Candide...

Voltaire uses several rhetorical devices throughout his novel, Candide, to help portray his main themes and messages. The story is based on satire. It's about a man with such blatant optimism that by the end this optimism turns into stupidity. For example in the novel Candide is taken away from his one love, Cunegonde. In his search to be reunited with her, Candide is flogged, almost killed, looses his beloved tutor Pangloss, believes Cunegonde was raped and disemboweled, etc. At times he may consider to doubt Pangloss's theory that their world "is the best of all possible worlds", but he still remains optimistic that life is good, and he can't complain. Exaggeration is a common device used in the story because the number of bad events that occur can't happen to someone in such a short amount of time. Every character suffers throughout the book and many of them try and down play their tragedies through their reactions. They make it seem like an everyday occurrence; as if it was inevitable. When Candide is reunited with his Cunegonde after believing she was brutally murdered and raped he asks, "So were you not raped after all? And were you not disemboweled…?" She responds calmly, "I most certainly was in both cases." This also an example of antithesis because of the opposition between such horrible events and the optimism in which Cunegonde says it. We can see this all throughout the book. I believe Voltaire does this to reinforce the stupidity of the people, and the satire that makes the story so amusing.

Pantoum!

The Pantoum of the Great Depression mostly follows the intended structure of this type of poem called a pantoum. However, the only part of the poem that is untrue to the structure is the final quatrain, which is suppose to change pattern but instead remains in the same. The poem describes the overall tragedies, and life during the Great Depression of the late 1920's and early 1930's America. Repetition is common to a pantoum poem, and throughout it the author, Donald Justice, shows this characteristic. For example when he mentions that "there were the usual celebrations and tragedies, and "the ordinary pities and fears consumed us". Several aspects of the poem can be relatable to many people as the economies of numerous countries are experiencing or have experienced very recently a recession. These relatable aspects include the lines "we were poor", and "gathered on our porches." Part of the poem doesn't even have to be relatable to those going through a "hard time" financially. The recurring lines of "no audience would ever know our story", and "our neighbors were our chorus" illustrates that no one wants to air their dirty laundry or give away their secrets. Even though you are neighbors with someone and have a neighborly relationship you will never truly know someone or their real story. This idea is mentioned throughout the poem with the line "and if we suffered we kept quiet about it." During the recession many suffered emotionally and financially. Millions lost their jobs, homes, and valuable personal belongings. People were forced to move outside cities and live in shanty towns called Hoovervilles named after the American president at the time. The suicide rates during the Great Depression increased hastily as countless people couldn't deal with this major life changing loss. Donald Justice tries to capture the feeling of living during the 1930's Great Depression.

Camille A. Paglia

Camille A. Paglia explores what she calls the "Androgyny of Manners." With this quote she states the main point, or focus of her entire essay, "The salon is an abstract circle in which male and female, like mathematical ciphers, are equal and interchangeable…" She hints that Christianity did not destroy paganism but rather drove it into the underground of Western culture. It later emerged in the Renaissance art , Romantism period of Europe, and modern Hollywood culture. According to Paglia, the major patterns of consistency in western culture usually find their origin in paganism, which, continues to flourish in art, eroticism, astrology, and modern culture. She discusses the concept of androgyny of Oscar Wilde and the theme that’s present throughout The Importance of Being Earnest; the men have female like qualities and the women have male like qualities.

Thesis Statement- The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried centers around the relationships the men make; their connections to the world they left behind, and the connections they formed in Vietnam.

How to Tell a True Candy Story

It happened, to me, nearly twenty years ago, and I still recall that candy bar with those giant peanuts and the soft munching noise behind me at the airport. Up on the second floor there were tiny, happy children, but no adults at all, and I remember the masses spreading out over the balcony where Mother Theresa and Bart Simpson were playing catch with a Snicker's bar. Brad Pitt sat snapping his fingers. Ashley Olsen and Operah and George Washington were dozing, or half dozing, and all around us were those chaotic children.
Except for the laughter things were quiet.
At, one point I recall , Brad Pitt turned and looked at me , not quite nodding, as if to alert me about something, as if he already knew, then after awhile he snapped his fingers and walked away.
It's hard to tell you what happened next.
They were just eating. There was a noise, I suppose, which must've been the candy, so I glanced behind me and watched Theresa step from the balcony into bright sunlight. Her face was suddenly clear and shinning. A beautiful lady, really. Sharp brown eyes, small and hunched, and when she ate it was almost dazzling, the way the sunlight came around her and lifted her up and munching her chocolate by a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms.

(page 70)

"A man possessed by peace never stops smiling."

Magic realism, an artistic genre, most popular among modern Latin-American fiction fuses magical elements or illogical events with a realistic setting. This style of storytelling has been enthusiastically embraced by a few English writers, especially women who have strong views of gender. It was imported into British fiction from the "outside" rather than appearing spontaneously due to the country's relatively "untraumatic" modern history. In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1976) the author Milan Kundera remarked that he had seen "a circle of dancers rise into the air and float away." However, we know this to be an impossible event. The ring of dancers rise from the ground and float into the sky. We delay our common sense or disbelief because the event sounds so powerful. The expressed emotions we feel have been built up over the previous pages. Milan Kundera was one of the many Czechs who celebrated the move of the Communist Party into mainstream society in 1948. Many were hopeful it would create a brave new world of freedom and justice. Milan was soon expelled from the party, and these emotions are often explored in his writing. In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting he writes about the public ironies and private tragedies of post-war Czech, and moves spontaneously between reality and fantasy. His image of the rising dancers epitomizes the absurd self-deception of the members of the Communist Party; their apprehension to declare their own purity and innocence. As well as their determination to ignore all the issues of the political system in which they belong. It is often said that this fantasy image expresses the envy and loneliness of the author who was banished from ever being able to participate in their euphoria and safety of their dance. One of Kundera's most likable characteristics is that he never takes the martyr position, and he never underestimates the human cost of being a nonconformist.

Unreliable Narrator

Unreliable narrators are commonly known as “omniscient” narrators, and only invented for the purpose of being a part of the story they are telling. The point of using an unreliable narrator in a piece of work is to expose in a more attention-grabbing way the gap between what seems to be, and the actual reality, which is a very human characteristic. It reveals how humans distort the truth. The narrator in kazoo Ishiguro’s novel, The Remains of the Day is an elderly butler from England who works at a wealthy estate that now belongs to a rich American. Encouraged by his new employer to take a short holiday in the West Country; Stevens intends to make contact with Miss Keaton, a housekeeper in order to persuade her out of retirement to solve an employment crisis at Darlington Hall. In the style of a typical butler, Stevens writes, and speaks without enthusiasm or originality. On his journey to find Miss Keaton, Stevens reminisce about past events such as his old employer Lord Darlington who was an amateur diplomat that gave support to fascism and anti-Semitism. He has kept this a secret from anyone for years, and takes pride in is flawless service. This same air of secrecy has made him unable to recognize his love for Miss Keaton, who desperately needs his affection after a loved one, has died suddenly. Later on we see his sensitive soul when he is concerned about intruding on Miss Keaton after he realizes that he didn’t offer his condolences. He believed that just on the other side of the door Miss Keaton might be crying. It isn’t until many pages later that we are introduced to the real reason why Miss Keaton was so upset. She was mortified after begin so callously rejected by Steven’s shy love.