TOW #7: No Ice Cape for Polar Bears (Visual Text)

Global warming is a serious problem around the world. As critical as the problem seems, most people are aware of the melting crisis but do not do anything to ameliorate the problem. This picture which was used in a news article titled, “No Ice-cape for Polar Bears” was directed towards those ignorant people. The reporter of this article Jamie Pyatt first appeals to ethos by being the reporter of a UK news. She then maximizes pathos by describing the photograph as “A polar bear cub is comforted by its mother as they drift TWELVE MILES out from shore on a rapidly shrinking iceberg.” The picture of harmless and innocent polar bears is already unfortunate enough, but if the two polar bears are a mother and a child and if the mother looks like she is trying to protect her baby despite the situation, people will feel a stirring deep inside their heart. The baby polar bear also looks very intimidated, making people feel guilty. Also, Pyatt’s emphasis on distance by capitalizing “twelve miles” inflate the vulnerability of innocuous polar bears. Pyatt wants people to see that their danger is caused by humans not by themselves. The surroundings of the polar bears are also interesting to see. In the ocean, the only thing floating around is the broken ice with polar bears. The isolation of the bears shown in the photo symbolizes how no one, even the people who are aware of the gravity of global warming, is willing to do anything to change the situation. At the end of the description, Pyatt does mention that “amazingly experts said the pair probably made it safely back to the shore”, but she puts it at the end to make the photograph stronger and thus prevent people from feeling less guilty.

TOW #6: "The Disposable Rocket" by John Updlike (written, non-fiction text)

In “The Disposable Rocket”, John Updlike uses rich metaphors to describe what it is like to be a male and what it is like to have a male body. He begins his essay by saying that “Inhibiting a male body is like having a bank account; as long as it’s healthy, you don’t think much

about it” (1). With this sentence, he criticizes the majority of men who do not take care of their body. Although he values men’s never-ending thirst for adventure, he says it is important for men to take care of their body as they may feel the same kind of betrayal he had felt when he first felt weak and old. Also, he stresses men’s superiority over women and the difference between the two genders. He says that unlike women, men have an innate recklessness, “to take their body to the edge, and see if it flies” (5). He almost puts men over women by delivering a feeling to the readers that he is stating men can do whatever they want. These anti-feminist feelings readers receive from his works is not surprising. Although considered as one of the greatest American writers of his generation, Updlike was often criticized for his misogynistic depiction of women in his writings. Because of this background, his intended audience for this essay is other men who do reckless things just for the joy and temptation of it. Updlike establishes his credibility with age; since he was in his sixties when he wrote “The Disposable Rocket”, he has the experience and credit to warn other men to take good care of their bodies. Updlike successfully achieves his purpose of warning other men to be aware of risks, but fails to win women’s accord by undermining the importance and power of women. Also, his very distinct descriptions of roles of men and women makes it difficult for women to agree. Some women also have the audacity and desire for adventure that Updlike stresses are only ingrained in men.

TOW #5: Things We Think We Know (written, non-fiction text)

Chuck Klosterman is an American columnist and author who writes about American popular culture. In 2007, he wrote the short article “Things We Think We Know” for Esquire demonstrating his belief that stereotypes are incorrect and based on coincidence but people irresponsibly utilize them to “fabricate who we are (or who we are not)” (Klosterman 2). Klosterman starts his essay with the description of human nature’s hypocrisy, how people pretend like they hate stereotypes but passionately use them to make themselves be someone they are not. To illustrate this hypocrisy, he uses paradox. He writes “We all hate stereotypes. Seriously… Except that we don’t. We adore stereotypes, and we desperately need them” (Klosterman 1). People seem like they hate stereotypes because to fabricate their integrity and open-mindedness people will often equate stereotypes with ignorance. However, when stuck in a situation when stereotype is required to escape, the same kind of people will claim that all stereotypes are based on some facts. To establish more credibility for his point, Klosterman uses anecdotes in which he experienced Germans stereotyping Americans in his tour to Germany. He says a German teenager that he had encountered assumed American Dream meant “watching Baywatch twenty-four hours a day” (Klosterman 7), indirectly stating Germans’ view of Americans as sluggish and careless beings. By using an idea that most Americans would object to, Klosterman attempts to achieve his purpose that stereotypes are incorrect. However, overall, Klosterman fails to achieve his purpose. He would write about all the generalizations and stereotypes he had discovered about Germans during his tour in Germany, but hastily dismisses all these observations as stereotypes. He weakened his points by being overly obsessed with the idea of avoiding stereotypes that he is incapable of judging between what is actually based on fact and what is based on biased fabrication.

Article:
http://www.esquire.com/print-this/ESQ0307klosterman?page=all

TOW #4: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (written, IRB)

Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air is about the author and his team’s expedition to reach the peak of Mount Everest. In contrast to the readers’ anticipations of typical glory and fame that comes with reaching the summit of Mount Everest, Into Thin Air depicts the catastrophe and the everlasting impact that the horrifying events, especially the Mount Everest disaster had on Krakauer and his teammates. Krakauer, feeling partly responsible for the death of his friends wrote this book to tell the world about the tragedy and deaths of his brave fellow climbers, so their courage would be unforgotten. After returning from Mount Everest and writing about their journey for a magazine Outside, Krakauer realizes that he had made a mistake while describing about the death of one of his fellow climbers. This mistake propelled Krakauer to write Into Thin Air to accurately deliver the information and therefore consoling the families of the victims who had been affected by his inaccurate reports for Outside. Krakauer also raises awareness of the dangers involved with Mount Everest and climbing with lack of knowledge and competence by mentioning the Taiwanese and South African teams he had encountered. Krakauer establishes his ethos by writing about his own experience as an expert mountaineer and renowned author. He also admits his past blunder of inaccurately reporting the incident of one of his fellow climbers and ensures the readers that to avoid his own perceptions, which were likely to be distorted by shock and exhaustion, he interviewed his teammates to reach a consensus of what actually had happened. Other than ethos, Krakauer also uses understatement when describing deaths of others. While acclimatizing, Krakauer comes across two dead bodies consecutively. Instead of describing the terrible conditions the bodies were in, he simply states “I came upon another body in the snow” (111). He explains his understatement of death by claiming that there was an unspoken agreement to pretend that the bodies were not real to keep the high morale among the team. Krakauer states, “The first body had left me badly shaken for several hours; the shock of encountering the second wore off almost immediately” (111). This describes the callousness among teammates as they grow increasingly exhausted and dubious.

TOW #3: Child Health Foundation Poster (visual text)

The young innocent-looking girl in the poster has a halo above her head and is looking distantly in the space. The halo in this poster is not the usual ring of light that gives a golden glow, but a ring of smoke that is coming from the right edge of the poster. To further explain the image, the poster has a text that says, “Children of parents who smoke, get to heaven earlier.” The creator of this poster is stating that smoking could harm not only oneself but also one’s child. This anti-smoking poster is from Child Health Foundation which promotes and raises awareness for children’s health. Child Health Foundation’s primary audiences are parents who smoke and adult smokers who will be parents someday. Child Health Foundation wants to avoid parent smokers from unintentionally abusing their children’s health. Its secondary audiences are the bystanders around smokers who normally ignore the smokers. Child Health Foundation wants to encourage these observers to help the smokers to quit smoking. When non-smokers only know that smoking impacts the smoker, they might scoff at the smoker’s foolishness, but when they know that smoking also influences harmless children, they get an urge to stop the smokers. Child Health Foundation intentionally uses pathos to appeal to the audience’s emotions. Child Health Foundation knows that everyone, even the smokers themselves know smoking is harmful for their health and that those who continue to smoke either do not care or think the joy of smoking is more valuable than their well being. So it utilizes the idea to make smokers think that smoking affects not only themselves, but their innocent children. The creator of this poster effectively achieves his purpose of making smokers reconsider before smoking. The idea that something that people do to themselves aware of its harmful effects will hurt their loved ones efficiently leaves a lingering feeling among the smokers. The poster reminds people that their transient pleasure of smoking could kill their everlasting joy, children.

TOW #2: This is the Life by Annie Dillard (written, non-fiction text)

“This is the Life” is a short essay written by an American fiction and non-fiction author Annie Dillard. Her work serves as a spiritual healing for many, as it makes reader reflect on their on actions and ways of living. In “This is the Life,” Dillard emphasizes how people of the modern society take everything for granted and therefore are unable to progress and think outside of the box that they were put in. Rather than having their own views, people are inclined to think what “everyone” else thinks, although that group of everyone might differ depending on their surroundings. To condemn the modern society, the author uses a sarcastic tone as well as a provocative one. She describes something that would have been considered fortunate many years ago, but is not so fortunate in the modern society. She purposely describes this idea as something “Everyone you know agrees: this is the life”(3), to demonstrate how lucky we are to take those things for granted, but how unfortunate we are to forget that we should be thankful for those things. Also, she outrightly describes the things people take for granted by saying “[T]hese are not universal”(1). She is emphasizing that people need to realize that their everyday pleasure is the greatest desire for others. Dillard’s main audience is the people who take things for granted and need to appreciate what they have, and her secondary audience is the future generation who might make the same mistakes of taking things for granted. She is afraid that the future generation will make the same mistakes again and this is evident as she describes humans “who were ever alive lived inside one single culture that never changed for hundreds of thousands of years,” but people still do not understand what they are doing wrong as they “scratch their heads at so conservative and static a culture”(12).

Dillard achieved her purpose because after reading her essay the audience feels contrite and remorseful and makes them look back and evaluate their actions. Dillard’s bitter accusation makes people realize how fortunate they were.

IRB Intro #1 - Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

The book I chose to read for my IRB is Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. I decided to read this book because my cousin read Into The Wild by the same author, and recommended it to me, but I never had the chance to read it. This book is about Krakauer's expedition to Mt. Everest. I never attempted to read this book because I am not really a fan of adventure books. However, I decided to choose a different path than the one path that I always vhoose when picking a book.