First, thanks to Ted Broughey for sending me some bucks yesterday. Now I can get new strings in time for Mardi Gras.
This is how I have spent my entire morning; writing the essays below. I now go to give copies to the Bangladeshi Guy, who doesn't want to be named here, nor to be disclosed which store on Dauphin Street he works at.
I hope that he will renumerate me with the "some bucks" that was promised in regard to my completing the paper.
I am anxious to see if I can score a 4.0 at the University of South Alabama in English Comp 101, also. To see if I've "still got it." And, I can use the money.
I can still see the look of abject scepticism on the face of the Bangladeshi guy, as he was asking this homeless street musician if he was capable of writing a college level paper. I told him that I had majored in English, during my 7 year stint in colleget (but only an AA degree) and, as is often the case, his eyes travelled to my backpack, then my hair and then took in my attire. He was a picture of doubt and I could see him pondering trying to find someone else to write his darned paper..
I hope he pays me before he is given a failing grade after the professor reads the essay and concludes that there is no way on God's green earth that the Bangladeshi guy wrote it.
As a matter of fact, when he passes it in, he will probably say "Here is essay I write. Is compleatly I finish."
The assignment was to write a positive and negative description of the same place, using rhetorical devices to diferentiate, then, an analysis thereof.
Get it?
The Alley Behind The Saenger Theater: Part One (positive)
It would be easy to overlook the secluded sanctuary, secreted away in the alley behind the Saenger Theater, and miss out on its idyllic charm.
I chanced upon it, one night, when trying to escape the chaos and cacophony of the street, and to better hear my phone.
As I retreated into it, I had a sense of going back in Time.
I found myself nestled between ancient brick walls, which stood there in defiance of gravity, defiance of progress and seemingly oblivious to the changing world at large; preserving history.
The concrete underfoot was a jigsaw puzzle of broken pieces, with a few pieces missing. How many people had tread upon it, over the years gone by? –People of Fame, known to every corner of the globe, those who have shaped the world; their influence being felt everywhere today.
Then, amongst the fissures, I discerned a face. One crack being the mouth and a couple of divots, the eyes. Were the "eyes" created when a roadie dropped Elvis Presley’s amplifier? Or Neil Young’s?
I could only wonder.
The face looked at me as if it knew.
A few empty soda cans and some cigarette butts scattered on the ground were evidence that this treasure had been found by others.
The Alley Behind The Saenger Theater: Part Two (negative)
The noise on the street was such that I was forced into this alley behind the Saenger Theater, just to be able to hear the voice on the other end of my phone.
I ventured into its darkness. Darkness which, quite frankly, reminded me of a tomb.
The place was not exactly in good repair.
I found myself sandwiched between decrepit brick walls which threatened to collapse any second. I had a vision of tripping over the uneven concrete and then being buried where I lay, under an avalanche of falling theater.
I wondered what impressions the performers, many of whom have traveled the world over, surrounded by glamour and luxury, would have upon exiting the Saenger and traversing this alley. It may not have exactly been the high point of Neil Young’s career.
Some of the fissures in the cement revealed what looked like a face. Like the tracing of the words “wash me” in the dust on dirty cars, the face in the concrete seemed to be imploring “Replace me.”
On the ground were scattered soda cans, cigarette butts, broken glass, other sordid trash. This was a warning that others had been creeping back there.
I left quickly, for fear of being accosted.
Rhetorical Analysis: Part 3
My strategy for presenting the encounter with the alley in two different lights involved setting the respective tones in the opening paragraphs of each description. The discovery of it was fortuitous in one; unfortunate in the other.
The contrast, I attempted to elucidate through the use of diction, alliteration, personification, metaphor, a sentential adverb, parallelism, a synecdoche, an asyndeton, and a litote, for good measure. Something I found called “The Law of Threes” also rears its head in one essay.
In the positive description, the desired effect was an implication that finding the alley was a lucky occurrence, and that the observer uncovered its “idyllic charm.”
The alliterative "secluded sanctuary, secreted away…" is used to lend the description a more poetic tone, to be congruent with the pleasantness described.
The observer “escaped” into it, implying that a certain freedom was attained; a liberation from the "chaos and cacophony" of the street; another alliteration, which parallels and balances the previous one, which it contrasts.
The word "retreat" was chosen to reinforce the idea of getting away from “it all.”
The brick walls were described as "ancient," which is more tactful than calling them “old.” They were then personified as “standing in defiance of...” The device used for emphasis was parallelism, whereby the word “defiance” was repeated and then the “seemingly oblivious” phrase appended to it, using the Law of Threes.
Then the metaphor of the concrete being “a jigsaw puzzle” aimed to plant a picture in the reader’s mind, and hopefully beg the rhetorical question which follows, about the countless people who have tread over it and turned it into a “puzzle.” The hope is that the reader will be puzzled, likewise.
This puzzlement is intended to put the reader in a state of reverie, concerning the human element connected to the alley, rather than its material condition, for in the human aspect lays its biggest charm.
The face in the cement was added for repetitive purposes and to “drive home the point,” as Winston Churchill was so fond of doing.
Finally, the place is called a “treasure,” implying that others had come there and had valued the experience.
The second description shows the observer feeling “forced” into the alley, which is here like a tomb. The sentential adverb “quite frankly” is used for emphasis. The sentences are linked by an anaphora, magnifying the word “darkness” by placing it at the end of the first and the beginning of the second sentence.
Other diction is changed from the first description: “Retreated” becomes “ventured,” implying that a risk is being taken. “Nestled” becomes “sandwiched,” as the observer feels closed in and pressured.
“An avalanche of theatre” is a synecdoche, where the whole of the theater is substituted for just the actual part of it which would literally fall upon the observer, should his fears came to fruition.
I used the litote "not exactly in good repair" "to help the reader imagine details which I omitted, for the sake of brevity.
The charm imparted by the human element associated with the alley, which is suggested in the first description is here dispelled by the rhetorical question about Neil Young, suggesting that he too may have been “creeped-out” by the place. The face in the concrete does not have enchanted thoughts in its countenance, here, either.
An asyndeton is finally used to list the items of litter, so they will pile up in the reader’s mind.
The droppers of it are implied to be a threat; as the litter is termed “a “warning,” heightening a sense of danger in this less than idyllically charming alley.
