“On Compassion”
by: Barbara Lazear Ascher
• Caroline Becker
• Device: Anadiplosis
About the Author
• Born in 1946
• Former NEW YORK TIMES columnist, Editorial
Director of Delphinium Books, teacher and
attorney
• Author of PLAYING AFTER DARK, THE HABIT
OF LOVING, LANDSCAPE WITHOUT GRAVITY,
and most recently DANCING IN THE DARK,
Romance, Yearning, and the Search for the
Sublime.
S.O.A.P.S.
• Speaker – Barbara Lazear Ascher
• Occasion – She is reflecting about her
observations of interactions on the streets of
New York.
• Audience – People who are in a position to
show compassion
• Purpose – To argue that compassion is
learned.
• Subject – Acts of compassion
Device: Anadiplosis
•
Definition: When the last
word of one sentence or
phrase is the first word of the
sentence that follows.
Examples
• “I am Sam. Sam I am.”
• "When I give I give myself."
(Walt Whitman)
• "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger
leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in
you."
(Frank Oz as Yoda in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom
Menance)
• “I don’t believe that one is born compassionate. Compassion
is not a character trait like a sunny disposition.”
• Effect?
Directions
• Create a bingo card for yourself (3x3):
• Choose nine of the following devices to fill your table
in with: symbol, metaphor, euphemism,
understatement, colloquialism, anadiplosis,
polysyndeton, asyndeton, oxymoron, sarcasm,
allusion, irony, simile, parallelism, ethos, pathos,
rhetorical question.
• "Do we live in an age of hatred? Or has the language of political
insult simply become more extreme? Tap the words 'I hate Gordon
Brown' into Google, and it comes up with 1,490,000 entries. . . .”
• "He pulled the blue plastic tarp off of him and folded it and carried
it out to the grocery cart and packed it and came back with their
plates and some cornmeal cakes in a plastic bag and a plastic bottle
of syrup."
(Cormac McCarthy, The Road)
• "Whatever the reason, I was saddled with this strange name, which
meant that I was constantly, constantly, being serenaded with the
sometimes you feel like a nut Almond Joy/Mounds jingle, which I
would have liked to quote in full, except that Hershey's legal staff
denied me permission. I can certainly understand why. God only
knows what ruin might befall Hershey's if this jingle--which
hasn't been used in two decades--were suddenly brazenly
resurrected by a young Jewish candyfreak. One shudders to
consider the fallout for the entire fragile candy-trademark-jingle
trademark ecosystem."
(Steve Almond, Candyfreak, 2004)
• Rachel Berry: Mr. Schuester, do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to
give the lead solo in "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" to a boy in a
wheelchair?
• "Wardrobe malfunction"
(Justin Timberlake's description of his tearing of Janet Jackson's costume
during a half-time performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII)
• "If, in my low moments, in word, deed or attitude, through some error of
temper, taste, or tone, I have caused anyone discomfort, created pain, or
revived someone's fears, that was not my truest self. If there were
occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its
resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.
My head--so limited in its finitude; my heart, which is boundless in its
love for the human family. I am not a perfect servant. I am a public
servant doing my best against the odds."
(Jesse Jackson, Democratic National Convention Keynote Address, 1984)
• “Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task.” – Henry James
• “It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny tumor in my
brain.” – Catcher in the Rye
• "O western wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?"
(anonymous, 16th c.)
• Mary likes to hike, to swim, and to ride a bicycle.
• The skin on her face was as thin and drawn as tight as
the skin of onion and her eyes were gray and sharp like
the points of two picks —Flannery O’Connor, "Parker’s
Back"