Episode #37
Reading and rhetorical analysis of the feminist masterpiece "I Want a Wife" by Judy Brady. Recommended for high school.
Analysis focuses on syntax and tone, with additional focus on context and audience.
CW: The whole thing is sexist. Also there's quite a bit about sex.
Feminist Justice #13
Link to the text: https://www.thecut.com/2017/11/i-want-a-wife-by-judy-brady-syfers-new-york-mag-1971.html
Thank you, and good night.
Episode #36
Reading and analysis of the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker. Recommended for high school.
Analysis focuses on diction, characterization, and theme, primarily the themes of practical use vs. ornamentation, substance vs. style
CW: Discussions of racism, sexism, gender roles, family conflict, and injuries caused by fire.
#12 in the Feminist Justice series.
Link to PDF of the story: everyday use.pdf (weber.edu)
Episode #35
Literary analysis of two poems, "Making a Fist" and "The Flying Cat" by Naomi Shihab Nye. Recommended for high school.
Analysis focuses on the use of humor, speaker/point of view, and theme.
CW: one poem is about death, the other is about pets dying; the discussion reflects both themes.
#11 in the Feminist Justice series
The poems are short, so I'm going to put the full text of both here. But also, links.
Making a Fist: Making a Fist by Naomi Shihab Nye | Poetry Foundation
We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men.
—Jorge Luis Borges
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.
“How do you know if you are going to die?”
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
“When you can no longer make a fist.”
Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.
The Flying Cat: Quia - Poem by Naomi Shihab Nye -- The Flying Cat
The Flying Cat
Never, in all your career of worrying, did you imagine
What worries could occur concerning the flying cat.
You are traveling to a distant city.
The cat must travel in a small box with holes.
Will the baggage compartment be pressurized?
Will a soldier's footlocker fall on the cat during take-off?
Will the cat freeze?
You ask these questions one by one, in different voices
over the phone. Sometimes you get an answer,
sometimes a click.
Now it's affecting everything you do.
At dinner you feel nauseous, like you're swallowing
at twenty thousand feet.
In dreams you wave fish-heads, but the cat has grown propellers,
the cat is spinning out of sight!
Will he faint when the plane lands?
Is the baggage compartment soundproofed?
Will the cat go deaf?
"Ma'am, if the cabin weren't pressurized, your cat would explode."
And spoken in a droll impersonal tone, as if
the explosion of cats were another statistic!
Hugging the cat before departure, you realize again
the private language of pain. He purrs. He trusts you.
He knows little of planets or satellites,
black holes in space or the weightless rise of fear.
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Episode #34
Rhetorical analysis of the popular science essay "Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall" by Diane Ackerman. Recommended for high school.
(And I don't know why I shortened it in the episode to "Why Leaves Turn Color." My bad.)
Analysis focuses on figurative language and theme.
*CW: mentions of sex, discussions of death
#10 in the Feminist Justice series
Link to PDF version of the essay: http://mssandersonsouthcache.weebly.com/uploads/8/5/8/9/8589339/whyleavesturncolorinfall_2012.pdf
Figurative Language present in the essay and discussed here (*This is an incomplete list):
symbol: Something (usually simple and concrete) which represents something else (usually complex and abstract); i.e., a cross representing Christianity
metaphor: An implied comparison between two unlike things which share a certain trait; i.e., trees encased in glass after a winter storm (glass=ice)
simile: A stated comparison between two unlike things which share a certain trait, most often using "like" or "as" to show the comparison; i.e., thou art like a summer's day, sunny and warm
personification: A metaphor in which human traits are given to a non-human thing; i.e., "The rocks complained and then cursed as the earth quaked"; or an abstract is given a human avatar; i.e., Father Time
hyperbole: An extreme exaggeration meant to show an emotional state; i.e., "I'm hungry" is a statement, "I'm starving" is an exaggeration, "I'm hungry enough to eat a thousand horses" is hyperbole
understatement: An intentional de-emphasizing of a situation, usually for ironic or sardonic effect; i.e., Monty Python's Black Knight saying "It's just a flesh wound" after King Arthur cut the Knight's arm off
euphemism: A less offensive or less jarring term used in place of a more offensive or jarring term; i.e., "passed away" for "died"
allusion: A reference to something already known by the audience, from literature, history, popular culture, etc.; i.e., referring to a couple as Romeo and Juliet
synecdoche: When a piece of a whole is used to represent the whole, or a whole used to represent a piece; i.e., "wheels" referring to an entire car
metonymy: When an associated term is used to represent something, i.e., "suits" referring to businesspeople
pun: Word play based on words that sound similar or that have multiple meanings; i.e., "Make like a tree and leave!"
onomatopoeia: A word that sounds like (or is a phonetic spelling of) the sound or what it represents; i.e., meow, baa, snap, crackle, pop
alliteration: When several words close together have the same initial sound; i.e., Peter Piper picked a pepperoni pizza
assonance: When several words close together have the same vowel sound with different consonant sounds, i.e., I like nice pies
consonance: When several words close together have the same consonant sound in the middle or at the ends of the words; i.e., sounds at the ends of words
irony: When what happens is the opposite of what one would expect, or when one's meaning is the opposite of what one says
Episode #33
Reading and analysis of the short story "The Possibility of Evil" by Shirley Jackson. Recommended for high school.
Honestly, no real content warnings. It's a disturbing story, but everything in it is subtle.
Analysis of plot, character, and theme, focusing on selection of detail as well as the use of dialogue, small town 1950's America setting, and narrative point of view to build suspense and central themes.
#9 in the Feminist Justice series.
Text in PDF format here: http://issaquahhighkdean.weebly.com/uploads/8/3/2/6/83262826/the_possibility_of_evil.pdf
*Please note the PDF above is taken from a textbook, and has comprehension questions, etc. Also some wonderful illustrations.
**Where's the cat?
Reading and analysis of the essay "On Being a Cripple" by Nancy Mairs. Recommended for high school.
Warning: discussion of illness, disability, death, suicide. This is a great essay, though as you can see from the title, it is difficult to read in places.
Analysis focuses on diction, both word choice and level of formality; and on syntax, particularly the use of lists.
#8 in the Feminist Justice series, focusing on women authors and feminist themes until this podcast reaches equity.
Copy of the text:
Reading and analysis of "The Hill We Climb" by Amanda Gorman. Recommended for high school and general audiences.
*The poem was presented at the inauguration of Joseph Biden, January 20, 2021
*Some discussion of political themes are therefore inevitable
*Extensive discussion of rhyme, alliteration, and puns, and the effect of all of these devices particularly in a performed poem
*Analysis of themes and audience
(Seventh in the series focusing on female authors and feminist themes)
Original text and video of performance: (Please listen to Ms. Gorman, who does a fantastic job presenting this poem) Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem 'The Hill We Climb' full text (cnbc.com)
Reading and analysis of two poems by Denise Levertov, "For the New Year, 1981" and "Making Peace." Recommended for high school.
Two free verse poems from a 20th c. English-American poet. Analysis focuses on theme, word choice, syntax and the use of paradox and contradiction.
Very positive tone and themes, to celebrate the new year and new beginnings and new hope. (Not Star Wars. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
Sixth in the Feminist Justice series, focusing on female authors and feminist themes in honor of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Text for first poem:
“For the New Year, 1981”
I have a small grain of hope—
one small crystal that gleams
clear colors out of transparency.
I need more.
I break off a fragment
to send you.
Please take
this grain of a grain of hope
so that mine won’t shrink.
Please share your fragment
so that yours will grow.
Only so, by division,
will hope increase,
like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower
unless you distribute
the clustered roots, unlikely source—
clumsy and earth-covered—
of grace.
Text for second poem:
Link: Making Peace by Denise Levertov | Poetry Foundation
A voice from the dark called out,
‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses . . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.
Reading and analysis of Katherine Anne Porter's 1930 short story, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." Recommended for high school.
*Warning: This story is about death and dying, and also discusses loss, grief, and death in childbirth.
The story is written in stream-of-consciousness narration, and is one of the more readable examples of that technique. It is filled from top to bottom with figurative language, and so that along with the narrative style is the focus of the analysis.
Fifth in a series focusing on women authors and feminist themes, this story is less feminist than some, but it's not not feminist, and Katherine Anne Porter was one of the finest short story writers in American literature of any gender.
Reading and analysis of a one-act play. Recommended for high school.
First warning: I read all five parts myself. May the universe have mercy.
Second warning: themes and descriptions of death, murder, abuse, and animal abuse/murder.
Third warning: The material for the second warning makes me curse a couple of times, so language warning.
It's an excellent play, though, with much to say about gender, stereotypes and sexism, and about relationships and social mores.
Full text: https://www.one-act-plays.com/dramas/trifles.html
Reading and analysis of the speech "Child Labor and Women's Suffrage" by Florence Kelley. Recommended for high school. Especially of interest to AP Language and Composition classes.
Rhetorical analysis of this speech, presented to the National American Woman's Suffrage Association in 1905.
Analysis and explanation of the rhetorical triangle, the interactions between speaker, audience, and subject that shape a speaker's rhetoric.
Analysis of the speech in its context.
This is a wonderfully impressive and effective speech, which makes use of imagery and anecdote, statistics, rhetorical questions, parallelism, and various other rhetorical strategies.
Third in a series focusing on female authors and feminist themes, in honor of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Text of the speech can be found here:
https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/09/child-labor-womens-suffrage-july-22-1905/
Reading and analysis of the contemporary poem "The Empty Glass" by Louise Glück, 2020 Nobel Prize winner in Literature. Recommended for high school and adult listeners.
*Language warning (one instance of profanity in the poem, repeated 2-3 times in the course of analysis)
*Subject warning: this poem is largely dark and depressing
Episode includes careful analysis of symbolism, imagery, diction, and syntax; special focus on Glück's use of enjambment and classical reference.
Poem link:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49618/the-empty-glass
Full text:
BY LOUISE GLÜCK
I asked for much; I received much.
I asked for much; I received little, I received
next to nothing.
And between? A few umbrellas opened indoors.
A pair of shoes by mistake on the kitchen table.
O wrong, wrong—it was my nature. I was
hard-hearted, remote. I was
selfish, rigid to the point of tyranny.
But I was always that person, even in early childhood.
Small, dark-haired, dreaded by the other children.
I never changed. Inside the glass, the abstract
tide of fortune turned
from high to low overnight.
Was it the sea? Responding, maybe,
to celestial force? To be safe,
I prayed. I tried to be a better person.
Soon it seemed to me that what began as terror
and matured into moral narcissism
might have become in fact
actual human growth. Maybe
this is what my friends meant, taking my hand,
telling me they understood
the abuse, the incredible shit I accepted,
implying (so I once thought) I was a little sick
to give so much for so little.
Whereas they meant I was good (clasping my hand intensely)—
a good friend and person, not a creature of pathos.
I was not pathetic! I was writ large,
like a queen or a saint.
Well, it all makes for interesting conjecture.
And it occurs to me that what is crucial is to believe
in effort, to believe some good will come of simply trying,
a good completely untainted by the corrupt initiating impulse
to persuade or seduce—
What are we without this?
Whirling in the dark universe,
alone, afraid, unable to influence fate—
What do we have really?
Sad tricks with ladders and shoes,
tricks with salt, impurely motivated recurring
attempts to build character.
What do we have to appease the great forces?
And I think in the end this was the question
that destroyed Agamemnon, there on the beach,
the Greek ships at the ready, the sea
invisible beyond the serene harbor, the future
lethal, unstable: he was a fool, thinking
it could be controlled. He should have said
I have nothing, I am at your mercy.
Rhetorical analysis of "Brown v. Board of Education in International Context" by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Recommended for high school to adult listeners.
Inspired by and in honor of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this is the first in a series of episodes examining the rhetoric and literary style of various women and feminist authors.
This first episode focuses on Justice Ginsburg herself, on a speech she gave at Columbia University School of Law in 2004.
*Rhetorical analysis of the speech
*Strong focus on ethos (ethical/authoritative) arguments
*Examination of diction and word choice, as well as syntax, audience, tone, and authorial perspective
Text of the speech: https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/brown-v-board-of-education-in-international-context-oct-21-2004/
Excellent resource for all things to do with women in history and politics: https://cattcenter.iastate.edu/
Their Archive of Women's Political Communication: https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/
Vocabulary:
apartheid: (in South Africa) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race.
ascendancy: occupation of a position of dominant power or influence.
prestige: widespread respect and admiration felt for someone or something on the basis of a perception of their achievements or quality.
eulogy: a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, typically someone who has just died.
conspicuous: standing out so as to be clearly visible; attracting notice or attention.
analogy: a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
inexorably: in a way that is impossible to stop or prevent.
egalitarian: relating to or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
ideological: based on or relating to a system of ideas and ideals, especially concerning economic or political theory and policy.
regime: a government, especially an authoritarian one.
grist: 1. grain that is ground to make flour. 2. useful material, especially to back up an argument.
adverse: preventing success or development; harmful; unfavorable.
doctrine: a stated principle of government policy, mainly in foreign or military affairs.
consul: an official appointed by a government to live in a foreign city and protect and promote the government's citizens and interests there.
skepticism: doubt as to the truth of something.
reverberate: (of a loud noise) be repeated several times as an echo.
vibrant: full of energy and enthusiasm.
ratification: the action of signing or giving formal consent to a treaty, contract, or agreement, making it officially valid.
jurisdiction: the official power to make legal decisions and judgments.
exemplary: serving as a desirable model; representing the best of its kind.
litigation: the process of taking legal action.
pernicious: having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way.
allocate: distribute (resources or duties) for a particular purpose.
allegedly: used to convey that something is claimed to be the case or have taken place, although there is no proof.
Reading and analysis of the poem "Do Not Weep, Maiden, for War Is Kind" by Stephen Crane. Recommended for high school.
The poem is highly disturbing because of imagery of war, suffering, death, and grief, so this has a strong content warning. I also get pretty deep into the imagery, and so the analysis is also graphic.
The poem is a masterpiece of irony, and in it Crane creates multiple impressions, one after another, which build to the final message; I try to trace that same thought process.
Focus on imagery, diction, tone, and irony.
Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47650/war-is-kind-do-not-weep-maiden-for-war-is-kind
Reading and analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." Recommended for high school.
*Close analysis of character, plot, and theme
*Analysis of diction, word choice, and tone
*Horror, murder, and death -- though no gore.
*Me fully fangurling over Poe and this story, which is one of my favorites.
Text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1063/1063-h/1063-h.htm
*Reading and analysis of "The Discourager of Hesitancy" by Frank R. Stockton. Recommended for high school.
The last of the Endless Tales: THE SEQUEL TO "THE LADY OR THE TIGER"
*Analysis of plot, character, language, symbol. Careful examination of audience and author's purpose.
*I say a bad word, so be warned.
Full Text of the story is available on my website: http://users.neo.registeredsite.com/2/5/3/20780352/assets/The_Discourager_of_Hesitancy_by_Frank_R._Stockton.doc
Here is a nice .pdf reproduction of a magazine edition of the story: https://www.victorianvoices.net/ARTICLES/VT/fiction/1611-Hesitancy.pdf
Here is the HathiTrust digitized book with the story in it: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435018028597&view=1up&seq=11
Reading and analysis of "The Lady, or the Tiger?" by Frank R. Stockton. Recommended for high school.
*Focus on theme and language
*The story is satirical, largely about justice systems and about barbarism vs. civilization.
*The story is also hilarious
Cliffhanger ending (of course)
Story text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25549/25549-h/25549-h.htm#tiger
Reading and analysis of "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Recommended for high school.
*Some drug references. Some sexual innuendo.
The famous unfinished fragment that came to Coleridge in an opium dream, and which he published unfinished -- and as he intended.
Analysis of theme and imagery, language and rhyme and sound devices.
Text source from Project Gutenberg here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29090/29090-h/29090-h.htm#stcvol1_Page_295
Full poem:
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Reading and analysis of "The Interlopers" by H.H. Munro, aka Saki. Recommended for high school.
Third in a series analyzing works that don't have a definite ending, this one features a heck of a cliffhanger.
Examination of theme, setting, character, plot. Some historical context and author biographical context.
Story features feuds, land rights, hunting, and reconciliation. Sort of.
Text available here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1477/1477-h/1477-h.htm#page119
Reading and analysis of "Eldorado" by Edgar Allan Poe. Recommended for high school.
Second in the series of works with no ending.
Analysis of diction, image, and theme.
Some discussion of Eldorado, Age of Chivalry, religious themes, and death.
Text:
Gayly bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song, 5
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found 10
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow: 15
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"
"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon, 20
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
