IRB Intro #2

     For my second independent reading book, I chose the book "Death Be Not Proud" by John Gunther. As I was browsing Mr. Yost's library in the beginning of the year, this was one of the books that I happened to pick up and preview. I fell in love with the story after reading the summary on the back and a couple pages in the first chapter. I am a sucker for sob stories. It is a memoir written about John Gunther's son, who died of cancer at a young age. I am interested in hearing the story and also deciphering the message that Gunther is attempting to send, and how he does so. I am looking forward to reading this book.

TOW 8 - IRB post 2

            Nick Hornby, an avid football fan and well-known writer, wrote the book Fever Pitch about the history and origin of his lifelong obsession. Hitting close to home with me, I was attracted by his humorous voice and the topic of obsessing over some stupid soccer games. In Hornby’s book Fever Pitch, Hornby explains how what started as a normal liking of a sport spiraled into an all-controlling obsession that has shaped his relationships with others and commanded his free time through the use of personal anecdotes and humor. His audience is anyone who has background knowledge about the game of soccer and could potentially share some similar experiences.

            Fever Pitch, written narrative-style, is a book full of personal anecdotes. Hornby shares his experiences as a child growing up in a divided home and how that influenced his obsession with the game of football. Every chapter, Hornby tells the story of a game that he remembers and the effect it had on his life. This allows the audience to see the correlation between the events in his life and his obsession with the game, which appeals to logos by allowing them to logically see the progression of his obsession. Hornby’s personal anecdotes about his life also allow the reader to establish a close connection with him, because many of the things that he has gone through are relatively common. These anecdotes show that Hornby is indeed a human who has had problems, just like the rest of us; therefore, allowing the audience to better consider Hornby a credible source because he has actually experienced everything in regards to the topic they are reading about. Overall, Hornby’s anecdotes allow the audience to connect to him and to logically see the progression of his obsession, which is further emphasized through his humor.

Hornby’s humorous tone allows his audience to enjoy reading the book while simultaneously allowing Hornby to convey messages to them that will stick in their minds. For example, when describing his frustration with the lack of players who will pass the ball, Hornby asserts that “there are still a couple of passers in England, but then, there are still a number of blacksmiths.” (Hornby 120). This assertion humorously emphasizes the lack of passers there actually are because of the lack of blacksmiths in England. There are many other instances Hornby’s humor allows the audience to better understand and connect with his message. Overall, Hornby’s use of personal anecdotes and humorous assertions clarify the origin of his obsession and show how natural obsessions are, which allows the audience to feel better about their own guilty pleasures.

TOW7- visual text

When browsing the internet, I found a cartoon that sends a strong message about gun control. The author, Tom Toles, runs his own blog and is a paid cartoonist for the Washington Post. In this particular cartoon, Toles targets voters through his appeals to logos and pathos in order to get his audience to push for establishing more gun control.

Toles appeals to logos through the logical structure of the cartoon. There is a meter depicting the amount of support the public holds for gun control. As a person paints a higher level of support, he uses “blood” as paint. This sends the clear message that as more people are killed and more blood is shed, public support for gun control increases. Logically, this means that if the public took a proactive approach and voted for more gun control earlier, then less people would be killed. The logical structure of his cartoon appeals to logos by allowing the audience to clearly understand his message. Toles’ appeal to pathos is through the use of the word “blood” on the bucket of “paint.” The use of blood to paint on the level of support for gun control is extremely effective in appealing to the emotions of his audience. It shows that it will take many more deaths before the public fully realizes that more gun control is needed, which will ultimately push his audience to take action now. Toles’ appeals to pathos and logos effectively communicate his message and push his audience to take action now.

TOW 6- The Figure a Poem Makes

            Robert Frost, a well-known and world-renowned poet, wrote an essay titled The Figure a Poem Makes. The topic of the essay, poetry, allows for Frost to automatically be considered credible because of his reputation. In his essay The Figure a Poem Makes, Frost speaks to any and all fans of poetry about what constitutes a good poem through the use of analogies and a pedantic tone.

            Throughout this essay, Frost employs a rather pedantic tone which assists in furthering his appeal to ethos by proving that he has a lot of knowledge about the topic. His use of poetry jargon such as “strict iambic” and “loose iambic” shows his audience that his message should be considered because he is obviously extremely familiar and maybe even an expert on this topic. He speaks in an educated way by using advanced vocabulary, which successfully portrays him as an advanced writer and automatically labels him as superior, allowing him to have a patronizing aura. This patronization further establishes Frost’s ethos by allowing him to maintain an air of superiority over his audience; forcing them to take his opinion as superior to theirs and therefore as the better opinion. In addition to a pedantic tone, Frost often speaks using analogous language. He says “the figure a poem makes…is the same as for love.” He asserts that “it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life.” This comparison of a poem to love appeals to logos by allowing his readers to compare something they might not necessarily be familiar with to something that everyone has experienced – love. Another instance of similar analogous language is when Frost asserts that a good poem can be “read…a hundred times [and] will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance.” The scent of metal, something subtle that is often overlooked, when compared with a poem, effectively conveys his message about the everlasting intricateness of a good poem. Overall, Frost’s use of a pedantic tone and analogous language effectively allows him to communicate his opinions as to what makes up a good poem.

TOW 5- The 38-Year-Old Frat Boy

            Alex Stone recently completed a nine-month fellowship for midcareer journalists at the University of Michigan. He describes the experiences he endured as he rushed a fraternity at 38-years-old. Stone is the author of the book Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks and the Hidden Powers of the Mind and attended Harvard for his undergraduate degree. Obviously a well-educated man, Stone’s article published on the front page of the Sunday Review of the New York Times targets adults who have already had their own college experience. In the article The 38-Year-Old Frat Boy, Stone’s humorous tone specific to his audience and obvious establishment of ethos successfully leaves the reader with message to “not judge a book by its cover.”

            Stone’s humor is evident from the start. He asserts that he is surprised no one accuses him of being an “undercover cop posing as an undergrad.” He alludes to “Animal House” in a humorous way, which is a phrase I have often heard adults use when referring to Greek Life. Stone’s humorous tone contributes to his control over the attention of his audience and often sheds light on the deeper meaning he is trying to convey. For example, he describes the members of the Fraternity that he pledges into as “desperate” and “a motley band of misfits who get high together and played video games,” but then ends up describing them as his brothers. His humorous tone throughout the article allows the reader to enjoy the information conveyed while simultaneously absorbing the message communicated. Stone’s continued establishment of ethos throughout the essay contributes to the credibility of the message being conveyed and allows the reader to believe and rely on his opinion. While sharing an anecdote of a time when he was brought to a hospital covered in vomit, he recalls that the members of the Fraternity could only say that he had attended Harvard for undergrad. This sly slip-in shows that he is clearly very intelligent but does not make him seem pompous because he did not blatantly say that he attended Harvard. Stone also slips in little facts about his previous accomplishes, experiences and education that contribute to his concrete credibility. In this essay, Stone’s employment of a humorous tone and establishment of his credibility assists in conveying the message that it is important that when making a decision, we don’t judge something by our preconceptions about its appearance.

TOW 4- IRB

The book Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby has struck close to home with me. Nick Hornby has written a number of best-sellers and in this book he recounts the origin of his obsession with football and the effect that it has had on his life. He explains that his parents’ separation was the instigation of his obsession because football provided a “medium for communication” between him and his father. In Hornby’s book Fever Pitch, Nick attempts to explain how what started as a normal liking of a sport spiraled into an all-controlling obsession that has shaped his relationships with others and commanded his free time through the use of seemingly unintentional hyperboles and humor. His audience is anyone who has background knowledge about the game of soccer and could potentially share some similar experiences with him.

Hornby employs a humorous tone from the very start. He introduces himself as a deeply devoted fan who can think of nothing besides football. The introduction begins with a scene of him drinking his morning tea and visualizing over and over again an amazing goal he saw many years ago. Throughout the book, Hornby expresses his utter desperation and depression that resulted from his team’s poor record. He describes attending a soccer game to be “entertainment as pain” (Hornby 21) that was filled with “faces contorted by rage or despair or frustration” (Hornby 21). He gives the word “fan” a negative connotation and then continues to describe his utter obsession with football, even though it brings him so much pain and frustration. This shows the reader that his obsession is not made up and is not heightened, it is real and credible and noteworthy. He states that men with the same addiction as him “become repressed, they fail in their relationships with women...they cannot relate to their children, and they die lonely and miserable” (Hornby 23). This hyperbolic statement successfully communicates his message that his obsession has controlled and stifled his ability to establish and maintain relationships with others. Later on in the book, Hornby describes the time when his parents’ divorce was being finalized. His father visits in an attempt to cheer him up but is actually “praying even harder than usual for a home win” (Hornby 34) because they both “knew that to a large extent [his] father’s mission depended not on his ability to reassure or persuade but on the news from north London.” (Hornby 34). This is another example of a natural hyperbole used by Hornby. At this moment, his parents’ pending divorce is not what will upset him and his father can do nothing to cheer him up because his desperation stems from his concern about the result of the Arsenal match. Hornby’s use of hyperboles and humor succeeds in communicating his message about the detrimental and beneficial effects of his obsession on his life.