Analysis Of Empathy In The Rattler

There has been a time at one point in a person’s life where they were given a task they did not want to do. Sometimes it has to be done. The the short story The Rattler, a mane is talking a walk through a desert setting. His walked was suddenly stopped when he saw a dangerous looking snake, at first glance anyway. He was faced with the task of killing the snake. When the task was complete, he was not thrilled. In The Rattler, the author creates the effect of empathy for the man and sympathy for the snake. The techniques used to achieve that are the description of the man, description of the snake, the setting.

Drew's innocence and morality is truly displayed when he is the only one among these four men who wants to report the death of the local man to the police. He does not want to be part of any wrong; however, he is given no heed due to the immorality of the others. Here comes into play the parallelism of this novel to the occurrence of the Vietnam War. For in the Vietnam War, all common moralities and values were thrown away to fit the environment in which we were fighting. Here, all the men except Drew disregard the morals of the civilized world to survive in this unfamiliar territory where they have willingly placed themselves. That may be one reason that Drew is the one to be shot and drowned alone and later discovered: he dies because he cannot survive - it is, in essence, the survival of the fittest. Here is another parallel to the Vietnam era in that Drew's death is used as a lie and as an excuse. His death is used as a cover up, an event occurring often during the war. Because he is the moral central of the group, his death is a deep loss. It is a loss because Drew is the best of them all; he is the most genuine.

Murder, one of the worst crimes a human could commit, is not taken lightly and most times the primary suspect is a male. In the 2 stories, “Lamb of the Slaughter”, and “The Landlady”, the reader learns just how murderous man’s counterpart can be. Roald Dahl, the author of these 2 stories, wrote “Lamb of the Slaughter” from the perspective of Mary Malony a loving housewife who gets terrible news, and wrote“The Landlady” from the perspective of Billy Weaver, a 17 year old businessman who stumbles across a Bed and Breakfast run by our next “Mistress of Death”. The reader will learn that even though these 2 stories are different in many ways, they still have plenty of similarities.

The author’s narrative, ripe with horrifying descriptions, is nonetheless told with compassion appealing to the emotions of the audience

In the morosely reluctant passage, “The Rattler,” the author depicts a conflict between a man’s consciousness and his duty to kill the snake. With the detailed images of the scene, the reader comes to understand the man’s internal conflict. He must decide whether or not it is necessary to kill an innocent rattlesnake; however, when the obligation to protect others is greater than the life of the snake, the man has no other choice but to kill the snake. Throughout the passage, “The Rattler” brilliantly utilizes diction, detail, syntax and overall organization to convey his message.

When in times of danger, people must often take the actions they see best fit. In "The Rattler," the author depicts a vivid story of a man who has to make a difficult choice while facing a rattlesnake in the desert. Despite the man seeing a threat in the snake, it is him that becomes a threat to the other. By using the descriptions of the man, the snake and the specific setting, the author affects the reader by creating a sense of empathy for the narrator and sympathy for the snake. With such a connection, it adds a greater depth to the story for the reader to analyze.

In " The Rattler ", the author uses both connotative and denotative middle writings which seem to have made the syntax more interesting. The author uses a mixture of poetic work, and with the neutral level of formality, creates an easy descriptive scene in the reader's mind, making it seem brighter than if it was only in connotative style. The syntax, working along with the diction, emphasizes the abrupt changes in the man's relieving walk, allowing the reader to feel the shock and the contemplation to walk away or confront the rattlesnake for the good of others. The brief introduction emphasizes this point while the author goes a bit more into detail about the confrontation with the rattlesnake. The word choice adds a more clear description

Dillard starts “Living Like Weasels” by using the persuasion model of Pathos. Dillard describes how weasels behave and places a vivid image in the mind of the reader when she says: “A weasel is wild. Who knows what he thinks? He sleeps in his underground den, his tail draped over his nose…..Outside he stalks rabbits, mice, muskrats and birds, killing more bodies than he can eat warm” (Dillard 1). This example of pathos makes the reader feel as if they are seeing the weasel for themselves and also invokes carnal emotions within the reader, causing a sort of envy in the reader of the life that the weasel leads. Such a wild life would seem preferable to that of a monotonous one, which is the point that Ms. Dillard is attempting to make.

“His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole...,” writes O’Brien as he studies the deceased enemy (118). Throughout the novel, the author shows consistency with repeating stories and lines in a way to present a greater image. He reminds the reader of details the elaborate his larger view. When he writes of the man he killed, he wants the reader to imagine themselves in his shoes, as he imagined himself in the enemies’. As he carefully studies the dead man, he imagines how the boy found himself in the war. By relating American society to the boy’s village of My Khe, he bridges similarities connecting the two by a culture that promotes defending one’s land and ways of life. By saying, “he would have been taught that to defend the land was a man’s highest duty and highest privilege,” he shows there is minimal difference between how most Americans view the military and the duty of the villagers in My Khe (119). Although he had not known the exact history of the boy, he attempted to illustrate in his own mind what his life may have been like prior to the invasion. The inability for O’Brien to walk away from the body as Kiowa continued to pry him away says he was troubled by the similarities. Despite Kiowa saying it could have been him lying lifeless on

Grom is not attempting to use his own ethos to entice the reader to read the book. Instead, he relies on the credibility of the writer, David Kirby to sell his story. The text on the book draws the reader to notice this writer has other books, Evidence of Harm, and Animal Factory. David Kirby’s books

In “To Build a Fire”, the man ignores the advice that he has been given to survive in the Yukon environment: “The man had been very serious when he said that no man should travel alone in that country after 50 below zero. Well, here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old men were rather womanish, he thought” (London 72). The egotistical nature of the man is harmful to his own survival, which leads to dire consequences later on in the story. Ignoring the advice he had been given, the man is used to portray how people can become very haughty, too prideful for their own good. A similar message is conveyed in Crane’s “An Episode of War”, in which arrogance leads to malicious warfare in our own society. When the lieutenant is shot and injured, his pride hinders him from accepting assistance from the men he is commanding: “There were others who proffered assistance. One timidly presented his shoulder and asked the lieutenant if he cared to lean upon it, but the latter waved him away mournfully. He wore the look of one who knows he is the victim of a terrible disease and understands his helplessness”(---). Injured and in need of help, the lieutenant warrants away assistance from his subordinates, as it would be modest to do so. His arrogance prevents his wound from receiving immediate and proper attention from those who rank below him, with the lieutenant only accepting help from other officers on the battlefield. Both London and Crane display similar examples of how human egotism and close-mindedness can lead to harmful effects, especially when people choose to ignore nature’s power. This naturalist style is incorporated in their perspectives, and helps shape some of the many ideas and themes that the reader can pick out from both author’s

In her essay “Living Like Weasels”, Annie Dillard explores the idea of following a single calling in life, and attaching one’s self it this calling as the weasel on Ernest Thompson Seton’s eagle had. Dillard presents her argument using the analogy of a weasel and how the; “weasel lives as he’s meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity” (Dillard). In constructing her argument, however, she often contradicts herself undermining the effectiveness of her argument and leaving the reader confused. Dillard primarily uses ethos and pathos to support her argument and concerning both, the reader discovers; inconsistencies in her character, and conflicts between her perceptions of the weasel’s emotions and its actions. Concerning her ethos, Dillard presents herself as a part of suburbia and then is suddenly, inexplicably overcome by the desire to live wild. Dillard also uses very detailed language throughout the essay in describing her surroundings and thoughts, however; this further undermines her argument and ethos as she is trying to convince the reader that she could simply become as simple and single minded as the weasel she has focused her argument around. With her use of pathos, Dillard begins her essay with descriptions of the weasel’s brutality, yet; she concludes by stating the weasel lives as is necessary. By simplifying her experience and presenting a reasonable explanation for why she wanted to

Empathy is fundamental to institute showing sympathy and understanding towards other people. The two stories, “The Lottery” and “The Interlopers”, are centered around solidifying how significant empathy is. The authors in both of the stories use specific literary devices to get their message across. The techniques they use include situational irony, characterization, and pacing. Each of these devices help create the mood of their stories, which aids in your understanding of why empathy is vital in human nature.

During the narrator’s description of World War II the reader comes across a scene that depicts a woman and a horse in which “He had a dirty picture of a woman attempting sexual intercourse with a Shetland pony. He had made Billy Pilgrim admire that picture several times.”(pg 40) Within in the novel this is the most explicit sexual scene and one of the reasons this novel may have been added to the banned book list seeing as beastiality is not apropiate for anyone let alone adolescents and is illegal. The author uses the second protagonist in his novel, Billy Pilgrim in order to display one of the first examples of a moral decision hence “There was a tap on Billy’s car window. A black was out there...Billy did the simplest thing. He drove on.”(pg 59) In  this instance the reader understands that there are certain reasons for several Billy’s decisions and while they may not be “correct by moral standards” he choses to follow through anyway in turn causes the readers to question both events within the novel and the outside world. The next example serves to let the author address how a negative situation could bring about positive change “Only the candles and the soap were of German origin...The British had no way of knowing it, but the candles and the soap were made from the fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State. So it goes.”(pg 96) Providing a positive outcome from a very negative situation the narrator forces the reader to chose whether the situation is a good thing or not which makes reading the novel more difficult form a moral standpoint. Secondly, not only is the decision difficult to make but the reader is also left astounded

This is further emphasised when he comments “Let her”, his wife, “die, her life is cheaper than the sheep she’s made me lose” when the protagonist tries to persuade the father to help his wife giving birth. This demonstrates the philosophy in a patriarchal society as the father treats his wife as a belonging with a value compared to a human being. In this scenario, the father is comparing her life to the sheep, depicting her lower than his livestock.