The Change In Henry Perowne's Saturday

The irony from the poem “Ordinary Life” by Barbara Crooker shows that this day is nothing but ordinary. For example, lines 2 to 4 says that “the children went off to school without a murmur, remembering their books, lunches, gloves.” However, this is rarely the case, as children are bound to forget things and make lots of noise as they leave the house to go to school. Even as an intermediate student, I have left the house and forgotten my things a countless amount of times. Another example would include line 19. “I peel carrots and potatoes without pairing my thumb.” Now I am no professional cook myself, but I do have to say this is merely impossible. Lastly, lines 22 to 23 state that “And at the table, actual conversation, no bickering or

Throughout the entire speech, he creates emotion that affects the audience. He created emotion throughout the speech by using other rhetorical strategies, such as repetition, imagery, rhetorical questions, and allusions. By using repetition, he made the audience feel some guilt. In the repetition “Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves” creates the guilt-feeling towards the audience, because if Henry were right about Great Britain, then the audience would be in fault for not going to war with Great Britain. By using imagery, the images of an “insidious smile”, “delusive phantoms of hope”, and slavery and chains, creates an unpleasant image to the mind making the audience feel angry, empty, and fearful. Henry uses many rhetorical questions. The use of the rhetorical questions is a question that can only be answered with one right answer. This is because the question being asked is the truth. Sometimes the truth can be hard to hear and accept. As Henry asks these questions, “But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?” he evokes fear towards the audience and perhaps anger. He also uses biblical allusions in the speech. He does this to create some credibility but also to provoke some trust from the audience. When Henry mentions God or the biblical allusion it comforted or delighted the audience to know that God is a role in his speech. Although Henry uses repetition, imagery, rhetorical questions, and allusions, he incorporated emotion to those three other rhetorical strategies used.

It was an average day. I turned in my theme. I went about the day normally. It was all going to be fine, I thought.

Henry is trying to show how one’s default or natural response to the hardships they were facing at the hands of British rule might be to turn their head the other way.

First, one should focus on the language and Henry's ethos. The soldiers are burdened with the thought of a

Looking at the plot of the story, one can see that the story deals with a psychological conflict. Before Henry had left for the Vietnam War he and Lyman had a close relationship and since coming back he changed significantly because of what he saw and experienced. Lyman explains, “Once I was in the room watching TV with Henry and I heard his teeth click at something. I looked over and he’d bitten through his lip. Blood was going down his chin” (Erdrich 129). This example shows how Henry is dealing with the post war stress and how he cannot get what he went through out of his head. As he sits and watches the replaying war videos, he is unable to get past that he can live again and go back to the way things were because psychologically he is still at war and fighting.

Wallace’s inlook of “an average day” allows the audience and readers to have a view of what the adult life can be like, he strikes fear and dread in the audience because they now don’t want their lives to be miserable like the life Wallace explained. The speech will drive people to make their life different and not be in a routine.

One example is during the dance, when Henry and Rafas, a member of the Downey Gang, get into a fight, Henry eventually gains the upper hand and Rafas is at his mercy, however, instead of harming him, Henry just tells him to leave. Then, Bertha, Henry’s old girlfriend says “The old Hank would have slit Rafas’ belly like a fat pig.” (Valdez 47). This shows that Henry used to be much more ruthless than he was in the play. This is because he realizes that any violence that he does, no matter how small, will come up again, and could stop him from joining the military or from getting a decent job after the war. Because he realized this, he began to think about what effect his actions may have on his future. Another example is when Henry decided to back out of the appeal (Valdez 70). Instead of fighting the racist and corrupt justice system that put him in jail, Henry thought that, by accepting the punishment, he would be viewed as more American, and perhaps he would get out of jail early for good behavior. When Henry decided that he was going to join the navy he was thinking about his future as well. In the play Henry says, “I was all set to come back a hero, see? Me la rayo. For the first time in my life I really thought Hank Reyna was going someplace.” (Valdez 30). Henry knew that the only way he could gain respect from the police and the white Americans was by

Henry demonstrated his use of Pathos by demonstrating how much of a threat Britain can pose for the U.S. He mentioned the “gentlemen” still lament for peace, but warns the audience to be vigilant by telling us “Our brethren are already in the field!” and “The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!” Henry also bashes the people who were oblivious to the impending war by telling of how the British already taunted them of being weak and “unable to cope with so formidable an adversary”. Another Pathos acknowledgement

Henry’s feeling about the Red Convertible was another change that he underwent before and after war. When he and Lyman

When he came home, though, Henry was very different, and I’ll say this: the change was no good. You could hardly expect him to change for the better, I know. But he was quiet, so quiet, and never

This story made me think about how, even though you may not be there, time still passes on and does not stop for anybody. Throughout the text, it continues to refer to the time of day it is, and elaborates on how the day is progressing, like one of the first lines, “Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o’clock!” Everything, apart from the fact there is nobody around, seems completely normal, and a routine is still kept in place. The house continues on as if what’s going on is completely normal, as it knows no different from what it has been programmed to do. The writer makes me think about how we need to make the most of our time on our Earth. We never know when our last day will be, and our lives are honestly quite fleeting. I personally know that I don’t like or enjoy coming out of the routine I have set for myself on a day to day basis, although this makes a lot of my days feel the same in an overall sense. The message about how time won’t, and can’t, stop for anybody, and how life is so fragile, makes me think about how, maybe, I am not living to my fullest potential. This is the case for a lot of other people as well, and is a wide

Henry began his speech by emphasizing that although he is patriotic towards Britain, he has a different view on how to handle conflict with them. One of his most genius strategies is not discrediting the audience’s views, but delicately showing them a different one. “Different men often see the same subject in different lights” Henry builds ethos by expressing a religious passion. He shows himself as a Christian fighting for god. Henry attempts to show the illusion of hope by being the bearer of bad news.

In the second paragraph he addresses the situations that faces them as Americans. Henry questions the idea of people during this time and states “Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love?” He then states the only way to not lose this freedom that they worked so hard for is to fight “if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must

When Henry returns from a highly anticipated leave, he sees that everything is running smoothly despite his prolonged absence. He begins to feel useless, so he and his