EMULATION THROUGH ANALYSIS: CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION
Text: The Ways We Lie
Author: Stephanie Ericsson
RHETORICAL VIVISECTION
SOAPSTONE BREAKDOWN
o
What is the subject of this essay?
o
What is the immediate occasion, as described in the text?
o
What is the more general occasion?
o
Who is the audience here?
o
Identify direct addresses or inclusive language.
o
What are a few of Ericsson’s purposes?
o
o
Is this an argument of fact, value, policy, or some combination of the three?
o
Where do you see her articulate a thesis?
Describe the speaker of this piece.
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS
Introduction
o
How many engaging details does Ericsson pack into the first paragraph? What are they?
o
Describe the movement from the first sentence of paragraph 1(about the bank) into the first sentence
of paragraph 3.
o
How does Ericsson avoid making the “callback” in paragraph 4 — the return to her initial series of
examples — sound repetitious?
o
What is the nature of the rhetorical questions in paragraphs 5 and 6?
o
o
I.e., how does the rest of the essay seem to answer these questions?
Is the use of Webster’s definition an effective appeal to ethos, a cheap creation of context, or
something else?
The White Lie
o
Explain the epigraph’s meaning, including the irony of the statement.
o
What is the dimension added by the epigraph?
o
How does the example in paragraph 2 demonstrate the idea of “not…so cut-and-dried”?
Facades
o
What is the allusion in the epigraph?
o
What dimension does it add to this categorical exploration?
o
Do we all wear facades, or is this a hasty generalization?
MR. EURE | LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
EMULATION THROUGH ANALYSIS: CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION
o
What is the dichotomy set up here between Ericsson — in her pajamas — and the “former friend” of
paragraph 2?
o
What is the emerging argument about lying – the argument of value – that is sounded again with the
“destructive” complaint in paragraph 2?
o
o
Hint: It starts with paragraph 5 in the introduction, and it is implied in the “unable to move
on to a new life” in paragraph 2 of The White Lie.
Explain the stylistic strength of the last sentence of paragraph 2.
Ignoring the Plain Facts
o
What does Ericsson intend this epigraph to add to the subsequent discussion?
o
What is the appeal to pathos in paragraph 1?
o
Where does Ericsson allude back to the definitions from Webster’s? To what effect?
o
What other kind of “ignoring the facts” (other than the deliberate deception exemplified by the
church) is Ericsson suggesting?
Deflecting
o
The technical term for the logical fallacy in the epigraph is ad hominem. Look up this term and
explain how the epigraph is an example.
o
What dimension does it add to Ericsson’s explanation of deflecting?
o
There are three subtypes of deflection. What is the first?
o
What does the Clarence Thomas example illustrate?
o
What is the “fighting technique” described in paragraph 3?
o
What does Ericsson imply about “disputes between men and women” here?
Omission
o
How is “cruelest” (from the epigraph) defined in the ensuing four paragraphs?
o
Where is the line between harmless and harmful for Ericsson in paragraph 1?
o
What conclusion does Ericsson draw in paragraphs 2-4 about the omission of Lilith?
o
Is this an appeal to ethos to defend her position against lying? How so?
o
Many of you were unaware of the story of Lilith. How might this prove her point?
Stereotypes and Clichés
o
Translate the epigraph. What does it add to the discussion?
o
How is a stereotype different from a lie of omission?
o
How do stereotypes “destroy curiosity”?
o
How do stereotypes lead to “identity [being] obliterated”?
Groupthink
o
What literary work should we think of when we see “groupthink,” and what meaning does this detail
add to the ensuing section?
MR. EURE | LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
EMULATION THROUGH ANALYSIS: CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION
o
What does “the light” refer to in the epigraph?
o
How does the Pearl Harbor example fit the definition given in paragraph 1?
o
Why does Ericsson cite this “textbook example of groupthink” in particular?
Out-and-Out Lies
o
Explain the Oscar Wilde epigraph and its relevant irony.
o
What does Ericsson mean by saying she “can trust the bald-faced lie”? How does she define “trust”?
o
What is implied would replace “floating anxiety” in a world comprised of only bald-faced lies?
Dismissal
o
What dimension does the epigraph provide to this discussion?
o
Why does Ericsson focus on children in the second paragraph?
o
Explain the connection between dismissal and schizophrenia.
o
What are “necessary” dismissals?
o
How does Ericsson set up a comparative assertion of value—the idea of “run[ning] the gamut”?
Delusion
o
What is Ericsson’s claim about “function[ing] on a day-to-day level”?
o
What does she argue here about the “status quo”?
o
What other delusions do we suffer in order to survive?
Conclusion
o
How does this epigraph tie into the idea of “daily machinery” raised in paragraph 1?
o
Unpack the simile that ends paragraph 1.
o
How does the sequence of rhetorical questions function in paragraph 2? What do these questions
have in common?
o
How does the final paragraph answer those questions?
o
How does the final paragraph also tie back to the beginning of the essay?
o
What is the rhetorical effect of framing the essay in this way?
MR. EURE | LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION