Summary Of 'You Monster' By Leonard Pitts

When referring to writing, tone is described as the writer’s attitude toward their subject matter and audience. To analyze any literary essay, recognizing tone is vital to understanding how the writer feels about the subject he has written about but also the underlying message he is trying to convey. In the essay written by the investigative reporter Jessica Mitford entitled, “To Bid the World Farewell” Tone is very pronounced and effective in getting the main point of the essay across. The author uses many different tones, from which I have selected three to analyze. All three off them use the good principles of writing a convincing and informative essay. Her ability to sarcastically familiarize the general public with the ‘dark arts’ of the embalming industry is both suggestive and engaging. She also uses an abundance of euphemisms, hiding the disturbing truth under a string of organized connotations. Her last method of tone is to inform the reader of the embalming methods by explaining with the wordy and often misunderstood colloqialisms of an actual ‘dermasurgeon’, in which she provides multiple quotes to further convince the reader.

When analyzed online many of the definitions you will find for the word monster include: a strange or horrible imaginary creature, one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior, or an animal of strange and/or terrifying shape. (Merriam Webster) When observing the “Monster Theory” by Jeffrey Cohen and the 7 theses that he provides in this text, one can begin to somewhat disagree with these formal definitions and attempt to say that it has an even greater meaning. Monsters might scare us and frighten us because of their physical appearances but also can provide us with possible solutions to gaps and uncertainties in our mind that Sigmund Freud would label as “The Uncanny”. I can only but agree with

For example, he makes the statement “You’ve bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before .” This statement may not use words that directly says that he is angry, but the tone can still be felt by understanding why Pitts includes this statement in his essay. He is addressing a group of people who had inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering onto the American people. He acknowledges that their actions have left a wound that may never heal, and he is not happy about it. This anger led to a desire for retribution, and this resulted in an additional tone that was expressed in this essay.

2. The brief conclusions all serve to indicate cold, harsh, and impactful conclusions to his yearly cycle which further emphasize the schism between school years. Some of the conclusions serve different functions, though. For example, when he ends his third grade segment with “I’m still waiting.” it is short and impactful; but, when he ends the fifth grade segment with a rhetorical question “Oh, do you remember those sweet, almost innocent choices that the Indian boys were forced to make?” the segment seems to linger on for a moment longer, portraying that the event had a stronger impression than the previous, shorter conclusion.

It expresses the diversity of America, and how the no matter how different the people of America are from one another, they have one common want: Freedom. This quotation also appeals to pride, hopefulness, and patriotism, in the way that he describes the way he sees America, a strong city full of diverse people, he sees a country that has been through a lot of conflict and hardship, but nonetheless survived it all. He sees a strong city, and the rest of America does too. Since he uses this imagery to depict his vision of America, it appeals to the reader's sense of pride and patriotism.

The essay goes into great detail of his relationship with his father. He describes his father as cruel (65), bitter (65), and beautiful (64). He does mention the bad in length. On the flip side, he tells us some of the good as well. Throughout his storytelling, the reader gets a glimpse into his life and the way he feels. His feelings evolve during the extent of the essay.

“Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria” - Alan Greenspan. New York author, Alan Greenspan, here is explaining that the threat fear presents is really no different than the state of intensity caused by euphoria. In Andrew J. Hoffman’s anthology, Monsters, there is substantial evidence that both fear and euphoria are inflicted upon men, by female monsters. The two threats men typically face against women are temptation and emasculation. Thus, in mythology and folklore, female monsters exemplify the impulse of desire (sexually) for men, and male weakness. These are creature that are lusted after and yet, still feared because of their power. Men find female monsters both fearsome and euphoric and will always threaten their dominance and control.

The essay begins by talking about when Staples ended up walking behind a woman on a Chicago street. At this instance, her pace began to increase until, finally, she was sprinting away from him. In the beginning paragraphs, he introduces words such as “victim” and “mean”. By doing this, a vivid picture is easily formed in the mind of the reader of when he came up behind this lady on the street. The situation was displayed in a way that made the reader suspect that something was going to do happen to her. As the passage continues, Staples beings to change this picture and starts to pull emotion from the reader. "It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls, that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into - the ability to alter public space in ugly ways." (205) This newly expressed feeling is a prime example of Staples beginning to draw an emotional response from his audience. He is able to

The resilience of the American people has been seen for decades, even before gaining our independence from the British. Our nation as a whole is not easily deterred; there is no challenge or obstacle too big for Americans to overcome. Over our whole existence as a country, that statement has held true, no tragedy or rivalry has been able to damage that. “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People” by President Bush and “The Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson are examples of Americans overcoming trials and tribulations to come together as a whole. In “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People” President Bush as our leader at the time was ready to defend our values established in the “Declaration of Independence”. President Bush conveyed the values present in the declaration by using his authority to levy war, restore tranquility, and bring justice to the American people, he newly establishes the tolerance of our nation towards other religions and other views, however not toward the destruction of our country, and the declaration is initially created for the freedom of solely our country, in this speech he builds upon the declaration and appeals to the freedom of the world.

He uses the previous examples of individual's grief in his speech to make way to how this horrible situation could create a new, better beginning by using a single, simple rhetorical question: “why?”. After this, he states that “It is that out of the shadow of this evil, should emerge lasting good...“ and that out of this tragedy people should fight to make it to “people everywhere can see the chance of a better future through the hard work and creative power of the free citizen, not the violence and savagery of the fanatic.”, which ends the speech on a inspirational and humble

The beginning of any thought provoking essay will hook its audience using a form of pathos. “Two of his sons returned home from the battlefield whole and healthy. The third, however, came home suffering multiple seizures a day”-(Rorabacher). The quote generates sympathy within us making us yearn to see a welcoming outcome and leaving the audience hooked. Eli Hager’s article follows a similar route informing us that “The state of Missouri sent Harris to the penitentiary in Boonvilee, 250 miles from his home and baby daughter”-(Hager). Again we sympathize with the loss of a family, but not all of the articles used grievance to hook us. In the “Quiet Alarm” the audience is informed of a vaudeville performer who performed deadly stunts involving hatchets, pins, and guns on himself to generate shockwaves in the audience. From these examples we identify how our emotions lure us into these texts.

He also uses the literary device of parallelism, which means that he uses similar wording in his syntax to make a point, “I have used the words "they" and "their" in speaking of these heroes. I could say "you" and "your" because I am addressing the heroes of whom I speak.” In addition, he asks a rhetorical question, a question not meant to be answered aloud but to be pondered silently, “You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?” Asking this rhetorical question gets the audience involved in his speech. These are both useful techniques because they both relate him to the audience and keep the audience’s attention by inquiry. These are all strategies that lead to the same outcome, to persuade the audience that he is best fit to be the leader of this nation.

Monster by Sanyika Shakur yields a firsthand insight on gang warfare, prison, and redemption. “There are no gang experts except participants (xiii)” says Kody Scott aka. Monster. Monster vicariously explains the roots of the epidemic of South Central Los Angeles between the Crips and the Bloods that the world eventually witnessed on April 29, 1992. As readers we learn to not necessarily give gangs grace but do achieve a better understanding of their disposition to their distinct perception in life.

Throughout King’s speech, he uses the rhetorical mode, pathos, to give the audience an ambience of strong emotions such as sympathy. For example, whites had

The strongest of Obama’s points reside in his use of pathos, or emotional appeal, to connect with his audience. The audience and appeal are blatant from the beginning of the essay to the final word. Americans. Due to the loss of American lives, the emotional charge within the audience is almost palpable. Obama highlights this when he states: