Is deception just as bad as telling an outright lie?

Deception according to Google: A thing that deceives; the act of deceiving someone

…

Deceive according to Google: Deliberately cause someone to believe that something is not true, especially for personal gain

Lying is an intrinsic part of us human beings. It’s quite sad to say that absolutely no human being has never told a lie in their life. But that’s the truth. Lying is an essential part of our lives and it will probably always be. But when does lying become a problem?

In my opinion, it is always a problem. A society where nobody needs to tell a lie would be a nearly perfect society. A society where everyone would have to live up to the truth and deal with it. A society where everyone can trust everyone and cooperation is actually possible. But this is not the case, we are living in a lying world. However, the thing that makes this lying world so bad is not really the fact that we’re telling lies. It is the fact that over time people have learned how to lie properly in order to get the masses to believe them.

Outright lies are easy to catch out. An educated audience will always be able to catch one of these. The thing that can often make them effective is when the truth about something is not actually known by the population. But eventually the truth always comes out, and outright lies will eventually be righted. In fact, I believe that the thing that really keeps them from dominating is the fact that it’s possible to provide counter-evidence. If the people can be shown the truth, then a lie will lose credibility.

Deception however, is a different story. Deception is sneaky. When done right, there’s no way to perceive it. Deception is much more carefully orchestrated so that it isn’t caught out. Facts can be true, but the message that will be given may not be a truthful one. It is the fact that deception is so powerful that makes it much worse than just telling outright lies. Deceiving someone is much more likely to succeed because the facts are so well manipulated to be credible. But the undeniable fact is that it is still lying. And because of that, we cannot have a society where trust is consistent. Use of deception is something that has been deeply ingrained into our culture, and it will be difficult to get rid of it, given that it can be so effective to further personal agendas.

Because of all this, I’m going to side up with the other corner in the classroom. I strongly disagree, not because deception is better than lying, but because it is much worse.

Learning how to be Biased: writing a biased article

The following is an attempt at rewriting this article: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/tripped-refugee-heading-spain-football-academy-150916142230899.html by portraying an ideology different than the one portrayed in it.

Syrian Refugee Crisis a Hoax?

Recently Osama Abdul Mohsem, the refugee who was tripped by the Hungarian camerawoman Petra Laszlo was discovered to be a football coach back in Syria and was taken in by a football academy in Spain to come and work as a coach. This wonderful humanitarian act would not have been possible without the media's constant repeated reporting of the seemingly awful story of the Hungarian camerawoman's actions. However, how many people have stopped to think about why the camerawoman tripped the man in the first place?

The Syrian refugee crisis is perhaps the most reported and continued news story that we've had in a while. But is the way that the media portrays the crisis actually truthful? Is the tale of the “Syrian refugees” truly as sad as we have been demonstrated it is? Part of it is. It is undeniable that Syria is right now going through a time of crisis and that the conflict has caused large displacements of the population both within the country and outside of it. But is the flood of refugees in Europe we've been hearing so much of actually made up of fleeing families?

It turns out that the media has been skewing our perception of the refugee crisis in Europe. While it is true that tragic stories like that of Osama Abdul Mohsem are a reality, the media focuses far too much attention on stories like this.

Out of all the “Syrian” refugees arriving at Europe, it is quite often that as many as 90% of the refugees claiming to be Syrian do not actually have the documents to prove it. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of Syrian refugees that are interviewed by the media state that the thing that they want the most is to return to Syria, so that their lives can go back to normal. If that is the case, then why are there so many refugees making the perilous journey all the way to Germany, when the UN's convention relating to the Status of Refugees states that countries are obligated to grant asylum to anybody who declares a refugee status in the first country that they report in? Clearly Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt are already over-saturated, with refugees, so then considering that the Arab Gulf states don't want to offer any help to their Muslim brothers, the next option in line is Europe. But why go all the way to Germany when all the other countries are capable of providing asylum? Eastern Europe may not be economically developed enough to provide optimal conditions for refugees, but neither are Lebanon and Egypt, at least in comparison to the likes of Germany. It is obvious that these “refugees” are looking for more than just a place to stay in until the conflict subsides. They are looking for a country where they will be showered with money.

Despite this, countries like Hungary have received a tremendous backlash in the media for not accepting refugees. But with a real calamity waiting behind the floodgates, one can truly understand the reasoning behind Hungary's decision. The culture that all these refugees carry with them is completely opposing to the standards of European culture. It would be extremely difficult for any country to not be gravely affected by the sudden massive influx of refugees. There have even been reports of a school in Germany close to a refugee camp having to ban miniskirts for the fear of possible rape by refugees. And this is in fact not as far fetched of a statement, considering that there have already been rapes of women and children within a refugee camp in Europe.

The massive, rapid influx of refugees means that the refugees are not having to adapt to Europe; Europe is having to adapt to the refugees. These refugees, who could easily be Pakistanis or Jordanians who threw their passports to the sea and then claimed to be Syrian upon arrival, are bringing in a massive and abrupt change to the European way of life. Perhaps it is about time for the media to begin to understand that Syria is not the only country with problems. As the saying goes: “You can't take care of others if you can't take care of yourself.” Perhaps it is time that the NATO affiliated countries stopped complaining about Russia and Bashar Al Asad, and found a way to stop the violence once and for all so that the senseless mass migration can stop and Syrians can go back to where they truly want to be: “Home.”





Rationale:

The article was meant to go against the ideology of Al Jazeera regarding the Syrian refugee crisis about how the refugees are victims and anybody who doesn't want to offer them help is the enemy. The article is a continuation to all the series of news stories regarding the reporter that tripped the refugee, so it is following the ideology of the refugees being victims and the non-conforming Europeans being the aggressors.

The main idea of my article is to shift that focus and, while still keeping the idea that refugees are victims, show that the European states have a point when they say they don't want to accept refugees. The ideology in my article does not go against the Syrian refugees, but rather it goes against Western media in general, by claiming that their focus on the problem is not only ignoring the negative aspects of that the refugees are bringing to Europe; but also portraying their focus in the media as "wrong" and not focused on where the real issue lies: in the governments' incapacity to cooperate together.

This is English

Here I sit, intrigued at the fact that I will actually post this before sundown and pondering why on Earth did our teacher ask us to a simple literary analysis of such a... speech... that only goes to how does this guy develop his thesis and how does that thesis relate to the question “How can literature develop empathy and emotional intelligence?” Although personally to me it seems that the speech is so good and blunt that there isn't really a need to explain the concept(s) exposed. So on with the typical English stuff:

https://vimeo.com/68855377

He starts off his speech with a humorous and rather unlikely metaphor that really captures the audiences attention. He then explains what the metaphor means and then goes on to explain what it really means. He talks about the whole routine. About how people just get up, go to their difficult jobs. Work. Get stressed. Work. Get back home. “Unwind.” Then go sleep to do it all over again. Then he goes into what happens when you run out of food. And well, “you have to drive to the supermarket.” And then suffer like I think pretty much everyone does while trying to get all you need and then pay (the queues..!). And etc etc. So in this first part he goes on using a simple description of this deadly routine and uses a simple form of it, so that everyone can relate. He goes on it in a very sulky and depressing tone so that people really get the idea that the routine is depressing and annoying.

Then he takes a tone shift as soon as he says “But that is not the point.” He goes on to explain how it's all about choice. Making emphasis on the whole “choice” part. He talks about how it's our default setting to think that everything revolves around us and uses the example that maybe everyone else around us that is stressing us out is just as equally stressed. Basically saying in a very long way that life isn't as depressing as we see it all the time in our default setting, but that it's up to us to make it seem depressing.

He finally wraps it up by saying that even though the speech isn't inspiring like homecoming speeches tend to be, it is a lesson to be assimilated by anyone. The end, pretty much... Shout outs to the people that made the video above for recognizing these three sections of the speech.

Now then, how does this relate to the inquiry question? Well simple. When we read we get to consider perspectives of people different to us. We get to consciously go through the thought process of other people. Do that in real life and well, you've made the conscious choice to not perceive life as the monotonous depressing routine it might be. In other words, literature consists of doing precisely what this guy says it's good to do in his speech. Isn't that nice?

On a side note, I'll just leave one of the things I've learned from a friend. A thing that in my opinion counters the whole depressing atmosphere of the video.

Keep things interesting.

Practice IOC: Boys and Girls by Alice Munro

Don't judge too harshly...

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6ZfRT_ZZ7MbeGlKd01mUDdoc0k

Alice Munro: Capturing the subconscious struggle (of women?)

For a slow reader like me, trying to read through half a story of description only to get another 20 extra pages of actually interesting things, well... puts me to sleep most of the time frankly. But that usually happens to me with all books unless something interesting's happening. But when I really get into it it's very... interesting. It reminds me of the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. Something that probably has to do with the fact that they both choose rural settings (at least in the Márquez stories I've read). But something about their writing styles just feels very different... Maybe it's because Márquez is in Spanish and Munro in English, but Márquez is kind of like in sepia, while Munro is in a combination of dim and melancholic colors... still similar though, wouldn't you say? It probably has something to do with me perceiving the Canadian countryside to be much more lush, foresty green than the Latin American one, but well who knows. Point is I only just recently realized that and I found it interesting. Interesting that halfway through the Alice Munro stories that I've read I am subconsciously captured by the action of the story and the sleepiness no longer creeps in...

So how does that work? Well, my thought is that Munro (and I won't talk about Márquez anymore, because I haven't really read much of him anyway, much less analyzed his work) writes about the human subconscious. But she doesn't do so in a direct way. Instead she explores the human subconscious and perhaps more specifically, the female subconscious through her short stories of melancholic stories and seemingly uninteresting first halves that are spent mostly on descriptions and on some past event (jks, she gets creative with these descriptions and keeps it interesting. No way she would've gotten a Nobel prize with lousy half-half short stories). So back to the point I wanted to actually talk about in this paragraph: it would seem that (for me) halfway through the story some subconscious happening takes place within the universe of Munro's story that secretly captures me and makes me want to find out more. The passionate and often irrational decisions that the characters take without knowing why. The apparent suffering of not understanding why everyone behaves the way they do. I find it quite interesting, even if it's subconscious, to try to understand what on Earth is happening inside the heads of these characters Munro has created. Now that is real life complexity captured in a few thousand words. I take away any bad comment I might've said about Munro before this. 

Now then, since obviously this blogpost can't be all my personal experience and I have to eventually relate this back to the title and the foreshadowing of the theme of feminism I attempted to do on the last paragraph. Truth is, for some reason it seems that either men haven't realized that they are powerless before a woman or women haven't realized just how much power they actually have in their hands (sorry, I know , because it seems that when we talk about "Women's Literature" minds tend to be filled with the idea of the oppression of women by the more dominant male a-bit-less-than-half section of the population and the heroic story of Feminism and how it has helped women claim the position they deserve. But the thing is, all of this social oppression on women is something that has been recognized far and wide, and I mean, I never saw a single person in Venezuela tell a girl or woman to go to the kitchen or whatever if it wasn't to crack a joke and have a good time. Western society has caught on to the whole unfairness of the issue, and slowly but surely the entire world is making progress toward that so cherished social equality. But Munro shows us a different aspect of the picture. 

Alice Munro doesn't really write about Feminism, and if my memory is wirkin beter tahn my typing skills at this hour in the morning, she doesn't identify herself as a Feminist writer either. Alice Munro writes about humanity, about issues that we can all identify with. But her being a woman who grew up in the 20th century, she has a lot of views on the world that have been shaped by her experiences as a child. The expectations that people had of her and all other women. The inevitable ignorance of countryside folk. And as any good artist should do, she writes from her heart about the things that have happened in her own life. The things she knows the true emotions of and thus is able to so skillfully portray them. And included among all this is the subconscious struggle of women in society. And even though this struggle comes as a repercussion of the way women have been treated by society, these struggles stretch far deeper than simply trying to achieve equality in society. Alice Munro writes about those mental struggles. She writes about the incomprehensible, those impulses of the heart that we can't put into words but that she can put into stories. Short stories. The deep and complex realism of her stories is simply the perfect tool to convey the mental struggles that women go in their lives. Whether they are related to Feminism or not is, I believe, up to personal opinion. Then again, an author can easily convey meanings that weren't intended. After all as videogames (the type of "book" that I grew up with (some videogames have good stories, trust me (don't judge))) have taught me, you can never fully understand another human being. So in that sense it is impossible for us to ever fully grasp the full length meaning of Munro's stories with our souls. But there are things we can learn. About struggles. And even Feminism. Maybe. Maybe I should just generalize it and throw everything into that box popularly labeled "life." Because maybe, women's struggles are more related to life than female oppression... which is then again a part of life anyway... ok I'll just stop there. 

The Power of Stories

During my stay at the Art Monastery, there was a person who brought to my mind a certain idea that I had thought of before but never in so much detail as he showed me. This idea was how powerful stories can be. He showed us how some of the best filmmakers create storyboards so detailed that the producers and editors could not mess around with their ideas too much. In other words, the story was so well set that they could not change it, and so the original story came out fully. He showed us how he had implemented this concept into a financing app he was creating; I didn't fully understand it, but it has to do with laying out the company's “story” into the app to ensure that things would go as planned. A bit more complicated than that obviously.

This being an English blog though, I thought it'd be a little out of place to talk about how good storytelling can be used to ensure something is carried out in a certain way. I thought it would be more interesting to talk in this case about how stories connect to language and cultures. About how stories are able to evoke emotions and teach lessons in a very effective ways. There's a reason why all of the abstract art (especially in areas like writing, theater and music) is not the “mainstream.” And that's because people will always find the relateable format of a story much easier to deal with than the tough-to-grasp, more abstract forms of art.

The reasons why stories are so powerful have to do with imagination and empathy, both innate human characteristics. Through imagination, we are able to suspend our disbelief of something and, to some extent, make ourselves believe that the stories that we are being told are real. And that's precisely what allows empathy to kick in and make us feel for the characters in the stories. In psychology there is a theory of something called a “Flashbulb Memory” and it is the idea that when an event is accompanied by a strong emotional reaction it is much more likely to be “burnt” into our memory. This is what happens with stories. If instead of listening to a boring lecture about moral behavior, you read/hear/watch a story that teaches about those moral behaviors, you would be much more likely to remember them and apply them, especially if the story involves you emotionally. Even more if you are able to identify with the characters in the story, which is the main reason why stories remain more popular than abstract art. It leaves less to speculation and thus makes the characters and the plot more relateable to the audience.

Despite that, stories are not the perfect medium for communicating ideas. Despite not being an abstract art itself, when attempting to teach a lesson through a story, as many cultures have and still do, the story becomes a sort of abstraction of the lesson. One must be told what the lesson underlying in the story is, or otherwise that will be left to speculation, just as if it were an abstract piece. That's precisely where the fun part starts though. Stories can be more than just a fun read or something to relate with; they can be a completely unpredictable thing. With every person's individual interpretation of the events that take place, misunderstandings included, a completely new intention or purpose can surge out of the story.

And by intention I don't mean the author's intention; rather, I am referring to the intention of the story itself. The one that varies between readers. The one that makes a single story fan out into so many different faces. Stories are a powerful and unpredictable thing. Almost behaving like a living being. Changing its intentions and stuff... Funny, it sounds similar to how we described language at the beginning of the course. And with good reason I suppose. After all, stories and language are quite strongly intertwined. They compliment each other, granting each other powers they would not have otherwise.

Humans and their imagination...

Exploring the universe one story at a time...

Writing from the Heart

So, uh… how do I start this… Maybe I should start by analyzing how that list sentence should’ve been a question but wasn’t? Well I guess this awkward thing I’m writing right now is probably stupid enough. I think I’ve broken the ice enough, probably should get to what I wanted to get to now. Question is, whether to do it artistically or just be straightforward about this “general musing…” Nah, that’s a pretty stupid question to ask actually. It’ll just be what it’ll be. Well, here it goes. Just gonna let it flow now.

Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to use language without any involvement from the brain? Well ok, obvious logical answer is no. But have you ever thought about what it means to write “from the heart?” Trying to figure out what that meant was extremely difficult. Maybe I should start with the whole story though, some context never hurt any story.

So, I spent the entire first week of April in a small medieval mountain town in Italy called Caramanico as part of a summer program organized by something called the Art Monastery project. Sounds kinda cool, doesn’t it?? The program was essentially a combination between relaxation, contemplation, exploration and creation (by creation I mean art). Among the many activities that we did, there was one creative writing workshop that we did. First one I’d ever done actually (that involved some actual writing). I have absolutely no memory of what she called the thing we were doing, but essentially it was writing from the heart. We read this (translated) poem from the Persian poet Rumi and she told us to pick a word/phrase/verse/section/whatever we wanted from the poem that caught our attention and just write stuff using that as an inspiration. But the most important thing was that we had to write “from the heart.”

And that simple command got me absolutely baffled!

In fact, I don’t even remember what part of that poem I had chosen or anything, because when I got to writing what I did was basically discuss with myself in three different languages how on earth to start writing something that came from “the heart.” However, that was under stress conditions, so I never really thought about what I was doing… I just kept on discussing, thinking that analyzing a poem was definitely something that came from the mind and not the heart and therefore was not something I could start the piece with. But now that I have time I really wanted to ask myself: what does it mean to write with the heart? Is there a way to use language in an entirely intuitive way that does not involve the use of the mind?

Well as I said before, there most likely isn’t. I mean, language is a thought process, right? In that sense, there’s no way to use language without thinking about it. I mean, language is used to convey ideas and those come from the mind. The conscious, “civilized” mind, that is. But what about the other part of the mind? The impulsive one responsible for emotions and things like that? Is it possible to use language using ONLY that part of the brain..? Well, if it’s not impossible I guess it must be extremely difficult for me at the very least, considering how much I overthink stuff. I mean, certainly letting emotions run completely free on a blog meant to be read by my entire class is pretty dangerous… But what would have been the problem with unleashing those emotions onto the sheet of paper back at the monastery? Something just didn’t feel right back then. Like everything I tried to come up with didn’t seem to come from the heart.

It’s a funny thing actually. It makes me question to what extent can language actually convey emotion. Sure, language can create scenarios that one can imagine and then we can immerse ourselves into whatever emotion that scenario produces within us, but that’s not really the language conveying emotion. It’s an idea with the power to produce emotions in others. And of those I’m very sure that there are many. What IS it then, to write from the heart??? Does that actually even exist?

I remember hearing in theater that some theater forms like Absurdist Theater and Theater of Cruelty often worked on the basis that language was a failure as a means for communication. Especially the latter one, which essentially believed that true emotion could only be experienced when one detached from all social stimuli. Language probably being one of them. Language can clearly communicate ideas, but when it comes to conveying emotions it is absolutely useless. Emotions are just such a personal experience. And everyone perceives them in such different ways. The same event can cause completely different reactions on two different people depending on their own memories and personality. And then they might try to communicate the emotion to the other person, but will they ever truly, fully understand what the other person was feeling only through language? Even though they both know all the details from the event firsthand? Language may be a very powerful tool, but when it comes to conveying emotion it certainly falls short…

However, and here’s where it gets interesting, in spoken language it might, just might, be a different story. Especially in personal interactions with other people. At one point in my trip, the person who was my travel companion, a friend from Resuscitation Theater here in Abu Dhabi, said that Spanish and Italians are very passionate people. When we spoke some more about it he mentioned that these languages usually involve much more breath and the sounds tend to come from more within the body than a language like in English. Like saying that when one is a native speaker of these languages there is a lot more from the person’s body that is involved in the communication. Almost like it’s coming straight from the heart..!

And call me crazy for talking Physics in an English blog, but there’s actually still a lot that we possibly don’t know about the things we can’t see. It might be possible that when we speak there is more than just air vibrations that travel the air… There’s something I was read: “Any sound can shake the air. A voice can shake the soul.” Maybe when we speak there’s more than just those vibrations going across… And maybe it’s language that allows us to encode that “something else.” But well, it’s not like I know anything about that stuff. It’s fun to imagine it might be true though 

How to write about Venezuela

For starters, there is no such thing as a Venezuelan. In Latin America everyone is Mexican. If not, then you speak Portuguese. And before you get the idea, allow me to tell you that it is pointless to try and explain to your readers what the difference is. About 60% of them don’t really care about your country, so just go straight to the point. However, if you do want people to realize that it’s Venezuela you’re talking about, then here are a few things that will make everyone understand more easily.

Firstly do not, EVER, speak badly of the government. Chávez was a great hero and everyone loved him. Thanks to him the country is in a “decent state.” It’s important to mention what a kind and gentle soul he was. And never say anything about giving away practically free petroleum to other countries. All the money the government makes goes toward helping the poor people inside the country and toward giving power to the people. His successor, Maduro, is of course a wonderful man too. Talk as nicely as you can of these great men and your readers will love your work.

Always remember that all of the women in Venezuela are what defines beauty. The women are the only good thing that comes out of the country. Don’t mention Gustavo Dudamel or Maikel Melamed, because you will lose your audience. Always make sure that you include a lot of women in your story, because that’s the only thing people know about and will be able to identify with. And don’t try to make your women smart, because you’ll confuse your audience.

If you want to include a guy in your story then you have two options: either he’s a fat guy that drinks beer all day and deals drugs, or he’s a skinny guy that robs places and deals drugs. And of course, never try to bring up those malandros that work for the government on the streets killing people. Remember that anyone who’s come out of the Chávez regime is like a sacred figure. These men do not exist, and any good men can’t be round characters. And every now and then make sure your male drug dealer fails horribly, like crashing a plane with his cargo of cocaine on the mountains. And always remember that everyone is poor and living on a shanty house. Yeah, this doesn’t contradict the fact that the government still helps the poor people more than anyone. Deal with it.

When it comes to music it is important that you note that the only thing people can dance is Salsa. And you pronounce that with a swallowed L. You can also mention Reggaeton and how popular it is. People love that kind of crappy rap. Don’t worry, nobody will understand all the swear words, so you won’t go get criticized for putting Reggaeton lyrics in your writing.

One of Venezuela’s most interesting points is its wide diversity in landscapes, which includes plains, beaches, islands, many green mountains, a desert, a snowy mountain, nice cities with lots of trees around and the ever amazing Amazonian Rainforest with its Angel Falls. When it comes to writing though, using all of these will be at your disadvantage, because people will not understand where the action’s taking place. Always set your story either in the gray downtown area of a violent city or in a messy jungle where the only inhabitants are antisocial natives. Sometimes you can let the natives have a magical shaman among them, but you should avoid such clichés and leave them to the Africans. And remember the jungle can’t be the Amazonian rainforest because that is only in Brazil and Guyana. Oh, and don’t mention the Angel Falls, unless you want people to think of the Disney movie UP which copied the waterfall. 

Paper 2 practice: Myths and Legends in Things Fall Apart

Show how and to what effect Achebe makes use of myth, legend of other stories and tales.

Stories often form an important part of the culture of a people. It is through stories that ideas, moral beliefs and everyday life can be preserved most easily. In a culture with no form of written language, such as Achebe’s Igbo culture, story-telling becomes the most practical way to convey knowledge to the younger generations. In his novel Things Fall Apart, Achebe makes good use of various stories and myths of the Igbo culture to create a genuine depiction of his own culture, which in turn allows his readers to not only better understand the Igbo culture, but to entirely immerse oneself into Achebe’s fictional village of Umuofia.

Achebe shows us just how important stories are in Igbo culture by showing us a story made up by Ekwefi, who is telling it to Ezinma. Ekwefi’s story carries a moral that she intends to teach to her daughter. She uses the story as a method of education. Ekwefi then asks Ezinma to create her own story, a task which she finds to be harder than what her mother made it look like. The use of stories as a form of education and the encouragement for young members of the population to be trained in the art of making stories from a young age shows us that in Igbo culture stories are the main way of transmitting knowledge and of educating the population. Achebe also shows us that this transmission of knowledge was something more than just a mere moral lesson. It was also used to shape the Igbo society itself. This can be seen when we see that Okonkwo’s male sons are told stories by him while his daughters are only told stories by their mothers. This shows that stories were used to determine the gender roles within the Igbo society, since there would be a separation as to what stories the boys would hear and what stories the girls would hear. And as remarked by Achebe through Nwoye’s opinions of the difference between Okonkwo’s and his mother’s stories, these stories would differ in content, the male ones usually being more violent than those told by the mothers.

Another example of an Igbo legend used by Achebe, and in this case one that has a visible effect within the culture is the legend of the Ogbanje. The Ogbanje is a demon child that keeps dying young and being reborn into the womb of the same mother. In Things Fall Apart, Ezinma is considered to be an Ogbanje, since Ekwefi has had many children before her, but they have all died young, thus she was thought to be plagued by an Ogbanje for a long time. At one point in the novel, the members of the village even harass Ezinma so that she gives off the location of the small pebble that is supposed to be the link between the Ogbanje and the physical world, in order to make sure that Ekwefi would not be tortured anymore. Achebe, writing for a contemporary audience, would have known that there is a scientific explanation for this phenomenon which the Igbo mythology attributed to supernatural forces, and that his audience would have known this as well. The fact that the reader knows that this is indeed nothing more than a legend may cause some confusion or misjudgment of the Igbo culture, but Achebe tries to stay as true to the culture as possible and show his readers exactly what the culture was like. And to this end, he shows us the extreme extent that these legends would impact the behavior of the Igbo people.

Another example of a myth that would directly impact the lifestyle of the Igbo people was their belief of having a very strong connection to Ani, the earth goddess in Igbo religion. Throughout Things Fall Apart Ani is the most mentioned deity, since many of the actions taken by the people in the village have consequences that are directly related to her. An example of this can be seen when Okonkwo accidentally kills Ogbuefi Ezeudo’s son with his faulty gun. Killing a fellow clansman is considered to be an offense to Ani, and thus Okonkwo is forced into exile in order to prevent the earth goddess from doing anything too rash. Okonkwo’s house, all of his crops and his animals are also destroyed in order to please the earth goddess. This shows that the Igbo people had a very deep belief in their religion and that it heavily affected the way they lived. Achebe might have intended to make special emphasis on this aspect of the Igbo culture in order to make an indirect comparison with the Christian church, where a lot of people do not take religion as much into account during all of their lives, and thus portray the Igbo people as a culture that may be more religious than the colonizers themselves. This would have caused the western readers of the time of the novels release to question the religious aspects of their own lives.

These are just a few of the instances in which Achebe uses Igbo legends and myths in order to create a genuine portrait of the Igbo culture.

Obierika's Memoir

In the end, I suppose it was inevitable. Umuofia had for long had cracks in its system, incomprehensible actions that not only I, but others as well did not really understand. Why were twins not allowed to live among us? Why were some men not given the same respect during their burial even though they were born equal? Why should a man pay dearly for a crime he never intended to commit? All of these questions have been for long swirling in the minds of our people, but never were they truly answered until the white men came to our land.

When they came at first nobody truly took them seriously. The only ones who found refuge in the white man’s religion were the osu, those who we had rejected. But eventually everyone began to see the superior power the white men had. They wooed our people with their medicine, with their education system. But what caused our people to lose faith on Umuofia’s traditions was that the white man could do many things we believed would bring him certain death. He built his settlement in the evil forest and survived without any problems. He removed the Chukwu’s mask and was not met with any punishment. They accepted twins, who then grew up to be perfectly normal people. The actions of the white men confirmed the horrible doubts that had already been stirring within our people for a long time; our beliefs and our religion were indeed flawed from the very beginning.

Paper 2 Practice #1: Social status in Things Fall Apart

Discuss the significance of social status in Things Fall Apart, and comment on its contribution to characterization.

Chinua Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, takes place in a fictional group of Igbo tribes known as Umuofia. Despite being a creation of Achebe, Umuofia’s society stays true to the vast majority of the Igbo social and cultural elements. Among these is the great importance of social status within the Igbo society. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe uses the element of social status in Igbo culture to enrich his characters and place them into the context he is writing them into. Three clear examples in which Achebe does this in his novel are when he uses a low social status to give a negative view of a character, when he uses high social status to create a positive view of a character, and when he represents the constant struggle to achieve high a social status in Okonkwo, the main character of the novel.

In the first chapters of the novel, Achebe tells the story of Okonkwo’s father, who was a man of low social status that spent his days being lazy and worried more about his music rather than gaining wealth and climbing the social ladder. It is important to remark that in Igbo society the achievement of a high social status through hard work was what most men would dedicate their lives to, and men who did poorly in this aspect were often looked down upon and thought of as weak and feminine. By giving Okonkwo’s father an extremely low social status and complimenting that with the description of him as a lazy person, Achebe effectively creates a negative image of this character in the reader’s mind. This in turn allows the reader to sympathize more with Okonkwo, who deeply resents his father’s paradigm, which in turn allows the audience to emotionally engage with the novel more easily since they will now be able to feel sorry for Okonkwo’s tragic occurrences. This is shows how Achebe can use a low social standing to create a negative image of a character.

Achebe, however, also uses high social statuses to create positive perspectives of characters, as is the case with Ogbuefi Ezeudo, one of the leaders of the tribe. Ezeudo is one of the most revered men in all of Umuofia and he is also meant to be a very wise character who always speaks the truth. It is for this reason that Achebe gave this man a very high position in the social ladder, with three of the four great titles that a man could have in Umuofia. Ezeudo’s high social standing immediately creates an image that portrays him as a man of honor, as a hard-working man who is worth looking up to. Even though Ogbuefi Ezeudo is a rather flat character, his high social standing allows the reader to quickly understand how important he is in his community, apart from creating such a positive image of him.

The entire hegemony of the Igbo society is portrayed clearly through Okonkwo. Similarly to Ogbuefi Ezeudo, Achebe grants Okonkwo a relatively high social standing and describes how he has got there through hard work, which creates a positive image of him for the reader. However, the fact that Okonkwo is still trying hard to climb up the social ladder gives him a drive to carry out most of his actions. At the end of Things Fall Apart Okonkwo is forced to take his own life due to the circumstances he was in, however most of the actions that led him there were typically related to climbing the social ladder. Throughout the novel, it is seen how Okonkwo works hard to attain wealth in order to obtain titles, which in Igbo culture can only be obtained when a man has enough wealth to pay for the initiation rites. We also see how Okonkwo strives to behave as manly as possible in order to be perceived positively by the community of Umuofia. Okonkwo’s constant attempt at looking manly is what often leads to many of his wrongful decisions, such as participating in Ikemefuna’s sacrifice. Okonkwo’s constant attempt to look manly has also had an influence in the way that he expresses his emotions, and he thus becomes less comprehensive and more violent, since imposing authority through violence is a trait that is considered to be manly in Igbo culture. This is what leads to Okonkwo breaking the week of peace by beating his wife and to him beheading the missionary at the end, which was the final mistake that led to his demise. This shows how Achebe not only uses social status to express specific traits, but also how he uses the hegemony in the Igbo culture to drive his characters, especially Okonkwo, in a specific direction. In Okonkwo’s case, his tragic end might suggest that Achebe wanted to show how detrimental the social hegemony was for the Igbo people, since the search for this eventually lead to Okonkwo’s demise.

In conclusion, Chinua Achebe is able to use a social structure, very resembling of that of the real Igbo tribes, to quickly convey traits of a character due to the clear views of social positions in Igbo culture. Achebe also uses the search for social status to drive his characters, most specifically Okonkwo, whose demise is eventually caused by this constant strife to be perceived positively in his society.

Catching the audience: Paper 1-style speech analysis

Link to speech: http://www.nationalcenter.org/AnthonySuffrage.html

In the year 1873, Susan B. Anthony was unjustly arrested and fined for voting in the presidential elections of the previous year in the US. In order to express her feelings of anger and convey her ideals of gender equality to the rest of the population she wrote a speech. Through her speech, she manages to convey the message that women should also be allowed to vote in an effective manner that reaches her intended branch of the population. She accomplishes her goal by using a complex diction, which not only allows her to reach out to the more educated section of the population but also makes her speech more effective by making her look more educated, which gives her ethos. Overall, Anthony manages to create a tone and mood that is extremely serious and credible, which ultimately makes her speech extremely effective.

It is most likely that Anthony’s intended audience when giving out this speech was an adult population of a higher education section while also targeting specifically men. This can be seen primarily in her choice of sophisticated terms which are defined by using uncommon words, such as “ex post facto law,” “disfranchisement” and “odious aristocracy.” Evidence for her targeting of higher education brackets of the population can also be seen in the fact that she references things such as the Federal Constitution and scholars such as Webster, Worcester and Bouvier. The fact that her speech is mostly focused on using logos as a method to appeal to the audience rather than pathos is evidence that her target audience would have most likely been men, since an appeal to emotion would have been more effective for women and men normally tend to find highly logical and direct messages more convincing.

It is possible to see from Anthony’s target audience choice that the purpose of her speech was not to encourage more women to join the gender equality movement; rather her intention was more directed towards the idea of providing a strong argument for the gender equality movement that would resonate in the male population as well. To this intent she uses direct citations from the Federal Constitution and gives a detailed explanation of her argument, which means that she is using very strong logos to persuade her audience. However, her choice of sophisticated words and proof of her knowledge of scholarly figures would also make the audience perceive her as a highly educated member of the population, which gives her a strong ethos through the speech itself.

Despite having a lot of factual based arguments in her speech, Anthony still manages to a tone of ire and sorrow that delivers her message in a passionate way that can resonate with the masses. She does this by using certain rhetorical devices which allow her to emphasize on specific aspects of her argument. For example, when she uses the diacope in “It was we, the people; not we the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union” she stresses on the fact that it was not only men who established the country and that women also played a large role in that, thus showing that they should be more equal. At the same time, by using the personal pronoun “we” Anthony makes the audience put themselves in the situation and think of themselves as the ones who are rejecting; which in this case are the ones who are put in the wrong throughout the speech. This would make the audience feel bad about themselves, which creates a tone of sorrow throughout the text, especially due to the early positioning of this statement in the speech.

Anthony also portrays some anger through her speech which also leads to it being more powerful. When she says “it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty” she creates a juxtaposition of the “blessings of liberty” and not just a mockery, but a “downright mockery.” By juxtaposing these two ideas, she creates a stark contrast between them, which allows people to more clearly comprehend her point; that women are not entirely free unless they can vote. The use of the word “downright” right before “mockery” also gives a strong emphasis to this negative word. The fact that these words are also placed towards the beginning of the sentence set a tone of ire for the rest of the sentence, which allows this important part of the speech, which contains an allusion to the right to vote at the end when she refers to “the ballot” (which is also further emphasized by a pause), to come across effectively and get her point across.

She also further creates a tone of ire with a deliberate accusation towards the higher class population of that time, which were likely to be part of the target audience as well, since these people would tend to have higher levels of education. Towards the end of her fourth paragraph, Anthony says:

an oligarchy of wealth, where the right govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules over the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes fathers, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household—which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord and rebellion into every home of the nation.

In this part of her speech, Anthony uses an anaphora by repeating the word “oligarchy” and changing the word after it; however, this is also combined with a climax (as in this context the “oligarchy of sex” would sound as more important than the rest, since it is the main topic of the speech, and thus the oligarchies are stated in an order that rises in importance) and a parallelism (due to the similar grammatical structure used immediately after each oligarchy) in order to strongly emphasize the idea that a sexual dictatorship is one of the worst things that can exist. By adding the conjunction “but” right before the “oligarchy of sex,” Anthony not only indicates that this case is different to the rest, but also produces a short pause that would give emphasis to what she says next. She then further emphasizes her point of the oligarchy of sex by using a metanoia and re-explaining her already-longer-than-the-rest explanation of the “oligarchy of sex.” Lastly she uses a list of three with three negative attributes that the “oligarchy of sex” brings forward at the very end when she says “carries dissension, discord and rebellion into every home of the nation” in order to further emphasize her point. By using the anaphora combined with the climax, Anthony creates a mood of ire by rising the relevance of the subject each time, thus starting from the audiences possibly uninterested starting mood and bringing them up with her speech. These other rhetorical devices used right after take advantage of this tone of ire that has been created and manage to transmit the message in a more effective way, thus getting it across much more effectively.

It is also important to note that the structure of Anthony’s speech makes the speech less ambiguous and allows her message to come across with clarity to the largest amount of people possible. Her introduction at the beginning sets the context of her speech and she then proceeds to present her main point of evidence for her argument, which is the citation from the Constitution. She then proceeds to develop her ideas in an effective way and closes with the rhetorical question which she says is “the only question left to be settled now [is]: Are women persons?” which she then proceeds to implicitly respond to, thus closing her speech by giving the impression that there is nothing else to cover and that she has therefore covered all of her points. This structure makes her speech extremely effective, since it allows people to follow a natural flow and thus not get lost in her thoughts. The conclusion is also extremely effective for the reasons previously stated. The speech is also rather short, which ensures that people will be able to keep their attention focused.

This speech is perhaps one of the best masterpieces ever written in the English language. The masterful use of rhetorical devices and an organized structure to convey her message in an effective way make the speech extremely powerful. The fact that Anthony was also able to target members of the male part of the population also makes this speech through her use of heavy logos also makes this speech even more effective. It is truly a wonder.

Practice IOC - The Tempest

Practice IOC on Soundcloud

The Tempest Act 4 Scene 1 - Lines 200 to 254

Guiding questions:

 -How does the passage contribute to the comic relief of the play?

 -What do Trinculo and Stephano's actions show about their characters?

Written Task 2 Thesis Statements - The Tempest

Reader, culture and context

How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?

            The Tempest takes place in an isolated island, in which Prospero is perceived as the ruler. However, from Caliban’s dialogues we learn that he was the one who was originally entitled to be the ruler of the island, but Prospero took the right away from him by taking Sycorax’s powers. For this reason, Prospero could be viewed as the “colonizer” of the island. Because of the way Caliban is represented as a creature that is lower in status than a human, one may infer that Shakespeare intended to make a positive criticism in the colonizing agenda of the European nations of that time, when England was starting to make colonies in the New World. Despite this, a few lines spoken by Gonzalo, who is perceived as a righteous character, while describing the island in Act 2 Scene 1 may lead to believe that Shakespeare may have actually been trying to criticize the colonies in a more negative way. Gonzalo says that the island should be left untouched and the fact that everyone leaves the island at the end might also mean that Shakespeare intended to support this view more in this text, and that the negative perception of Caliban was actually just intended to make people reflect whether or not we should treat the natives in such a way. It is for these reasons that there have been different interpretations of the text regarding this topic.

Power and privilege

How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?

            In Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, the character Caliban can be interpreted as a representation of the native inhabitant of a colonized land, which in this case is the island which was colonized by Prospero. Caliban is often ridiculed in the play and is mostly represented as a character that is much less of a human being than the nobles in the rest of the play. Shakespeare most likely made this choice in order to appeal to the nobility, which also attended his plays.

Text and genre

How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose?

            The Tempest by William Shakespeare is a play that follows many of the typical conventions of Elizabethan theater. The play might be taken as an appeal to the audience by using all of the popular genres of the Elizabethan theater and mixing them all into a single play. The play has the dramatic plot of a tragedy, the stock characters and clichés of Elizabethan slapstick comedy, and a small romantic story to make it an all-inclusive play that would have for sure pleased the audiences of that time. 

The Language of the Ghosts

The “ghosts”… those beings that some believe are around us but can never interact with because they belong to another realm. Their manifestation in our world is nothing but an intangible image that can only be observed. Nothing else can be done with them. Some say that ghosts speak, but if they speak they probably have some kind of “spectral language” that we foolish mortals cannot understand. At the same time, however, they are not fully attached to our world, so our language is not really something they can easily understand. Thus, even though we and the ghosts exist in the same plane, we can never truly interact together...

Language is the main form of interaction that exists between human beings. Without language there really isn’t much we can tell others. We can grunt and wave (and if needed use violence) to make others understand us, but the messages would never be anything as concrete as what we have in our heads. If other people can’t understand us in modern society, then we become pretty much irrelevant. We are unable to truly contribute and other just ignore us. At the same time, we are unable to truly comprehend what other people are saying. Neither can we communicate what we want effectively to them. They become simple images walking around us. Only that this time they are tangible images. Images we can touch and that, most importantly, can touch us.

Going to a country where one doesn’t know the language is pretty much the same as entering an unknown realm that is ruled by ghosts. They are the majority and thus you must get used to the way they run things. Everything is designed for them and they are the ones providing it. So since you don’t really speak their ghostly language and or understand their ghostly culture you must try to adapt to it. Worst thing is, since you spent your childhood trying to live among the ghosts in order to get accepted, you end up not truly understanding your (or rather, your family’s) culture of origin. And so you end up being surrounded by a bunch of ghosts who mostly cannot communicate effectively with you, and vice-versa. You are doomed to lead a life of awkwardness and detachment. You cannot truly ever fit in with the rest. Unless of course, you learned how to speak ghost. And of course, taking into account that only those who speak perfect ghost with the same volume and intonation as the spirits are the ones that can properly communicate. Yeah, it’s really hard. C’est la vie.

The Skylight Room: A comment on Gender and Language

The following is an analysis of "The Skylight Room". Short story by O. Henry, from the turn of the 20^th century. http://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-story/the-skylight-room

Even though the author of this short story probably had no gender discrimination issues in mind when he wrote the short story “The Skylight Room,” the clear evidence of the inherent gender-wise discrimination present in his culture.

The story starts off with a Mrs. Parker, showing someone around a set of apartments where they may possibly live. The job of Mrs. Parker, which seems to be taking care of the apartments, is a job that seems to be inherently feminine when thought of. Mrs. Parker represents a sort of motherly authority, and she is put up as a nagging figure (“If you survived Mrs. Parker’s scorn”) who does not really have any real authority over the men that own the rooms. Right on the very first paragraph the author already creates a sexist image that places men on top by saying “the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years.” Right off the start he creates a hypothetical male character that has a higher status than the nagging-authoritarian Mrs. Parker.

All of the other female characters in the story also make use of this negative comparison. Even the main character, Miss Leeson, is rather objectified and does not have much depth to her. For starters she is a typewriter, a job that is inherently feminine, but she is also represented as a character of not many brains and just looks. The fact that she decides to name a star Billy Jackson is proof of that. She is also reduced to a simple object of beauty, by dedicating a large part of the narrative into how she would captivate all the men on the stairs while the other two ladies sobbed on the edges of the stairs.

The character that seems to have the most depth is the writer, Mr. Skidder, who is a man. However, the author still makes use of negative masculine views, such as the “forty-five, fat, flush and foolish” Mr. Hoover, who seems to fall in love with Miss Leeson for no apparent reason other than plain beauty. Mr. Hoover, who comes across as a disgusting character, actually asks Miss Leeson to marry him, but she is unwilling and runs away into the safety of her room, which is a rather feminist act to occur because it means that she was standing up to the man.

We can see that from the author’s perspective, even though there seem to be inherent gender roles and discrimination, it is not as strong as it could be. Being written in the turn of the 20^th century, in the United States, right when the Feminist movement was about to start, meaning that women had already reached a point in society where they could stand up for their rights, that is understandable. It shows how at that time genders were not really as discriminated and men did not reduce women to any kind of stereotype intentionally. However, his writing still reveals that there is an inherent “masculine superiority” in his culture which is still not completely gone.

Why Learn a Foreign Language and Kill your own?

In our rapidly globalizing world of today, minority languages are disappearing at a faster rate than ever. This is mostly due to the fact that the bigger, more “useful” languages are starting to become the choice of the younger populations; and once the children stop speaking a language, it is on a straight route to extinction. But, what makes these more widespread languages more “useful” than the minority languages? Well, there are many reasons, including the economic situation of an individual or community, migrations, pop-culture, etc. However, for this case let’s focus specifically on one major one: Education.

A better education is perhaps the key to a better lifestyle in pretty much any case. Having a good education can impact individuals in the fact that it will be easier for them to find jobs, especially if they studied at big, prestigious universities (which, by the way, mostly speak the bigger languages). Having a better education can also allow individuals that come from a small community to support that community more easily, whether it’s just by sending money back home or actually going back to help people out. A better education can indeed help both individuals and communities grow stronger, however there is one big issue that remains and perhaps it can’t even be solved. This is the fact that in order to get a higher education, one must learn the language that education will be in, thus people are forced to learn bigger languages.

Take a look at the top 10 universities from here onto perhaps more than 50 years into the future and I can assure you that at least 8 of them will be English-speaking universities. The top 5 universities nowadays are all in either the UK or the USA and majority of the top 100 universities in the world are also English-speaking universities. And if they aren’t English-Speaking, then they speak another major language, like French or German. This not only implies that people seeking to get a better education will have to learn the languages spoken in these universities, but also that all the academic research will be in those languages, meaning that even in order to simply access information one needs to learn these languages. When people learn other languages like this they often lose proficiency in their own language, since they are no longer using it for the more complicated aspects of their life (their studies) and also since the majority of the social interactions in that place will be in that foreign language. When people lose proficiency in their native language, they might also lose some interest of going back home and relearning it. This is also due to the fact that they can probably find a better-paying job wherever they are studying than back in their home town or country. This also increases the likelihood of the person getting married and settling in one of those countries for good, meaning that their children will grow up learning the language of that place instead of their native language and thus the language will eventually go extinct…

It’s pretty sad, isn’t it?

Oxfam International and the Predicted 2012 Food Crisis: Paper 1 Practice Text

-The text is an article on an online website written by the humanitarian company Oxfam International. This can be seen in the fact that there is search bar at the top of the text, under a banner of the company. The text also shows a “box” with the word search, which is likely to be an interactive element of the website that can be used to search other documents in the website. This would suggest that the company actively publishes articles in their website. The short paragraphs, the bolded synopsis at the beginning and the single image at the top are also common conventions of online articles, used by various publishers, such as online newspapers. The text itself addresses the concern of Oxfam International of an impending food shortage in various countries of West and Central Africa. It is meant to inform people with a considerable amount of education about the issue and Oxfam’s participation in helping those that might be affected. It aims to make the audience realize the gravity of the situation perhaps in the hope that the company may receive help from some readers, while at the same time putting forth a positive image of Oxfam International. The article also aims at delivering the information in a short and concise manner, but fails to become attractive enough to appeal to the larger portion of the population, since its style is too conventional and formal to be actively grasped by people who are not fully interested in the topic. Overall, the text aims to be shocking and make the readers worry, but fails to do so because it lacks relevance.

-The intended audience of the text is people with at least a moderate level of education that allows them to read mildly long texts in English and have a certain degree of awareness of global issues. The readers will be likely to have a good quality of life, since most English-speaking countries have a high Human Development Index. The text is also online, meaning that the person must be able to access a computer. That increases the likelihood that this article is addressed to overall mildly wealthy people, since people from poorer countries are unlikely to have this leisure. The article is also most likely directed at adults, since it is unlikely that someone who is very young would have the interest of learning about the possible future of a country that is miles away from their own. The length of the article, however, adapts to the short attention span of the modern-day human population. The short paragraphs make it easy to read, and thus it can reach a larger audience. The article aims to inform people about a possible crisis that may occur in West and Central African countries in the year 2012. The article also possibly aims to shock the readers, by using large statistics of how problematic the issue might be. This would bring more attention to the issue and more supporters to their cause as well. The article also aims to put forth a good and professional image of Oxfam International, by using language that is as accurate as possible and by explaining what Oxfam International is doing to address this issue. By doing this, the article may be aiming to advertise Oxfam International, in order to attract people’s support. However, due to the placement of the text, which is in the Oxfam International website, it is unlikely that a large number of people will see the text, unless they already know Oxfam International, so the text might only work to reinforce the knowledge of the company to people that already know it.

-The article talks about the possibility of a food crisis in West and Central Africa in 2012 (the article was written on December of the previous year). It gives an overview of the possible situation and explains what the origin of the problem would be. It also talks about what Oxfam International is doing to address the situation. The article speaks about the specific actions that Oxfam is doing in certain countries. It mentions that the origin of the problem will be the fact that these countries are unable to produce their own food and that the solution would be to provide direct support to these people so that they are able to produce, rather than just providing them with food when they need it. Oxfam International claims that this way the problem will not arise ever, because its cause will no longer be there.

-The text itself has a very serious and, to some extent, academic tone. It aims to be as accurate, clear and concise as possible, by stating the blunt facts without dawdling too much in details. The article even neglects to use emotional phrases to attempt at making the reader feel empathy for the people who would be in the described situation, and the single image does not really relate much to the text, since it only shows a woman on a donkey with a background of with what seems to be cattle. However, by stating various statistics with the large amounts of numbers of people that could be affected by the problem, it the text might evoke a sense of a big impending danger on the horizon. There is nothing in the image that alludes to the fact that there might be a food shortage. Some of the themes of the text are poverty and the current situation of economic inequality around the world, focusing specifically on West and Central Africa. The text also evokes a feeling of safety, of solidarity, of knowing that this company will be there to take care of these kinds of problems when they arise.

-The text makes heavy use of pathos to have an impact on the reader and persuade the reader into thinking that there is indeed a big famine on its way to Central and West Africa. All of the statistics of people who might be affected are a good example of this, and since most of the numbers are big, they help in making the audience feel that it is a big problem. The use of Pathos also strengthens the image of professionalism that the article puts forth of Oxfam International. This professional image that is put forth of the company also strengthens the ethos that the company gives the article. That ethos makes the message more believable, because people are more likely to believe a professional article supported by a big company like Oxfam International.

-The overall structure of the text is meant to adapt to the short attention span of the modern-day population. It has short paragraphs, which allow the reader to quickly flow through the text and it is less tiring and intimidating to the eye, which makes people more likely to read it. There are also various sub-headings in order to help the reader understand the text and also to make it looked more spaced out, thus making it even less tiring to the eye. The text only has one image, however for reasons mentioned above the image does not contribute too much to the text. It does, however, help the reader place the scene in terms of location and, due to the stereotype of the “poor African farmer” might give the reader some insight of what the text is about before they start reading.

-This article may be written by a humanitarian corporation; however, it does little to help raise awareness about the situation and instead serves as a way to bolster the image of Oxfam International. This can be seen in the mere fact that the article does not even deal with a real issue, but rather talks about a prediction that seems to have no author (the text only says “Recent evaluations suggest”). With a better placement and more emotional focus on the actual issue, rather than referring mostly to what Oxfam International’s involvement is this text could be an effective humanitarian advertisement that would raise awareness of the food shortages in Central and West Africa, but this text only makes Oxfam International look good.