this structure.
Logos: There can be some logic involved in this picture. Mostly by considering what it is this building houses. The International Court of Justice is also the largest international law library in the world.
Book: Beyond Westphalia: National Sovereignty and International Intervention
Pathos: The Pathos argument here would be quite as it seems to be a research book regarding territorial sovereignty.
Ethos: Values does play a role here. One of the dominating issues in International Relations throughout the 20th Century and to this day is national sovereignty. National sovereignty has been held sacred by nations for hundreds of years (since the signing of the treaty of Westphalia in the 1600s) and is only now beginning to erode with Globalization and Human Rights. The conflict in politics is between two values, those who disagree with the sacredness of sovereignty and those that see it as a threat to human rights.
Logos: The book is basically a researched argument so it appeals mostly to Logos. Relying much on history and facts more than anything else.

Song: Georgian National Anthem
Pathos: A national anthem is clearly designed to appeal to emotions. They sing about the glory and greatness of its country and often has its intended effect of stirring nationalist sentiments in its people. For example, think for a moment what you felt when you heard Aretha Franklin singing our national anthem during the Inauguration.
Ethos: This is an example of the intimate relationship that Pathos and Ethos have. National anthems are meant to stir emotions regarding you nation, however it is certain values that need to be present for these emotions to appear. The values in a national anthem would of course be love for your nation.

Number 10

Summary
The interview began with Charlie Rose recalling the time Toni Morrison had invited him to the Nobel Award ceremony and his refusal. Followed by a little discussion about how you never regret the things you did, just the things that you didn’t do. Their discussion than turned to Morrison’s newest book, Love and Rose asks her to tell him about it. She explains it as telling the story about the actual complex situation going on during the Civil Rights movement, which she said that is generally over simplified. She wanted to describe the transitions on the black community as the became assimilated into the larger society. Rose than asked about Beloved, mentioning that many have called it her masterpiece. This position she does not agree with, saying instead that she has not yet created her masterpiece. Afterwards, their discussion turned to writing it self with Rose asking about if it has become easier. To her, writing does not become easier with each successive novel, as each is a completely black slate. She also talks about the importance of “bearing-witness” to her characters. Of not making her pain, their pain. The pain and feelings in the novel have to belong to the character. The interview finished with Rose asking Morrison to read a passage from her book. The passage seemed to explain that people spend their entire life attempting to out do the world, to better it in a sense. However, no matter how hard they try the world will always win.
Reaction
Although this is cheating a little bit because we already discussed this is class, however, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the interview has a very casual nature. Although, it was obviously a real interview, the atmosphere was very conversational. Kind of like two people just simply talking. At the same time Rose’s questions were very effective at getting a story. In other the questions were very open ended and lent themselves to elaboration. Furthermore, she brought up needing to talk about the complex lives of the African Americans during the civil rights movement. The points she made sense, that with Martin Luther King and Rosa parks the history that we are generally taught is over simplified.

Reflection
Once can certainly draw connections between this interview and Vogler. While reading Vogler’s book, it is very apparent that creating a human element in a story is of the utmost important. Morrison reiterated this. She talks mostly at the end of the interview is that what people need to do most is to be human. She also talks about bearing witness to her characters. This really struck me as I immediately thought of Elie Wiesel. He is another Nobel Prize Laureate who talks a lot of bearing witness. Mostly conveys the importance of those who had born witness to tell their story. To me drawing this connection to two Nobel Prize winners is very interesting and perhaps important.
Questions
1.) How important does she believe that those who have born witness tell their story.

First Part of the Project 3

Project Three Analysis Handout
Presentation description: (MLA Format)


1. Describe the visual and textual elements which reflect issues from your Project Two exploration.
Film: Shot Through the Heart
It is actually about the Bosnian war, which is of course different. However, there are many similarities between the Bosnia conflict (although it was much larger than the Georgian one) and the Georgia one. One being is that they were mostly ethnic is nature.

Picture:
The picture is of the peace palace in The Hague. This conflict has gone on for decades, and is not being decided in the peace palace, in front of the International Court of Justice.

Book.
Beyond Westphalia?: National Sovereignty and International Intervention
This book is about national sovereignty, which is one of the issues at stake here. Georgia felt that its territorial integrity is threatened and that Russia was interfering with it by supporting Abkhazia’s independence assertion.

Music:
Not exactly sure yet.


2. List the overall argument and purpose of the image/film/song/text? (one sentence)


Film: Shot Through the Heart,
I picked this film simply because it is about an ethnic conflict. The main story is about two friends that are on opposite sides of the conflict. Although, the Abkhaz conflict was not nearly the scale or seriousness of the Bosnian one, it still is an ethnic conflict at its heart. The film kind of shows some of the horrible things that occur in ethnic conflict.

Image: The Peace Palace, I chose the peace palace as the image because it is where the International Court of Justice. At this point the Court is where the conflict is being fought. So far, I would assert that it has not resolved this conflict, however it will be interesting as to what its judgment turns out to be. It could have important implications for Georgia, Abkhazia and how Racial Discrimination is interpreted.

Book: Beyond Westphalia?: National Sovereignty and International Intervention, One of the largest issues in this conflict is regarding territorial integrity. The Georgian government is obviously concerned about its terrirorial integrity. In other words it does not want to be smaller. Arguably, this seems to be a concern for the regular Georgian citizenry as they are currently protesting and calling for the resignation of their president because his actions seems to have resulted in Abkhazia and South Ossetia being successful in gaining their independence.


3. Describe the specific audience for the presentation. (Age, gender, education, etc.)

The specific audience would be college students at Eckerd because that is what the presentation seems to be intended for. More specifically probably those that study political science or IR, because this is a matter that is fairly field specific.

The Simpsons

The Simpsons Critique.
The Simpsons may be seemingly about humor or simply is a parity of a middle-class American family. However, when you look between the lines it may become apparent that The Simpsons is lampooning some much more deeper issues. The prominent ones appear to be capitalism enslaving the middle class, consumer culture and men’s supposed disrespect for their wives and women. More examples lie with the characters Bart and Lisa. Bart is supposedly the embodiment of the failures of the American school system, and Lisa is meant to be the embodiment of reason. What is important to note about this is that although her statements are normally voiced as reason, they are more often than not simply ignored. Normally, a television show doing this would not have a chance getting airtime, however, The Simpsons were aired by the relatively new network, Fox, whom was willing to take the risk. The result was a television program that gained enormous popularity in an environment where this should not have happened.
Response
Some points I can see, however, others I believe are stretching logic. For example, it is clear that the Simpsons is in many ways meant to ridicule the American life, arguably the mundane aspects of it. For example, the fact that Homer must got to his job that he hates everyday. The author argues, however, that the story shows some cases where Homer leaves his job, but always has to return to it for some reason. One example is that he left work for a bowling alley, but then has to return to the power plant because of a new baby. I fail to see how this is demonstrative of capitalism’s control over our life. All in all, Homer leaving a dream job to return to a better paying miserable job can also be demonstrative of bad luck as well. The bottom line is that there is probably a lot of truth to the statements, but I seriously doubt that The Simpsons creators had anything so deep in mind when writing the cartoon.
Reflection
It seems that cartoons are a popular medium for critique of society in some way. Simpsons, as it was demonstrated definitely directs satire towards certain aspects of a middle class family. But there are other shows out there as well. We are all familiar with South Park, which seems to ridicule really anything. For example, there was certainly an episode meant to demonstrate the writer’s opinion of the new Indiana Jones movie because in this episode one of the characters has dreams about George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg raping the character Indiana Jones. Also, the show seems to point at the masses (meaning general population) having a tendency to be jumpy and terrified. There was an episode about Family Guy planning on showing an animation of Mohammed. In the episode, the Muslim world sent threats and such to America and the public decided to bury their heads in the dirt so they did not see it, thereby doing what the terrorists wanted.

Questions
1.) How is the nuclear power plant meant to represent capitalism especially consumerism? It is not explained well, there should be more evidence of this rather than the author’s speculation.
2.) Bart may explain the failure of the school system, but how is Lisa explained as she went to the same school as Bart?

6 Word Memoir

This is my six-word memoir.

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/story.php?did=60092

-Nick

Free Rice (Xtra Credit)

Notice of donation of 1000 grains of rice. 12:58 PM 4/11/2009
Many strange words..... much use of dictionary required.

Themes from "The Bell Jar"

1.) By being in an institution it may show you as being "defective", however, perhaps madness is a good thing.
"A Mad Desire to Dance," by Elie Wiesel or really any of his novels where he does try to bring appreciation upon the madmen that are in his stories.


2.) Maybe the institutions themselves are not places where awful things happen and perhaps the staff at these places may genuinely wish to help.



3.) Perhaps the things that you build up in your mind that are supposed to be big special moments, are actually just part of the everyday drudge of things.

Mad World, Gary Jules