Name _____________________________________________________ Date ___________________ Per. _________
Analyzing Rhetoric in “On Morality” by Joan Didion
Directions: in the chart below, examine how Joan Didion uses elements of rhetoric to develop and strengthen
her argument in the essay, “On Morality.”
Quote from the text
“... ‘morality,’ a
word I distrust
more every day...”
(Didion).
“. . . one of the promises we
make to one another is that we
will try to retrieve our
casualties, try not to abandon
our dead to the coyotes”
(Didion).
“For better or worse, we are what
we learned as children: my own
childhood was illuminated by
graphic litanies of the grief awaiting
those who failed in their loyalties to
each other. The Donner-Reed Party,
starving in the Sierra snows, all the
ephemera of civilization gone save
that one vestigial taboo, the
provision that no one should eat his
own blood kin” (Didion).
“Some might say that the Jayhawkers were killed
by the desert summer, and the Donner Party by the
mountain winter, by circumstances beyond control;
we were taught instead that they had somewhere
abdicated their responsibilities, somehow breached
their primary loyalties, or they would not have
found themselves helpless in the mountain winter or
the desert summer, would not have given way to
acrimony, would not have deserted one another,
would not have failed” (Didion).
“You are quite possibly
impatient with me by now; I am
talking, you want to say, about
a “morality” so primitive that it
scarcely deserves the name, a
code that has as its point only
survival, not the attainment of
the ideal good. Exactly”
(Didion).
“Particularly out here
tonight, in this country
so ominous and terrible
that to live in it is to
live with antimatter, it
is difficult to believe
that “the good” is a
knowable quantity”(Didion).
Location
of Quote
Rhetorical Device
Antithesis - Figure of balance
Paragraph in which two contrasting ideas
are intentionally juxtaposed; a
1
contrasting of opposing ideas in
adjacent phrases, clauses, or
sentences. Antithesis creates a
definite and systematic
relationship between ideas.
Paragraph
Aphorism - a statement of
3
truth or opinion expressed in a
concise and witty manner. The
term is often applied to
philosophical, moral, and literary
principles.
Paragraph Exposition: In essays, one of
4
the four chief types of
composition, the others being
argumentation, description, and
narration. The purpose of
exposition is to explain
something.
Paragraph Parallel sentence structure –
equal grammatical structure
4
between clauses joined by a
conjunction, between phrases
in sentence or group of
sentence, or between items in a
list. Example: “I will not go to my
room, go to my bed, go to my school
or go to my job . . .”
Paragraph Point of view shift –
5
Point of view that an author
writes in (1st person, 2nd person,
and 3rd person) and the
purpose of shifting their POV
from first to second or from
third to first – what effect the
shift has on the audience.
Paragraph Analogy - A similarity or comparison
between two different things or the
5
relationship between them. An
analogy can explain something
unfamiliar by associating it with or
pointing out its similarity to something
more familiar. Analogies can also
make writing more vivid, imaginative,
or intellectually engaging.
Purpose or effect
Quote from the text
Location Rhetorical Device
“There is some sinister
Paragraph Diction hysteria in the air out here
7
The style of language used;
tonight, some hint of the
generally tailored to be
monstrous perversion to
appropriate to the audience
which any human idea can
and situation.
come” (Didion).
“How many madmen have
said it and meant it? How
many murderers. Klaus
Fuchs said it, and the men
who committed the
Mountain Massacres said
it . . . Maybe we have all
said it, and maybe we were
all wrong” (Didion).
Paragraph Pronoun antecedent – the
7
antecedent is the noun that the
pronoun refers to – in this case,
the repeated word “it”
What statement is the word “it” referring to
in this passage?
What effect is created by repeating “it”
instead of the original statement?
At least some of the time, the world
appears to me as a painting by
Hieronymous Bosch; were I to follow
my conscience then, it would lead me
out onto the desert with Marion Faye,
out to where he stood in the The Deer
Park looking east to Los Alamos and
praying, as if for rain, that it would
happen: “… let it come and clear the rot
Paragraph Conceit - A fanciful expression,
7
usually in the form of an
extended metaphor or
surprising analogy between
seemingly dissimilar objects. A
conceit displays intellectual
cleverness as a result of the
unusual comparison being
and the stench and the stink . . . “ (Didion).
made.
“Of course you will say that I
Paragraph Paradox – A statement that
do not have the right, even if I 8 –
appears to be self-contradictory
had the power, to inflict that
sentence
or opposed to common sense
unreasonable conscience
1
but upon closer inspection
upon you; nor do I want you
contains some degree of truth
to inflict your conscience,
or validity.
however reasonable,
however enlightened, upon
me” (Didion).
‘You see I want to be quite
obstinate about insisting that
we have no way of knowing –
beyond that fundamental
loyalty to the social code –
what is “right” and what is
“wrong,” what is “good” and
what ‘evil’” (Didion).
Because when we start deceiving
“ourselves into thinking not that we
want something or need something,
not that it is a pragmatic necessity
for us to have it, but that it is a
moral imperative that we have it,
then is when we join the fashionable
madmen, and then is when the thin
whine of hysteria is heard in the
land, and then is when we are in bad
trouble. And I suspect we are
already there” (Didion)
Purpose or effect
Paragraph Juxtaposition - When two
9–
opposite words, phrases,
sentence
images, or ideas are placed
5
close together or side by
side for comparison or
contrast.
Paragraph
9
Ambiguity - The
multiple meanings, either
intentional or unintentional, of a
word, phrase, sentence, or
passage.
Name _____________________________________________________ Date ___________________ Per. _________
Homework: Analyzing Rhetoric in “Moral Instinct” by Steven Pinker

In the chart below, apply the concepts we studied in class to your other reading, “Morality Instinct.”
Identify two examples of rhetorical devices for each section of the essay.
Quote from the text Location Rhetorical Device
Purpose or effect
of Quote (explain it)
Section 1:
Paragraph
3
Analogy
Section 1:
Paragraph
6
Aphorism
Section 2:
Paragraph
9
Inductive Reasoning
Section 2:
Paragraph
14
Exemplification
Section 3:
Paragraphs
17-19
Anecdote
Section 3:
Paragraphs
20-21
Inductive Reasoning
(Because most cultures agree
that rape and murder are
morally wrong, morality is a
universal concept)
Quote from the text
Location of
Quote
Section 4:
Paragraph
25
Rhetorical Device
(explain it)
Analogy
Section 4:
Paragraphs
28-30
Counterargument and
Rebuttal
Section 5:
Paragraph
34
Parallelism
Section 5:
Paragraph
37
Allusion
Section 6:
Paragraph
38
Aphorism
Section 6:
Paragraph
39
Analogy
Purpose or effect