Nonfiction: Rhetoric and the Essay

This is Unit Twelve of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part two of two. Part one supplied the vocabulary and the modes, and introduced Equiano. This part reads his passage, sets Swift beside it, and closes the prose band. Part one's governing idea was that the procedure holds and the object changes: in nonfiction you track claims rather than events. This part pays it off where it matters most, at the line between satire and testimony, which the sentences alone cannot draw and only the question of whether a voice is owned or adopted can. First Equiano's passage below the decks, read as what it is, a witness's account of the crossing, with its devices named without the naming replacing the account, and its restraint read as a rhetorical decision, attributed as a reading. Then Swift beside him: nearly identical manner, opposite purposes, and the cost of confusing the two. Then the exam's seven question types, unchanged for nonfiction, referent tracking, and four traps that are sharpest in this band. Last, a four-step procedure, the glossary's running total of forty-five omitted terms against eight chapters no other source has, and the close of the prose band. By the end you will be able to read Equiano's passage as testimony and name its devices. To separate satire from testimony by the persona test. To answer the seven types on nonfiction and defeat four traps. And to run the procedure and carry four things into drama.

Eight entries on Equiano's passage: below the decks, the word salutation, understatement that is not irony, the comparison with his former slavery, death as the last friend, the flat close, why the restraint persuades, and which appeal is at work.

The plain past tense of a witness.

AIL 1126 Below the Decks

Equiano writes that he was soon put down under the decks, and there received such a salutation in his nostrils as he had never experienced in his life. He reports what was done to him in the plain past tense of a witness giving an account. This is testimony, not technique.

A courtesy used for an atrocity.

AIL 1127 "Such a Salutation"

A salutation is a greeting, a courtesy. Equiano uses it for the stench of a slave ship's hold. The word is far too polite for what it names, and that distance between the word and the thing is the sentence's whole force; the gap is the sentence's force.

Understatement, and not for irony.

AIL 1128 Understatement as Testimony

Unit four defined litotes from the glossary as deliberate understatement, usually for ironic or satiric effect. Here the effect is neither ironic nor satiric. Understating an atrocity makes the account harder to dismiss as exaggeration, which is a rhetorical calculation a witness might reasonably make; the glossary's purposes do not exhaust it.

The worse thing makes the scale.

AIL 1129 "I Even Wished for My Former Slavery"

Equiano writes that he wished for his former slavery in preference to his present situation. The sentence works by comparison: a condition the reader already considers terrible is offered as the better option. The argument is made by the structure rather than by any adjective, and comparison carries the claim.

Death named as a friend.

AIL 1130 "The Last Friend, Death"

He writes that he wished for the last friend, death, to relieve him. Death is given as a friend, and the word last does double duty as final and as remaining. Unit seven's personification appears here inside a work of testimony; last means final and remaining both.

Administrative calm, deliberately.

AIL 1131 "This Indeed Was Often the Case With Myself"

Having described prisoners cut for trying to jump overboard and whipped hourly for not eating, he closes that this was often the case with himself. The sentence is administratively calm. Its flatness after what precedes it is the most controlled thing in the passage; the flatness follows the horror.

Calm is harder to dismiss.

AIL 1132 Why the Restraint Persuades

A witness who shouts can be dismissed as overwrought; a witness who reports calmly cannot. Equiano's control is a rhetorical decision by a writer who knew his audience would look for reasons to disbelieve him. That reading is an interpretation and is offered as one, attributed and not asserted.

All three, and the sentence decides.

AIL 1133 Which Appeal Is Equiano Using

All three. Ethos comes from his being the one it happened to; pathos from what is described; logos from the orderly sequence of verifiable detail. A question asking which one dominates should be answered from the named sentence, not from the passage as a whole; answer about the named sentence.

Four entries that set Swift beside Equiano: the same manner and opposite purposes, what separates them, the cost of confusing them, and the caution that naming technique does not replace the account.

Same manner, opposite purposes.

AIL 1134 Swift Beside Equiano

Unit four worked Swift's proposal: level, statistical prose describing an atrocity. Equiano's prose is also level and also describes an atrocity. The manner is nearly identical and the purposes are opposite, which makes the pair the most useful contrast in this unit; manner alone cannot tell them apart.

Is the voice owned or adopted.

AIL 1135 What Separates Satire From Testimony

Swift's speaker is a persona whose position the author rejects; Equiano's speaker is the author reporting his own life. The difference is not in the sentences but in whether the voice is owned. Unit five's persona test is what settles it, and nothing else will; here the governing idea pays off.

One failure, two bad readings.

AIL 1136 The Cost of Confusing Them

Reading Equiano as satire would treat a man's account of his own suffering as a device. Reading Swift as sincere would treat a satirist as a monster. Both errors come from the same failure, and this is the clearest reason unit five's work on voice was placed before the craft units.

Describe the craft; name the subject.

AIL 1137 Technique and Testimony

Naming Equiano's devices is legitimate analysis and it is not the whole of the passage. He wrote to end a trade he had survived. A course can describe how the prose works while saying plainly what it is an account of, and this unit does both; analysis does not replace the account.

Six entries on the exam: the same seven question types, referent tracking in long argumentative sentences, and four traps, agreeing with the argument, the persona for the author, the mode from the subject, and vividness for emotion.

The same seven question types.

AIL 1138 How the Exam Asks About Nonfiction

The same seven types. Device identification, word in context, referent tracking, paraphrase, tone, tone shift, and the writer's attitude. Nothing new appears for nonfiction, which is why this unit adds vocabulary rather than a new procedure, and no new procedure is needed.

Nearest noun that fits both ways.

AIL 1139 Referent Tracking in Argument

Argumentative prose runs long sentences with many pronouns, so a question may ask what a given this or it refers back to. Work backwards to the nearest noun that fits grammatically and makes sense, and prefer the grammatical fit when the two compete; grammar wins when they compete.

What it does, not whether it is right.

AIL 1140 Trap: Agreeing With the Argument

A reader who agrees with a passage judges it better made than it is. The question asks what the passage does, not whether it is right. This is particularly live on nonfiction, where the subject may be one the candidate has views about, and agreement distorts the judgment.

Essays can wear a persona too.

AIL 1141 Trap: Taking the Persona for the Author

Swift's proposer is the standing case and unit five built the test. In nonfiction the trap is sharper, because a reader expects an essay to mean what it says. Check for the gap between what the voice asserts and what the text demonstrates before assuming sincerity; the expectation of sincerity is the trap.

The burden names it, not the topic.

AIL 1142 Trap: The Mode Named From the Subject

A passage about two countries is not necessarily compare and contrast, and a passage recounting events is not necessarily narrative. Name the mode from what the passage must establish, which is part one's rule. The subject suggests and does not settle, as in units four and eight, the third statement of one rule.

Terrible subject, unemotional manner.

AIL 1143 Trap: Mistaking Vividness for Emotion

A passage can describe something terrible in unemotional language, as both worked texts do. An option calling such a passage impassioned is answering from the subject rather than the manner. Unit four's first trap, met again in the band where it is hardest to resist, and the hardest place to resist it.

Seven entries to close: a four-step procedure, what the glossary left out and what the anchor supplied, the prose band complete, what to carry, where this returns, and the handoff to drama.

Thesis, mode, voice, appeal.

AIL 1144 A Procedure for a Nonfiction Passage

Find the thesis in the first and last sentences. Ask what the passage must establish, which names the mode. Ask whether the voice is owned or adopted. Then read for the appeal a named sentence is using. Four steps, and the third is the one that prevents the worst error.

Twelve more, forty-five in total.

AIL 1145 What the Glossary Left Out Here

Twelve terms were supplied: rhetoric, essay, thesis, argument, ethos, pathos, logos, rhetorical question, anaphora, concession, refutation and syllogism. With units six, seven, ten and eleven the running total of standard terms this anchor omits is forty-five, and the running total is recorded.

Eight chapters no other source has.

AIL 1146 What the Anchor Did Supply

Eight chapters on the modes, with worked examples and a clear account of concession and refutation inside the argument chapter. No other open text in this course's sources covers the modes at all, so the chapters earn their place even having been written for a different task; credit where the anchor is strong.

Three units, the prose band covered.

AIL 1147 The Prose Band Complete

Three units have covered it: narration and point of view, character and style, and now rhetoric and the essay. Together they answer every prose question type the board's sample set demonstrates, across both fiction and nonfiction, fiction and nonfiction both.

Four steps, three appeals, seven modes.

AIL 1148 What to Carry Forward

Carry the four-step procedure, the three appeals with the single sorting question, the seven mode names, and the concession-refutation pair. Those handle any nonfiction extract the exam prints, and none of them requires having read the work it came from; no prior reading is required.

Units eighteen and twenty reuse this.

AIL 1149 Where This Returns

Unit eighteen meets Swift and Pope again in their own century, and unit twenty returns to Equiano under decision D8, where his narrative anchors a tradition taught on public-domain writers. The reading done here is reused in both, and Equiano returns under D8.

Next: drama, the neglected band.

AIL 1150 What the Next Unit Does

Poetry and prose are done. The next unit takes drama, which carries fifteen to thirty percent and is the band candidates most often neglect. Structure and dramatic irony come first, worked on Hamlet and Sophocles, both in the anchor's own play texts; fifteen to thirty percent of the paper.

That is Equiano's passage, Swift beside it, the exam's questions and traps, the procedure and the record, with the governing idea paid off at the line between satire and testimony. You can read Equiano's passage as a witness's plain past tense, hear the gap in salutation, name understatement that is not for irony, read the comparison with his former slavery and death as the last friend, feel the administrative calm of the close, attribute the reading that restraint persuades, and answer the appeal from the named sentence. You can set Swift beside him, same manner and opposite purposes, separate them only by whether the voice is owned, name the cost of confusing them, and describe the craft while naming the subject. You can answer the same seven question types, track a referent by grammar, and refuse agreement, the persona for the author, the mode from the subject, and vividness for emotion. And you can run thesis, mode, voice, appeal, state forty-five omissions against eight chapters credited, and carry four things out of the prose band. Unit thirteen takes drama.