Essay
Explication
Unit
~
Viewpoints
12
Table of Contents:
Types of Essays studied…………………………………………………………….……….Page 2
Essay Froms…………………………………………...……………………………..………Page 4
Essay Modes……………………………………………….…………..……………………Page 5
Rhetorical Appeals…………………………………………..………….…………………...Page 7
Mothods of Proof……………………………..........................................................................……….Page 9
Essay Explication Blank Form……………………………………………………...….......Pages 10
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift....................................................................................................Pages 14
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell……...…….…………………………Pages 21
Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body by Cynthia Ozick……...…………………………Pages 31
The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf……………………..………………………….Pages 37
Of Age and Youth by Francis Bacon……………………...……...……………………….Pages 39
My Mother's Blue Bowl by Alice Walker…………...…………...………………………..Pages 41
Ka-Ching! by Margaret Atwood…………………...…...……………...…………………..Pages 44
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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Types of Essays
Being Studied
What is a Persuasive Essay?
Some make a distinction between argument and persuasion. Argument is the term
applied to the logical approach to convincing a person while persuasion is the term
applied to the emotional approach, convincing a person by way of the heart. Stirring an
audience's emotions might involve arousing their anger over an issue, or presenting a
situation that may arouse sadness. Most good writing is a blend of all of these
approaches: to persuade a young audience of the dangers of smoking, a writer may
vividly describe a smoker's lungs, narrate a sad story of a smoker dying of lung cancer,
and logically present statistics on the likelihood of dying young.
Retrieved from: http://pointgrey.vsb.bc.ca/English/gloss/glossery-e.htm
What is an Argumentative Essay?
An argumentative essay attempts to lead the reader to share the writer's belief,
especially through the use of logic, using such devices as inductive or deductive
reasoning, facts, statistics, and so on.
Retrieved from: http://pointgrey.vsb.bc.ca/English/gloss/glossery-e.htm
What is an Expository Essay?
The expository essay is actually one of the most straightforward assignments you will
ever encounter. Its purpose is simply to describe or explain a specific topic to the reader
using factual information. You do not have to develop an argument or prove anything in
an expository essay; you only have to understand your topic and present it to the reader
in a logical, cogent manner. An expository-writing prompt will ask you to describe the
changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, but it will not require you to take a
position on whether the Industrial Revolution had a positive or negative impact.
Retrieved from: http://www.englishessays.org.uk/how-to-write-expository-essay.php
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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What is a Reflective Essay?
This type of essay is aimed to reflect a personal event or experience of the essay
author. The main condition is that it has to be a certain personal experience on which
the author has his very own perception. This experience or even is revealed in the
essay in order to demonstrate its importance for understanding social relations and the
essence of people. It may be said that a reflective essay possess the traits of a
philosophical analysis of different experiences we face in our everyday life. This type of
essay reveals the creativity of the students and their ability to change standard
perception to a unique one, to their own unique perception of social issues.
Retrieved from: http://www.custom-essays.org/essay_types/Reflective_Essay.html
What is an Analytical Essay?
Writing an essay is all about organizing your thoughts. An analytical essay is helpful
when a more full understanding of an examined object is needed. Anything can
become an object of your investigation: an event, a piece of art, or a literary work.
Whatever it is, preparation for writing is important. When an object is chosen, take it
apart, and examine each single part of it thoroughly. Examine your object in its
historical context (if it is a painting, how is it connected to its epoch and artistic
requirements?). Discover the message of the object (what did the author want to say in
an evaluated book, for example).
Retrieved from: http://custom-writing.org/blog/writing-tips/free-essay-writing-tips/122.html
What is a Biographical Essay?
The purpose of a biography is to report on a person’s life in an informative and
entertaining manner. At the end of any biography, the reader should feel that they know
the subject on a personal level. Unfortunately this feat is unachievable because it is
simply not possible to gather and report on every fact in a comprehensive and unbiased
manner, while making it entertaining to the reader. The basic elements of any
biography are a personal knowledge of the subject
Retrieved from: http://www.radessays.com/viewpaper/2233/The_Purpose_of_a_Biography.html
What is a Personal / Narrative Essay?
Usually in the first person point of view, an informal essay on a personal subject; it can
be light and humorous, familiar and intimate in tone, subjective, and so on. The
personal essay can be synonymous with the informal essay.
Retrieved from: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:personal+essay&ei=w2qhSq3GGdyK8QaNq_HaDw&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Essay Froms
Seldom does one of these methods appear alone; however, combining methods
usually occurs naturally, without the writer knowing. In most cases the only from
deliberately chosen by the writer is the MAIN ONE upon which the essay is structured.
Let the SUBJECT be your guide when choosing a form.
1. If the main point is to show your reader what something is like, use example
and description.
2. If the subject is unusual or little is known about it, use comparison and/or
contrast, or an analogy to something that the reader does know.
3. If the parts seem important, discuss them one by one in a classification.
4. If the purpose is to share an experience to understand your point, use
narration.
5. If the purpose is to explain why something happened use cause and effect.
6. If the purpose is to explain how something is done use process analysis.
7. If the purpose is to convince the reader to adopt your point of view use
argumentation and persuasion.
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Essay Modes
NARRATION:
 The most direct way to make a point, in the form of telling a story.
 This essay can be formed by experience, which helps people to accept your
point.
 Indicative of time order; from the first event to the last event.
 In this form, the author is able to choose scope (time), detail, and connections
(next, later, then).
Two types:
FIRST-PERSON NARRATIVE – the subject is known well
- subject is interesting; therefore, one is motivated to write
- the reader appreciates authenticity
THIRD-PERSON NARRATIVE – the subject isn’t limited to oneself
-it tells of the actions of others
-ability to write about vast places or events never experienced by
others.
EXAMPLE:
 Gives one in-depth example that explains the point, or a number of shorter
examples.
 The forms of examples include: personal experience, the experience of others,
hypothetical examples, quotations, statistics, and cause and effect (analogy)
DESCRIPTIVE:
 Provides sensory images (SIGHT, SMELL, HEARING, TOUCH, and TASTE) to
present an idea, event or character
 Re-creates for the reader, your own or someone else’s experience with the
subject.
 Words used are short, strong, emotionally charged and logical; figures of speech
are prevalent
 THESIS – can be an explicit statement, or only implied
 Rhetorical devices: figurative comparison, hyperbole, onomatopoeia
CAUSE AND EFFECT:
 Explains by showing how one situation or event causes another
 Gives reasons and explanations for events, conditions, or behaviour
 The tone must be reasonable, presentation factual and believable
 Sources required to reflect the validity of your paper
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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ANALOGY:
 Comparing two things, using one to explain the other
 These comparisons attempt to illuminate a subject by comparing it to something
that is in many ways unlike the subject
CLASSIFICATION:
 Points made by fitting the parts of the subject into categories
 Subjects are divided into smaller sections to make important distinctions clear
 Categories must be ordered, include essential information, and not overlap
PROCESS ANALYSIS:
 Writing with a specific purpose to show how something happens or how
something is done
 Audience is important – essayist writes according to his/her reader’s level of
knowledge; acts like a teacher
 Information is provided for readers to understand a process; avoids being boring
or condescending
 Delivered in a step-by-step manner
ARGUMENTATION AND PERSUASION:
 To debate an issue, present a reasoned opinion, and to create debate
 Convince reader through logic and/or emotion
Two forms:
DEDUCTION (PREMISE)
-accepts a general principle as true, then applies specific cases
INDUCTION (EVIDENCE)
-observes cases then applies a general rule
-requires an open mind
 Rhetorical devices used: repetition, hyperbole, analogy, climatic parallelism
COMPARISON AND CONTRAST:
 Explains by showing how two or more things are similar or different.
 The subjects or works must be of the same general type (two countries, sports,
poems, etc)
 Uses logical arguments to prove the thesis
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Rhetorical Appeals
Writers of text use various strategies to appeal to their audiences. The three means by
which writers persuade their audience are pathos, ethos, and logos:
Pathos: appeals to emotions, seen through:




Sensory description of a scene
Honorific and pejorative words (often adjectives and adverbs,
but also similes/metaphors and labels that characterize
something as “good” and “bad”)
Examples or anecdotes
Objects of emotion (people, pets, ideas, symbols, etc. that have
emotional connotations
Ethos: appeals to audience’s view of the speaker and subject. A writer uses the
persuasive value of his/her character. He/she creates the impression that he/she is a
person of sound sense, high moral character, and benevolence/good will.
Exhibit good sense:





Have an adequate, if not professionally erudite, grasp of the subject
being talked about
Know and observe the principles of valid reasoning
View a situation in the socially acceptable and audience sensitive
perspective
Read extensively about the issue (and other related issues)
Demonstrate good taste and use discriminating judgment
High moral character:



Display an abhorrence of unscrupulous tactics and specious
reasoning
Respect commonly acknowledged virtues
Integrity must be adamant
Good will


Display a sincere interest in the welfare of the audience
Sacrifice any self-aggrandizement that conflicts with the benefit of
others
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Logos: appeals to reason. A writer uses logical reasoning such as inductive and
deductive reasoning (refer to rhetorical analysis hand out), definition, evidence from
other sources, expert testimony, etc. to appeal to the readers.
Definition: defines or classifies the subject
Deductive reasoning: can either be a syllogism or an enthymeme
Syllogism: consists of major premise (all humans are mortal beings), minor
premise (Eminem is human), and a conclusion (Eminem is a mortal being)
Enthymeme: a syllogism in which one of the premises is suppressed or
assumed. The enthymeme shows that tentative conclusions lead from
probable premises.
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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Methods of Proof
In an essay that attempts to convince the reader of the profoundness of the essayist’s
judgment many methods of proof can be employed. They include:
1. HISTORICAL REFERENCE – historical facts, dates, locations, etc. are included
in one’s writing in order to make it more objective and thereby more believable.
2. ILLUSTRATIONS THAT USE CONTRAST – points are compared (similarities
are stated) and also contrasted (differences are pointed out).
3. STATEMENTS OF OPINION AND PERSONAL BELIEF – essayists present
their own view on certain facts and pass them as statements that should be
believed, or at least considered by the reader. If this method is abused, the
essay will immediately become highly subjective and its credibility and
effectiveness will be negatively affected.
4. LITERARY REFERENCES – names of other books, essays, articles, etc., written
by other people, are included in the essay (intertextuality). Or the essayist’s own
works are cited (intratextuality). It could also mean that characters, situation,
quotes, references, etc. from literary sources in general are included in one’s
essay.
5. APPEAL TO FIGURES OF AUTHORITY – the essayist includes in the essay the
opinion, verdicts, points of view of critics, experts and other professional figures.
6. ATTEMPTS TO DRAW THE READER INTO THE ARGUMENT – the essayist
hooks the reader and then pulls them into the argument of the essay. This can
be easily done by posing rhetorical questions; Ex. And what really makes
education today a task where we all must come together? By asking a question
such as this, the essayist elicits a mental response from the reader.
7. VERIFIABLE FACT – facts, figures, dimensions, locations, formulae, etc. are
given that can be easily double checked by the reader. This adds credibility to
the essay by making it more objective and realistic.
8. ANECDOTE, ANALOGY, FIRST HAND OBSERVATION, HUMOUR/SATIRE
9. APPEAL TO EMOTION – drawing the reader to one’s point of view by appealing
to feelings
* Using these Methods of Proof is an effective way of persuading and convincing the
reader of one’s point of view
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Essay Explication
of
________________________________________________________
by
_________________________________
Thesis: What is the topic? (Be as specific as possible.) Why is it interesting or important
to the reader? What key questions will the topic answer? What does the author want
people to learn, think, believe, or do when they read, listen to, or view his/her work?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Form: Seldom does one of these methods appear alone; however, combining methods
usually occurs naturally, without the writer knowing. In most cases the only from
deliberately chosen by the writer is the MAIN ONE upon which the essay is structured.
Let the SUBJECT be your guide when choosing a form.
A) example/description
D) cause and effect
G) process analysis

B) comparison/contrast, or analogy
E) argumentation/persuasion
C) classification
F) narration
Form ____________________ – ex. __________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).
Essay Mode: “Modes are based on the ways human brains process information.
Choosing the one mode that matches your topic helps you organize your writing and
helps the reader process the information you want to discuss. Using key words that
emphasize the chosen mode helps reinforce your essay's coherence.”
[http://www.daltonstate.edu/esl/Rhetorical%20Modes.htm]
NARRATION
CAUSE AND EFFECT
ARGUMENTATION/PERSUASION
EXAMPLE (Illustration)
ANALOGY
PROCESS ANALYSIS
DESCRIPTIVE
CLASSIFICATION
COMPARISON/CONTRAST
Mode #1:_______________________
Reason:_______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Mode #2:_________________________
Reason:_______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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Rhetorical Devices/Appeals: “Rhetoric is the ancient art of argumentation and discourse. When
we write or speak to convince others of what we believe, we are "rhetors." When we analyze the
way rhetoric works, we are "rhetoricians." The earliest known studies of rhetoric come from the
Golden Age, when philosophers of ancient Greece discussed logos (logic), ethos (ethics), and
pathos (emotion). Writers in the Roman Empire adapted and modified the Greek ideas. Across
the centuries, medieval civilizations also adapted and modified the theories of rhetoric. Even
today, many consider the study of rhetoric a central part of a liberal arts education.”
[http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/resource_rhet.html]

Device #1____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).

Device #2____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).

Device #3____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).

Device #4____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).

Device #5____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).

Device #6____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).

Device #7____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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Methods of Proof: Using these Methods of Proof is an effective way of persuading and
convincing the reader of one’s point of view. While rhetorical devices persuade the reader
stylistically, the author’s methods of proof convince through organization of content. No single
method should be overused. It is a combination of a few of them that makes a significant
difference in good writing.
HISTORICAL REFERENCE
ILLUSTRATIONS THAT USE CONTRAST
STATEMENTS OF OPINION/PERSONAL BELIEF
LITERARY REFERENCES
APPEAL TO FIGURES OF AUTHORITY
VERIFIABLE FACT
ATTEMPTS TO DRAW THE READER INTO THE ARGUMENT
APPEAL TO EMOTION
ANECDOTE, ANALOGY, FIRST HAND OBSERVATION, HUMOUR/SATIRE



Method #1____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).
Method #2____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).
Method #3____________________ – ex.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).
Tone: Tone may be saterical, formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful,
serious, ironic, condescending, or many other possible attitudes…humors, happy, sad,
sarcastic, scared, angry…
Author’s Tone: _________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Speaker’s Tone: ________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________



Example
#1_____________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).
Example
#2_____________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).
Example
#3_____________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________(
).
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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Audience:
Who does the author want to read, listen to, or view his/her work? (Be as specific as
possible.)
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
What kind of impression does the author want to make on his/her audience? How does
the author want people to react to his/her work?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
What is the best form of communication for this audience? (What features would
interest this audience? What would be the appropriate language, tone, and voice for this
audience?)
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
What strategies does the author use to make his/her information clear, interesting, and
memorable to the audience?
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Implications of the Essay / Effectiveness of the Essay:
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Themes:
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Words of Thought:
Rhetorical devices persuade the reader stylistically.
The author’s methods of proof are convincing in terms of content.
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
A Modest Proposal
by
Jonathan Swift
FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING
A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM
BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC
IT is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the
country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars
of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning
every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their
honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for
their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave
their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the
Barbadoes.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or
on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the
present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and,
therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these
children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the
public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of
professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of
infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as
those who demand our charity in the streets.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important
subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always
found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its
dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment; at most
not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps,
by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to
provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or
the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the
contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands.
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those
voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children,
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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alas! too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid
the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and
inhuman breast.
The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of
these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are
breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to
maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the
present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred
and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who
miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only
remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The
question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I
have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the
methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture;
we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom
pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except where they are of
towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which
time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been
informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he
never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the
kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.
I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable
commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three
pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn
to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having
been at least four times that value.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to
the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a
young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and
wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it
will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty
thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed,
whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black
cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage,
a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient
to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be
offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always
advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them
plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a
reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the
fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a
solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as
they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the
children.
Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a
little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician,
that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries
about nine months after Lent than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after
Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish infants
is at least three to one in this kingdom: and therefore it will have one other collateral
advantage, by lessening the number of papists among us.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all
cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum,
rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the
carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent
nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with
him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his
tenants; the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work till she
produces another child.
Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass;
the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer
boots for fine gentlemen.
As to our city of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this purpose in the most
convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I
rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as
we do roasting pigs.
A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem,
was lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement upon my scheme.
He said that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he
conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads
and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age nor under twelve; so great a number
of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of work and service;
and these to be disposed of by their parents, if alive, or otherwise by their nearest
relations. But with due deference to so excellent a friend and so deserving a patriot, I
cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my American acquaintance
Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
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assured me, from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean,
like that of our schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; and to
fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think, with
humble submission be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders
themselves; and besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt
to censure such a practice (although indeed very unjustly), as a little bordering upon
cruelty; which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any
project, however so well intended.
But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head
by the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to
London above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country
when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass
to persons of quality as a prime dainty; and that in his time the body of a plump girl of
fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor, was sold to his imperial
majesty's prime minister of state, and other great mandarins of the court, in joints from
the gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were
made of several plump young girls in this town, who without one single groat to their
fortunes cannot stir abroad without a chair, and appear at playhouse and assemblies in
foreign fineries which they never will pay for, the kingdom would not be the worse.
Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of
poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ
my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an
encumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well
known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and
vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are
now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for
want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to
common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and
themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.
I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the
advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the
highest importance. For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the
number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the
nation as well as our most dangerous enemies; and who stay at home on purpose with
a design to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the
absence of so many good protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country
than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.
Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law
may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle
being already seized, and money a thing unknown.
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Thirdly, Whereas the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old
and upward, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a-piece per annum, the
nation's stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum, beside the
profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom
who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the
goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.
Fourthly, The constant breeders, beside the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by
the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.
Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns; where the vintners will
certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection, and
consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value
themselves upon their knowledge in good eating: and a skilful cook, who understands
how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.
Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have
either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the
care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a
settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual
profit instead of expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married
women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as
fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in
foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick
them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.
Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some
thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh,
and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the
great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are no way comparable in
taste or magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make
a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this
and many others I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for
Infant's Flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at
weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty
thousand carcasses, and the rest of the Kingdom (where probably they will be sold
somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty thousand.
I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless
it should be urged, that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the
Kingdom. This I freely own, and 'twas indeed one principal design in offering it to the
world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate my remedy for this one individual
kingdom of Ireland, and for no other that ever was, is, or I think, ever can be upon Earth.
Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our absentees at five
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shillings a pound: of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our
own growth and manufacture: of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that
promote foreign luxury: of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and
gaming in our women: of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance: of
learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the
inhabitants of Topinamboo: of quitting our animosities, and factions, nor act any longer
like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken:
of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: of teaching
our landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly, of
putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shop-keepers, who, if a resolution
could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and
exact upon us in the price, the measure and the goodness, nor could ever yet be
brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to
it.
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at
least some glimpse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to
put them into practice.
But as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle,
visionary thoughts, and at length despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this
proposal, which as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expense
and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in
disobliging England. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh being
of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I
could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it.
After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed
by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But
before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and
offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two
points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an
hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round
million of creatures in human figure throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence
put into a common stock would leave them in debt two millions of pounds sterling,
adding those who are beggars by profession to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, and
laborers, with their wives and children who are beggars in effect: I desire those
politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold as to attempt an
answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at
this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food, at a year old in the
manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes as
they have since gone through by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying
rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor
clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable
prospect of entailing the like or greater miseries upon their breed for ever.
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I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in
endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public
good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and
giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by which I can propose to get a
single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Politics and the English
Language
by
George Orwell
Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is
in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do
anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs
— must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the
abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or
hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that
language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own
purposes.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and
economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual
writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing
the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink
because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because
he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It
becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of
our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the
process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits
which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the
necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think
clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against
bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will
come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have
said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English
language as it is now habitually written.
These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad — I
could have quoted far worse if I had chosen — but because they illustrate various of the
mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are
fairly representative examples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when
necessary:
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1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed
not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever
more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing
could induce him to tolerate.
Professor Harold Laski (Essay in Freedom of Expression)
2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which
prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or
put at a loss for bewilder.
Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia)
3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has
neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are
just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another
institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is
natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side, the social bond itself
is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition
of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this
hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?
Essay on psychology in Politics (New York)
4. All the ‘best people’ from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains,
united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass
revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to
medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian
organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf
of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.
Communist pamphlet
5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and
contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and
galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul.
The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's
roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream —
as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be
traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham
Place, brazenly masquerading as ‘standard English’. When the Voice of Britain is heard
at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped
than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless
bashful mewing maidens!
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Letter in Tribune
Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness,
two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is
lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he
inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words
mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most
marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political
writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no
one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less
and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases
tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house. I list below, with notes
and examples, various of the tricks by means of which the work of prose-construction is
habitually dodged.
DYING METAPHORS. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual
image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically ‘dead’ (e. g. iron
resolution) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used
without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of
worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because
they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring
the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand
shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing
in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles’ heel, swan song, hotbed. Many of
these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a ‘rift’, for instance?), and
incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not
interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of
their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. For
example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the
hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst
of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about:
a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original
phrase.
OPERATORS OR VERBAL FALSE LIMBS. These save the trouble of picking out
appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra
syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render
inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give
grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect,
exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of
simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a
verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some generalpurpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is
wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used
instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is
further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are
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given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple
conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having
regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that;
and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces
as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in
the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion,
and so on and so forth.
PRETENTIOUS DICTION. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun),
objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit,
exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an
air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic,
historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to
dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying
war usually takes on an archaic colour, its characteristic words being: realm, throne,
chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion. Foreign
words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis
mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung, are used to give an air of
culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i. e., e. g. and etc., there is no
real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English
language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are
nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon
ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous,
deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground
from their Anglo-Saxon numbers(1). The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena,
hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White
Guard, etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but
the normal way of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate
affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier to make up words of
this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than
to think up the English words that will cover one's meaning. The result, in general, is an
increase in slovenliness and vagueness.
MEANINGLESS WORDS. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and
literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely
lacking in meaning(2). Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental,
natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they
not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so
by the reader. When one critic writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its
living quality’, while another writes, ‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is
its peculiar deadness’, the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words
like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he
would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political
words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as
it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom,
patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be
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reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no
agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost
universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently
the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they
might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of
this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses
them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something
quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is
the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost
always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most
cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive,
reactionary, bourgeois, equality.
Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another
example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an
imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English
of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet
favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that
success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate
with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must
invariably be taken into account.
This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains
several patches of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full
translation. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly
closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations — race, battle, bread — dissolve into
the vague phrases ‘success or failure in competitive activities’. This had to be so,
because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing — no one capable of using
phrases like ‘objective considerations of contemporary phenomena’ — would ever
tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern
prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more
closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are
those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables:
eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence
contains six vivid images, and only one phrase (‘time and chance’) that could be called
vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its
ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first.
Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern
English. I do not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and
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outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I
were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably
come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes.
As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words
for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning
clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been
set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.
The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier — even quicker, once
you have the habit — to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than
to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't have to hunt about for
the words; you also don't have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these
phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are
composing in a hurry — when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or
making a public speech — it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like
a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of
us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By
using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of
leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the
significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual
image. When these images clash — as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song,
the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot — it can be taken as certain that the writer is
not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really
thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor
Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making
nonsense of the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip — alien for akin —
making further nonsense, and several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase
the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery
which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase put
up with, is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what it means; (3), if
one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one could
work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In
(4), the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale
phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have
almost parted company. People who write in this manner usually have a general
emotional meaning — they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another
— but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer,
in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I
trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is
this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more:
Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not
obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and
letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. The will construct your sentences for
you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will
perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It
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is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of
language becomes clear.
In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will
generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions
and not a ‘party line’. Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless,
imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles,
manifestos, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary
from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh,
vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform
mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained
tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a
curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a
feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the
speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes
behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of
phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The
appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would
be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is
accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is
saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of
consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.
Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations,
the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by
arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with
the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely
of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are
bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle
machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.
Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no
more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.
People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to
die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.
Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental
pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending
Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, ‘I believe in killing off your opponents
when you can get good results by doing so’. Probably, therefore, he will say something
like this:
‘While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the
humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain
curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of
transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called
upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.’
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The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the
facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy
of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's
declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms,
like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of
politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly,
hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.
I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify
— that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten
or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can
spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.
The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient.
Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no
good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a
continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. Look back through
this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very
faults I am protesting against. By this morning's post I have received a pamphlet dealing
with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he ‘felt impelled’ to write it. I open it
at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: ‘[The Allies] have an opportunity
not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany's social and political structure
in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time
of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe.’ You see, he ‘feels
impelled’ to write — feels, presumably, that he has something new to say — and yet his
words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the
familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases (lay the
foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly
on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain.
I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny
this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects
existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct
tinkering with words and constructions. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language
goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have often
disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of
a minority. Two recent examples were explore every avenue and leave no stone
unturned, which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists. There is a long list of
flyblown metaphors which could similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest
themselves in the job; and it should also be possible to laugh the not un- formation out
of existence(3), to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, to
drive out foreign phrases and strayed scientific words, and, in general, to make
pretentiousness unfashionable. But all these are minor points. The defence of the
English language implies more than this, and perhaps it is best to start by saying what it
does not imply.
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To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words
and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a ‘standard English’ which must never be
departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every
word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct
grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning
clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a ‘good
prose style’. On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt
to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the
Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words
that will cover one's meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the
word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is
surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then,
if you want to describe the thing you have been visualising you probably hunt about until
you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you
are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort
to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the
expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using
words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures
and sensations. Afterward one can choose — not simply accept — the phrases that will
best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's
words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale
or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and
vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a
phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following
rules will cover most cases:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to
seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of
an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of
attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One
could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff
that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.
I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as
an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase
and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and
have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't
know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow
such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is
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connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some
improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed
from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and
when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political
language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to
Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to
give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment,
but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if
one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot,
Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal
refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs.
1946
_____
1) An interesting illustration of this is the way in which the English flower names which
were in use till very recently are being ousted by Greek ones, snapdragon becoming
antirrhinum, forget-me-not becoming myosotis, etc. It is hard to see any practical reason
for this change of fashion: it is probably due to an instinctive turning-awayfrom the more
homely word and a vague feeling that the Greek word is scientific.
2) Example: ‘Comfort's catholicity of perception and image, strangely Whitmanesque in
range, almost the exact opposite in aesthetic compulsion, continues to evoke that
trembling atmospheric accumulative ginting at a cruel, an inexorably selene
timelessness... Wrey Gardiner scores by aiming at simple bull's-eyes with precision.
Only they are not so simple, and through this contented sadness runs more than the
surface bitter-sweet of resignation’. (Poetry Quarterly.)
3) One can cure oneself of the not un- formation by memorizing this sentence: A not
unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.
THE END
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Portrait of the Essay as
a Warm Body
by
Cynthia Ozick
An essay is a thing of the imagination. If there is information in an essay, it is by-the-by,
and if there is an opinion, one need not trust it for the long run. A genuine essay rarely
has an educational, polemical, or sociopolitical use; it is the movement of a free mind at
play. Though it is written in prose, it is closer in kind to poetry than to any other form.
Like a poem, a genuine essay is made of language and character and mood and
temperament and pluck and chance.
And if I speak of a "genuine" essay because fakes abound. Here the old-fashioned term
poetaster may apply, if only obliquely. As the poetaster is to the poet -- a lesser aspirant
-- so the average article is to the essay: a look-alike knockoff guaranteed not to wear
well. An article is often gossip. An essay is reflection and insight. An article often has
the temporary advantage of social heat -- what's hot out there right now. An essay's
heat is interior. An article can be timely, topical, engaged in the issues and personalities
of the moment; it is likely to be stale within the month. In five years it may have acquired
the quaint aura of a rotary phone. An article is usually Siamese-twinned to its date of
birth. An essay defies its date of birth -- and ours, too. (A necessary caveat: some
genuine essays are popularly called "articles" -- but this is no more than an idle, though
persistent, habit of speech. What's in a name? The ephemeral is the ephemeral. The
enduring is the enduring.)
A small historical experiment. Who are the classic essayists who come at once to mind?
Montaigne, obviously. Among the nineteenth-century English masters, the long row of
Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey, Stevenson, Carlyle, Ruskin, Newman, Martineau, Arnold. Of
the Americans, Emerson. Nowadays, admittedly, these are read only by specialists and
literature majors, and by the latter only under compulsion. However accurate this
observation, it is irrelevant to the experiment, which has to do with beginnings and their
disclosures. Here, then, are some introductory passages:
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I
can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am
then never less alone than when alone.
--William Hazlitt, "On Going a Journey"
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To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I
am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be
alone, let him look at the stars.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature"
. . . I have often been asked, how I first came to be a regular opium-eater; and have
suffered, very unjustly, in the opinion of my acquaintance, from being reputed to have
brought upon myself all the sufferings which I shall have to record, by a long course of
indulgence in this practice purely for the sake of creating an artificial state of
pleasurable excitement. This, however, is a misrepresentation of my case.
--Thomas De Quincey, "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater"
The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two
distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend.
--Charles Lamb, "The Two Races of Men"
I saw two hareems in the East; and it would be wrong to pass them over in an account
of my travels; though the subject is as little agreeable as any I can have to treat. I
cannot now think of the two mornings thus employed without a heaviness of heart
greater than I have ever brought away from Deaf and Dumb Schools, Lunatic Asylums,
or even Prisons.
--Harriet Martineau, "The Hareem"
The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high
destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not
a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be
questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve.... But for
poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion.
-- Matthew Arnold, "The Study of Poetry"
The changes wrought by death are in themselves so sharp and final, and so terrible and
melancholy in their consequences, that the thing stands alone in man's experience, and
has no parallel upon earth. It outdoes all other accidents because it is the last of them.
Sometimes it leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug; sometimes it lays a regular
siege and creeps upon their citadel during a score of years. And when the business is
done, there is sore havoc made in other people's lives, and a pin knocked out by which
many subsidiary friendships hung together.
--Robert Louis Stevenson, "Aes Triplex"
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It is recorded of some people, as of Alexander the Great, that their sweat, in
consequence of some rare and extraordinary constitution, emitted a sweet odour, the
cause of which Plutarch and others investigated. But the nature of most bodies is the
opposite, and at their best they are free from smell. Even the purest breath has nothing
more excellent than to be without offensive odour, like that of very healthy children.
-- Michel de Montaigne, "Of Smells"
What might such a little anthology of beginnings reveal? First, that language differs from
one era to the next: archaism intrudes, if only in punctuation and cadence. Second, that
splendid minds may contradict each other (outdoors, Hazlitt never feels alone; Emerson
urges others to go outdoors in order to feel alone). Third, that the theme of an essay
can be anything under the sun, however trivial (the smell of sweat) or crushing (the
thought that we must die). Fourth, that the essay is a consistently recognizable and
venerable -- or call it ancient -- form. In English, Addison and Steele in the eighteenth
century, Bacon and Browne in the seventeenth, Lyly in the sixteenth, Bede in the eighth.
And what of the biblical Koheleth (Ecclesiastes), who may be the oldest essayist
reflecting on one of the oldest subjects -- world-weariness?
So the essay is ancient and various; but this is a commonplace. Something else, more
striking yet, catches our attention -- the essay's power. By "power" I mean precisely the
capacity to do what force always does: coerce assent. Never mind that the shape and
inclination of any essay is against coercion or suasion, or that the essay neither
proposes nor purposes to get us to think like its author -- at least not overtly. If an essay
has a "motive," it is linked more to happenstance and opportunity than to the driven will.
A genuine essay is not a doctrinaire tract or a propaganda effort or a broadside.
Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" and Emile Zola's "J'Accuse ... !" are heroic landmark
writings; but to call them essays, though they may resemble the form, is to
misunderstand. The essay is not meant for the barricades; it is a stroll through
someone's mazy mind. This is not to say that no essayist has ever been intent on
making a moral argument, however obliquely -- George Orwell is a case in point. At the
end of the day the essay turns out to be a force for agreement. It co-opts agreement; it
courts agreement; it seduces agreement. For the brief hour we give to it, we are sure to
fall into surrender and conviction. And this will occur even if we are intrinsically roused
to resistance.
To illustrate: I may not be persuaded by Emersonianism as an ideology, but Emerson -his voice, his language, his music -- persuades me. When we look for words of praise,
not for nothing do we speak of "commanding" or "compelling" prose. If I am a skeptical
rationalist or an advanced biochemist, I may regard (or discard) the idea of the soul as
no better than a puff of warm vapor. But here is Emerson on the soul: "When it breathes
through [man's] intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through his will, it is virtue; when
it flows through his affection, it is love." And then -- well, I am in thrall; I am possessed; I
believe.
The novel has its own claims on surrender. It suspends our participation in the society
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we ordinarily live in, so that for the time we are reading, we forget it utterly. But the
essay does not allow us to forget our usual sensations and opinions. It does something
even more potent: it makes us deny them. The authority of a masterly essayist -- the
authority of sublime language and intimate observation -- is absolute. When I am with
Hazlitt, I know no greater companion than nature. When I am with Emerson, I know no
greater solitude than nature.
And what is oddest about the essay's power to lure us into its lair is how it goes about
this work. We feel it when a political journalist comes after us with a point of view -- we
feel it the way the cat is wary of the dog. A polemic is a herald, complete with feathered
hat and trumpet. A tract can be a trap. Certain magazine articles have the scent of so
much per word. What is indisputable is that all of these are more or less in the position
of a lepidopterist with his net: they mean to catch and skewer. They are focused on prey
-- us. The genuine essay, in contrast, never thinks of us; the genuine essay may be the
most self-centered (the politer word would be subjective) arena for human thought ever
devised.
Or else, though still not having us in mind (unless as an embodiment of common folly), it
is not self-centered at all. When I was a child, I discovered in the public library a book
that enchanted me then, and the idea of which has enchanted me for life. I have no
recollection of either the title or the writer -- and anyhow, very young readers rarely take
note of authors; stories are simply and magically there. The characters include, as I
remember them, three or four children and a delightful relation who is a storyteller, and
the scheme is this: each child calls out a story element, most often an object, and the
storyteller gathers up whatever is supplied (blue boots, a river, a fairy, a pencil box) and
makes out of these random, unlikely, and disparate offerings a tale both logical and
surprising. An essay, it seems to me, may be similarly constructed -- if so deliberate a
term applies. The essayist, let us say, unexpectedly stumbles over a pair of old blue
boots in a corner of the garage, and this reminds her of when she last wore them -twenty years ago, on a trip to Paris, where on the bank of the Seine she stopped to
watch an old fellow sketching, with a box of colored pencils at his side. The pencil
wiggling over his sheet is a grayish pink, which reflects the threads of sunset pulling
westward in the sky, like the reins of a fairy cart ... and so on. The mind meanders,
slipping from one impression to another, from reality to memory to dreamscape and
back again.
In the same way Montaigne, when contemplating the unpleasantness of sweat, ends
with the pure breath of children. Stevenson, starting out with mortality, speaks first of
ambush, then of war, and finally of a displaced pin. No one is freer than the essayist -free to leap out in any direction, to hop from thought to thought, to begin with the finish
and finish with the middle, or to eschew beginning and end and keep only a middle. The
marvel is that out of this apparent causelessness, out of this scattering of idiosyncratic
seeing and telling, a coherent world is made. It is coherent because, after all, an
essayist must be an artist, and every artist, whatever the means, arrives at a sound and
singular imaginative frame -- call it, on a minor scale, a cosmogony.
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And it is into this frame, this work of art, we tumble like tar babies, and are held fast.
What holds us there? The authority of a voice, yes; the pleasure -- sometimes the
anxiety -- of a new idea, an untried angle, a snatch of reminiscence, bliss displayed or
shock conveyed. An essay can be the product of intellect or memory, lightheartedness
or gloom, well-being or disgruntlement. But always we sense a certain quietude, on
occasion a kind of detachment. Rage and revenge, I think, belong to fiction. The essay
is cooler than that. Because it so often engages in acts of memory, and despite its
gladder or more antic incarnations, the essay is by and large a serene or melancholic
form. It mimics that low electric hum, which sometimes rises to resemble actual speech,
that all human beings carry inside their heads -- a vibration, garrulous if somewhat
indistinct, that never leaves us while we are awake. It is the hum of perpetual noticing:
the configuration of someone's eyelid or tooth, the veins on a hand, a wisp of string
caught on a twig; some words your fourth-grade teacher said, so long ago, about the
rain; the look of an awning, a sidewalk, a bit of cheese left on a plate. All day long this
inescapable hum drums on, recalling one thing and another, and pointing out this and
this and this. Legend has it that Titus, Emperor of Rome, went mad because of the
buzzing of a gnat that made her home in his ear; and presumably the gnat, flying out
into the great world and then returning to her nest, whispered what she had seen and
felt and learned there. But an essayist is more resourceful than an Emperor, and can be
relieved of this interior noise, if only for the time required to record its murmurings. To
seize the hum and set it down for others to hear is the essayist's genius.
It is a genius bound to leisure, and even to luxury, if luxury is measured in hours. The
essay's limits can be found in its own reflective nature. Poems have been wrested from
the inferno of catastrophe or war, and battlefield letters, too; these are the spontaneous
bursts and burnings that danger excites. But the meditative temperateness of an essay
requires a desk and a chair, a musing and a mooning, a connection to a civilized
surround; even when the subject itself is a wilderness of lions and tigers, mulling is the
way of it. An essay is a fireside thing, not a conflagration or a safari.
This may be why, when we ask who the essayists are, we discover that though
novelists may now and then write essays, true essayists rarely write novels. Essayists
are a species of metaphysician: they are inquisitive, and analytic, about the least grain
of being. Novelists go about the strenuous business of marrying and burying their
people, or else they send them to sea, or to Africa, or at the least out of town. Essayists
in their stillness ponder love and death. It is probably an illusion that men are essayists
more often than women, especially since women's essays have in the past frequently
assumed the form of unpublished correspondence. (Here I should, I suppose, add a
note about maleness and femaleness as a literary issue -- what is popularly termed
"gender," as if men and women were French or German tables and sofas. I should add
such a note -- it is the fashion, or, rather, the current expectation or obligation -- but
nothing useful can be said about any of it.) Essays are written by men. Essays are
written by women. That is the long and the short of it. John Updike, in a genially
confident discourse on maleness ("The Disposable Rocket"), takes the view -- though
he admits to admixture -- that the "male sense of space must differ from that of the
female, who has such interesting, active, and significant inner space. The space that
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interests men is outer." Except, let it be observed, when men write essays, since it is
only inner space -- interesting, active, significant -- that can conceive and nourish the
contemplative essay. The "ideal female body," Updike adds, "curves around centers of
repose," and no phrase could better describe the shape of the ideal essay -- yet women
are no fitter as essayists than men. In promoting the felt salience of sex, Updike
nevertheless drives home an essayist's point. Essays, unlike novels, emerge from the
sensations of the self. Fiction creeps into foreign bodies: the novelist can inhabit not
only a sex not his own but also beetles and noses and hunger artists and nomads and
beasts. The essay is, as we say, personal.
And here is an irony. Though I have been intent on distinguishing the marrow of the
essay from the marrow of fiction, I confess that I have been trying all along, in a
subliminal way, to speak of the essay as if it -- or she -- were a character in a novel or a
play: moody, fickle, given to changing her clothes, or the subject, on a whim; sometimes
obstinate, with a mind of her own, or hazy and light; never predictable. I mean for her to
be dressed -- and addressed -- as we would Becky Sharp, or Ophelia, or Elizabeth
Bennet, or Mrs. Ramsay, or Mrs. Wilcox, or even Hester Prynne. Put it that it is
pointless to say (as I have done repeatedly, disliking it every time) "the essay," or "an
essay." The essay -- an essay -- is not an abstraction; she may have recognizable
contours, but she is highly colored and individuated; she is not a type. She is too fluid,
too elusive, to be a category. She may be bold, she may be diffident, she may rely on
beauty or cleverness, on eros or exotica. Whatever her story, she is the protagonist, the
secret self's personification. When we knock on her door, she opens to us; she is a
presence in the doorway; she leads us from room to room. Then why should we not call
her "she"? She may be privately indifferent to us, but she is anything but unwelcoming.
Above all, she is not a hidden principle or a thesis or a construct: she is there, a living
voice. She takes us in.
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
The Death of the Moth
by
Virginia Woolf
Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that
pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy–blossom which the commonest yellow–
underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us. They are hybrid
creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor sombre like their own species. Nevertheless
the present specimen, with his narrow hay–coloured wings, fringed with a tassel of the
same colour, seemed to be content with life. It was a pleasant morning, mid–
September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months.
The plough was already scoring the field opposite the window, and where the share had
been, the earth was pressed flat and gleamed with moisture. Such vigour came rolling
in from the fields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly
turned upon the book. The rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities;
soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots
in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon
the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it. Then, suddenly, the net
would be thrown into the air again in a wider circle this time, with the utmost clamour
and vociferation, as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down upon the
tree tops were a tremendously exciting experience.
The same energy which inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, and even, it
seemed, the lean bare–backed downs, sent the moth fluttering from side to side of his
square of the window–pane. One could not help watching him. One was, indeed,
conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him. The possibilities of pleasure seemed that
morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life, and a day
moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meagre opportunities
to the full, pathetic. He flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after
waiting there a second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a
third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the
downs, the width of the sky, the far–off smoke of houses, and the romantic voice, now
and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as
if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into
his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a
thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.
Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at
the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in
my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something marvellous as
well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and
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decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig–
zagging to show us the true nature of life. Thus displayed one could not get over the
strangeness of it. One is apt to forget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and
garnished and cumbered so that it has to move with the greatest circumspection and
dignity. Again, the thought of all that life might have been had he been born in any other
shape caused one to view his simple activities with a kind of pity.
After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge in the sun,
and, the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then, looking up, my eye
was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or
so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the window–pane; and when he
tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent on other matters I watched these futile
attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight,
as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without
considering the reason of its failure. After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from
the wooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings, on to his back on the window sill. The
helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he
could no longer raise himself; his legs struggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil,
meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness
were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.
The legs agitated themselves once more. I looked as if for the enemy against which he
struggled. I looked out of doors. What had happened there? Presumably it was midday,
and work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous
animation. The birds had taken themselves off to feed in the brooks. The horses stood
still. Yet the power was there all the same, massed outside indifferent, impersonal, not
attending to anything in particular. Somehow it was opposed to the little hay–coloured
moth. It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the extraordinary
efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen,
have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing,
I knew, had any chance against death. Nevertheless after a pause of exhaustion the
legs fluttered again. It was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at
last in righting himself. One’s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life. Also,
when there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an
insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else
valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely. Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure
bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the
unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew
stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked
at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an
antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so
death was now as strange. The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and
uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Of Youth and Age
by
Francis Bacon
A man that is young in years, may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. But
that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the
second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. And yet the invention of
young men, is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds
better, and, as it were, more divinely. Natures that have much heat, and great and
violent desires and perturbations, are not ripe for action, till they have passed the
meridian of their years; as it was with Julius Caesar and Septimius Severus. Of the
latter, of whom it is said, Juventutem egit erroribus, imo furoribus, plenam. And yet he
was the ablest emperor, almost, of all the list. But reposed natures may do well in youth.
As it is seen in Augustus Caesar, Cosmus Duke of Florence, Gaston de Foix, and
others. On the other side, heat and vivacity in age, is an excellent composition for
business. Young men are fitter to invent, than to judge; fitter for execution, than for
counsel; and fitter for new projects, than for settled business. For the experience of age,
in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new things, abuseth
them.
The errors of young men, are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men,
amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the
conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they
can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some
few principles, which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which
draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth
all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither
stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent
too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves
with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for
that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age, may correct the
defects of both; and good for succession, that young men may be learners, while men in
age are actors; and, lastly, good for extern accidents, because authority followeth old
men, and favor and popularity, youth. But for the moral part, perhaps youth will have the
pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabbin, upon the text, Your young
men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, inferreth that young men,
are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision, is a clearer revelation, than a
dream. And certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth; and
age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding, than in the virtues of the will and
affections. There be some, have an over-early ripeness in their years, which fadeth
betimes. These are, first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned;
such as was Hermogenes the rhetorician, whose books are exceeding subtle; who
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afterwards waxed stupid. A second sort, is of those that have some natural dispositions
which have better grace in youth, than in age; such as is a fluent and luxuriant speech;
which becomes youth well, but not age: so Tully saith of Hortensius, Idem manebat,
neque idem decebat. The third is of such, as take too high a strain at the first, and are
magnanimous, more than tract of years can uphold. As was Scipio Africanus, of whom
Livy saith in effect, Ultima primis cedebant.
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
My Mother’s Blue
Bowl
by
Alice Walker
Visitors to my house are often served food—soup, potatoes, rice—in a large blue
stoneware bowl, noticeably chipped at the rim. It is perhaps the most precious thing I
own. It was given to me by my mother in her last healthy days. The days before a
massive stroke laid her low and left her almost speechless. Those days when to visit
her was to be drawn into a serene cocoon of memories and present-day musings and to
rest there, in temporary retreat from the rest of the world, as if still an infant, nodding
and secure at her breast.
For much of her life my mother longed, passionately longed, for a decent house.
One with a yard that did not have to be cleared with an ax. One with a roof that kept out
the rain. One with a floor that you would not fall through. She longed for a beautiful
house of wood or stone. Or of red brick, like the houses her many sisters and their
husbands had. When I was thirteen she found such a house. Green-shuttered, whitewalled. Breezy. With a lawn and a hedge and giant pecan trees. A porch swing. There
her gardens flourished in spite of the shade, as did her youngest daughter, for whom
she sacrificed her life doing hard labor in someone else’s house, in order to afford
peace and prettiness for her child, to whose grateful embrace she returned each night.
But, curiously, the minute I left home, at seventeen, to attend college, she
abandoned the dream house and moved into the projects. Into a small, tight apartment
of few breezes, in which I was never to feel comfortable, but that she declared suited
her “to a T.” I took solace in the fact that it was at least hugged by spacious lawn on one
side, and by forest, out the back door, and that its isolated position at the end of the
street meant she would have a measure of privacy.
Her move into the projects—the best housing poor black people in the South
ever had, she would occasionally declare, even as my father struggled to adjust to the
cramped rooms and hard, unforgiving qualities of brick—was, I now understand, a step
in the direction of divestiture, lightening her load, permitting her worldly possessions to
dwindle in significance and, well before she herself would turn to spirit, roll away from
her.
She owned little, in fact. A bed, a dresser, some chairs. A set of living-room
furniture. A set of kitchen furniture. A bed and wardrobe (given to her years before,
when I was a teenager, by one of her prosperous sisters). Her flowers: everywhere,
inside the house and outside. Planted in anything she managed to get her green hands
on, including old suitcases and abandoned shoes. She recycled everything, effortlessly.
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And gradually she had only a small amount of stuff—mostly stuff her children gave her:
nightgowns, perfume, a microwave—to recycle or to use.
Each time I visited her I marveled at the modesty of her desires. She appeared to
have hardly any, beyond a thirst for a Pepsi-Cola or a hunger for a piece of fried chicken
or fish. On every visit I noticed that more and more of what I remembered of her
possessions seemed to be missing. One day I commented on this.
Taking a deep breath, sighing and following both with a beaming big smile, which
lit up her face, the room, and my heart, she said: Yes, it’s all going. I don’t need it
anymore. If there’s anything you want, take it when you leave; it might not be here when
you come back.
The dishes my mother and father used daily had come from my house; I had sent
them years before, when I moved from Mississippi to New York. Neither the plates nor
the silver matched entirely, but it was all beautiful in her eyes. There were numerous
cups, used by the scores of children from the neighborhood who continued throughout
her life to come and go. But there was nothing there for me to want.
One day, however, looking for a jar into which to pour leftover iced tea, I
found myself probing deep into the wilderness of the overstuffed, airless pantry. Into
the land of the old-fashioned, the outmoded, the outdated. The humble and the
obsolete. There was a smoothing iron, a churn. A butter press. And two large bowls.
One was cream and rose with a blue stripe. The other was a deep, vivid blue.
May I have this bowl, Mama? I asked, looking at her and at the blue bowl with
delight.
You can have both of them, she said, barely acknowledging them, and continuing
to put leftover food away.
I held the bowls on my lap for the rest of the evening, while she watched a TV
program about cops and criminals that I found too horrifying to follow.
Before leaving the room I kissing her on the forehead and asked if I could get
anything for her from the kitchen; then I went off to bed. The striped bowl I placed on a
chair beside the door, so I could look at it from where I lay. The blue bowl I placed in the
bed with me.
In giving me these gifts, my mother had done a number of astonishing things, in
her typically offhand way. She had taught me a lesson about letting go of possessions—
easily, without emphasis or regret—and she had given me a symbol of what she herself
represented in my life.
For the blue bowl especially was a cauldron of memories. Of cold, harsh,
wintry days, when my brothers and sister and I trudged home from school burdened
down by the silence and frigidity of our long trek from the main road, down the hill to
our shabby-looking house. More rundown than any of our classmates’ houses. In
winter my mother’s riotous flowers would be absent, and the shack stood revealed
for what it was. A gray, decaying, too small barrack meant to house the itinerant
tenant workers on a prosperous white man’s farm.
Slogging through sleet and wind to the sagging front door, thankful that our
house was too far from the road to be seen clearly from the school bus, I always felt a
wave of embarrassment and misery. But then I would open the door. And there inside
would be my mother’s winter flowers: a glowing fire in the fireplace, colorful handmade
quilts on all our beds, paintings and drawings of flowers and fruits and, yes, of Jesus,
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given to her by who knows whom—and most of all, there in the center of the roughhewn table, which in the tiny kitchen almost touched the rusty woodburning stove, stood
the big blue bowl, full of whatever was the most tasty thing on earth.
There was my mother herself. Glowing. Her teeth sparkling. Her eyes twinkling.
As if she lived in a castle and her favorite princes and princesses had just dropped by to
visit.
The blue bowl stood there, seemingly full forever, no matter how deeply or
rapaciously we dipped, as if it had no bottom. And she dipped up soup. Dipped up lima
beans. Dipped up stew. Forked out potatoes. Spooned out rice and peas and corn. And
in the light and warmth that was her, we dined.
Thank you, Mama.
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Ka-Ching!
by
Margaret Atwood
I’ll pass over the mini-jobs of adolescence – the summer-camp stints that were more
like getting paid for having fun. I’ll pass over too, the self created pin-money generators
– the puppet shows put on for kids at office Christmas parties, the serigraph posters
turned out on the ping-pong table – and turn to my first real job. By “real job,” I mean
one that had nothing to do with friends of my parents or parents of my friends but was
obtained in the adult manner, by looking through the ads in newspapers and going in to
be interviewed – one for which I was entirely unsuited, and that I wouldn’t have done
except for the money. I was surprised when I got it, underpaid while doing it, and
frustrated in the performance of it, and these qualities have remained linked, for me, to
the ominous word “job.”
The year as 1962, the place was Toronto. It was summer, and I was faced with the
necessity of earning the difference between my scholarship for the next year and what it
would cost me to live. The job was in the coffee shop of a small hotel on Avenue Road;
it is now in the process of being torn down, but at that time it was clean, well-lighted
place, with booths along one side an a counter – possibly marble – down the other. The
booths were served by a waitressing pro who lipsticked outside the lines, and who
thought I was a mutant. My job would be serving things at the counter – coffee I would
pour, toast I would create from bread, milkshakes I would whip up in the obstetrical
stainless-steel device provided. (“easy as pie,” I was told.) I would also be running the
customer’s money through the cash register – an opaque machine with buttons to be
pushed, little drawers that shot in and out, and a neurotic system of locks.
I said I had never worked a cash register before. This delighted the manager, a plump,
unctuous character out of some novel I hadn’t yet read. He said the cash register, too,
was easy as pie, and I would catch onto it in no time, as I was a smart girl with an M.A.
He said I should go and get myself a white dress.
I didn’t know what he meant by “white dress.” I bought the first thing I could find on
sale, a nylon afternoon number with daisies appliquéd onto the bodice. The waitress
told me this would not do: I needed a dress like her uniform. (“How dense can you be?”
I overheard her saying.) I got the uniform, but I had to go through the first day in my
nylon daisies.
This first humiliation set the tone. The coffee was easy enough – I just had to keep the
Bunn filled – and the milkshakes were possible; few people wanted them anyway. The
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sandwiches and deep-fried shrimp were made at the back: all I had to do was order
them over the intercom and bin the leftovers.
But the cash register was perverse. Its drawers would pop open for no reason, or it
would ring eerily when I swore I was nowhere near it; or it would lock itself shut, and the
queue of customers waiting to pay would lengthen and scowl as I wrestled and
sweated. I kept expecting to be fired for incompetence, but the manager chortled more
than ever. Occasionally, he would bring some man in a suit to view me. “She’s got an
M.A.,” he would say, in a proud but pitying voice, and the two of them would stare at me
and shake their heads.
An ex-boyfriend discovered my place of employment, and would also come to stare and
shake his head, ordering a single coffee, taking an hour to drink it, leaving me a
sardonic nickel tip. The Greek short-order cook decided I would be the perfect up-front
woman for the restaurant he wanted to open: he would marry me and do the cooking, I
would speak English to the clientele and work – was he mad? – the cash register. He
divulged his bank balance, and demanded to meet my father so the two of them could
seal the deal. When I declined, he took to phoning me over the intercom to whisper
blandishments, and to plying me with deep-fried shrimp. A girl as scrawny as myself,
he pointed out, was unlikely to get such a good offer again.
Then the Schriners hit town, took over the hotel, and began calling for buckets of ice, or
for doctors because they’d had heart attacks; too much tricycle-riding in the hot sun was
felling them in herds. I couldn’t handle the responsibility, the cash register had betrayed
me once too often, and the short-order cook was beginning to sing Frank Sinatra songs
to me. I gave notice.
Only when I’d quit did the manager reveal his true stratagem: they’d wanted someone
as inept as me because they suspected their real cashier of skimming the accounts, a
procedure I was obviously too ignorant too ever figure out. “Too stunned,” as the
waitress put it. She was on the cashier’s side, and had me figured as a stoolie all along.
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Essay Explication Unit – Student Handout
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. “Ka-Ching!.” Viewpoints 12. Borovilos, John, Robert Dawe,
Margaret Iveson et al. ed. Toronto: Prentice Hall, 2001. 205-208.
Bacon, Francis. “Of Age and Youth.” Viewpoints 12. Borovilos, John, Robert Dawe,
Margaret Iveson et al. ed. Toronto: Prentice Hall, 2001. 259-261.
Orwell, George. Politics and the English Language. 24 July 2004. George Orwell Web
Ring. 4 September 2009. Retrieved from:
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit
Ozick, Cynthia. “Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body.” Viewpoints 12. Borovilos,
John, Robert Dawe, Margaret Iveson et al. ed. Toronto: Prentice Hall, 2001.
196-203.
Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal.” Viewpoints 12. Borovilos, John, Robert Dawe,
Margaret Iveson et al. ed. Toronto: Prentice Hall, 2001. 283-291.
Walker, Alice. “My Mother's Blue Bowl.” Viewpoints 12. Borovilos, John, Robert Dawe,
Margaret Iveson et al. ed. Toronto: Prentice Hall, 2001. 251-254.
Woolf, Virginia. “The Death of the Moth.” Viewpoints 12. Borovilos, John, Robert
Dawe, Margaret Iveson et al. ed. Toronto: Prentice Hall, 2001. 236-240.
Booklet 1
Ms. Dwyer’s Class
Grade 12 University
St. Robert Catholic High School