Symbolism On The Yellow Wallpaper

Resources for Argumentation, Reading, Writing, and Research

Argumentation Understanding rhetoric 5–7 Identifying the elements of argument 7–14 Analyzing an argument so you can respond to it 14–25 Developing an effective style of argument 27–30 >Getting beyond the five-paragraph essay 30–32 Strategies for making arguments about literature 55–66

Reading Looking at literature as argument 69–71 Strategies for close reading 88–91 Using characters’ emotions and topics of literary studies to get ideas 99–102 Using critical approaches to literature 270–295

Writing Strategies for planning a paper 120–124 Strategies for composing a draft 124–132 Strategies for revising 134–138 Strategies for writing a comparative paper 140–144 Strategies for writing about stories 149–165 Strategies for writing about poems 169–181, and pictures, 184–190 Strategies for writing about plays 190–204

Research Strategies for beginning your research 207–209 Strategies for finding and evaluating sources in the library and online 209–212 Strategies for working with and integrating sources 214–216 Strategies for documenting sources in MLA format 218–227

Sample Student Drafts and Revisions Justin Korzack, How to Slow Down the Rush to War (argument in response to an argument) 33–35 Ann Schumwalt, The Mother’s Mixed Messages in “Girl” (argument about a literary element) 66–69 Abby Hazelton, The Passage of Time in “The Solitary Reaper” (illustrating the writing process) 132–134, 138–140 Jeremy Cooper, Don Paterson’s Criticism of Nature’s Owners (comparing literary texts) 144–148 Tanya Vincent, The Real Meaning of Charity in “A Visit of Charity” (argument about a story) 165–168 Michaela Fiorucci, Negotiating Boundaries (argument about a poem) 174–175, 182–184 Karl Magnusson, Lack of Motion and Speech in Rolando Perez’s “Office at Night” (comparing a literary text and an

image) 187–190 Trish Carlisle, Which Is the Stronger Actress in August Strindberg’s Play? (argument about a play) 204–206

Annotated Student Research Papers Sarah Michaels, “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a Guide to Social Factors in Postpartum Depression (using a literary

work to analyze social issues) 228–232 Katie Johnson, The Meaning of the Husband’s Fainting in “The Yellow Wallpaper” (using literary critical

sources) 234–238 Brittany Thomas, The Relative Absence of the Human Touch in “The Yellow Wallpaper” (examining a work in its

historical context) 239–243

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A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature

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A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature

SECOND EDITION

John Schilb Indiana University

John Clifford University of North Carolina at Wilmington

For Bedford/St. Martin’s Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill Editorial Director, English, and Publisher for Literature: Karen S. Henry Senior Executive and Developmental Editor: Stephen A. Scipione Executive Editor, Literature: Vivian Garcia Editorial Assistant: Julia Domenicucci Production Editor: Louis C. Bruno Jr. Senior Media Producer: Allison Hart Publishing Services Manager: Andrea Cava Marketing Manager: Sophia Latorre-Zengierski Project Management: Jouve Senior Photo Editor: Martha Friedman Photo Researcher: Angela Boehler Permissions Manager: Kalina Ingham Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik Text Design: Jean Hammond Cover Design: William Boardman Cover Art: A-Digit / Getty Images Composition: Jouve Printing and Binding: Edwards Brothers Malloy, Inc.

Copyright © 2017, 2014 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

1 0 9 8 7 6 f e d c b a

For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)

ISBN 978-1-319-07064-9

Acknowledgments Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages 297–98, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover.

Preface for Instructors

A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature, Second Edition, is the first part of Arguing about Literature: A Guide and Reader, Second Edition, which combines two books: a guide to skills of writing, especially means of argument; and a collection of literature, organized by themes. Both versions of Arguing about Literature connect the teaching of literature with the teaching of composition, and offer substantial advice about writing as well as numerous sample papers. In particular, we give students much aid in writing arguments on various topics. We emphasize that an argument is ideally not a form of combat but instead a civilized effort that people make to show their ideas are reasonable.

To be clear: although this brief guide does include a sampling of fiction, poetry, drama, and argumentative writing, its intention is to allow instructors to use our pedagogy with their own choice of literary or argumentative readings rather than the selection in our thematic anthology.

Both brief and full versions of Arguing about Literature are designed for two common kinds of courses. The first is a composition course where students learn techniques of argument by practicing them through essays they write, principally about literature. The second is a literature course that is nevertheless concerned to help students craft good arguments about their readings.

In this second edition, A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature has been strengthened for both kinds of courses where it is assigned. For the composition course, we provide more suggestions for analyzing and writing arguments and more arguments for analysis. For the literature course, we offer more advice about reading literature closely and more literature to read. For both kinds of courses, we present more instruction on writing researched arguments and update our discussion of documentation to conform with the 2016 eighth edition of the MLA Handbook.

What’s in This Guide As in the first edition, the book focuses on effective ways of writing and reading. In Chapter 1, we introduce elements of argument with an analysis of Paul Goldberger’s “Disconnected Urbanism” that elaborates such terms as issues, claims, audience, evidence, and ethos. Chapter 2 explains how to develop an effective style of argument, with ways to move beyond the formulaic five-paragraph essay. Chapter 3 concentrates on teaching strategies for arguing about literature, then Chapter 4 offers strategies for the close reading of literature. Chapter 5 returns to the writing process, familiarizing students with other moves that foster good argument essays. Chapter 6 shows students how to write arguments about the main literary genres: short stories, poems, and plays. Chapter 7 on how to write researched arguments treats this subject at length, and includes three student annotated papers. These examples that show students how they can address various common types of research-based assignments such as entering a critical conversation, developing an argument that places a literary work in cultural context, and using a literary work to examine contemporary social issues. All of the papers are about Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s feminist classic, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which we reprint along with several documents that put the story in historical context. The book concludes with “Writing with Critical Approaches to Literature,” a chapter that identifies and demonstrates contemporary critical approaches to literature, ranging from reader-response and feminist criticism to postcolonialism and queer theory; it uses these approaches to analyze a particular short story, in part by presenting a sample student paper on it.

New to the Second Edition The revisions in the second edition reflect the many useful suggestions of our users and reviewers as well as our own attempts to integrate new developments in literature and composition studies.

More advice on understanding and composing arguments. Chapter 1 now includes diagrams and flowcharts that illustrate how the elements of argument work together. We have also prepared a new second chapter on writing effective arguments that details strategies for doing just that and explains how students can get beyond the constricting five-paragraph essay-writing formula many of them have learned to rely on.

More strategies for critical reading and opportunities to practice it. Chapter 4 on the reading process now includes a section on how to get ideas for writing by tracing characters’ emotions, using as an example Edward Hirsch’s poem “Execution,” and concludes with additional literary selections on which students can attempt the array of close-reading strategies they have learned in the chapter.

Necessary additions and updates to the chapter on research and documentation. In Chapter 7, treatment of research includes more information about using sources and avoiding plagiarism, as well as citation and documentation coverage that reflects the new 2016 MLA guidelines.

New literature and new arguments. We have added stories by Rivka Galchen, Alison Alsup, and James Joyce, a poem by Edward Hirsch, and arguments on topics of great interest to students (such as defaulting on student loans and public shaming on social media) by Regina Rini, Lee Siegel, Sophia McDougall, Jon Ronson, and Jennifer Jacquet.

Acknowledgments The terrific staff at Bedford/St. Martin’s of Macmillan Learning continue to be wise and generous collaborators in our efforts. Once again, we have relied on our wonderful guides and longtime friends, senior executive editor Steve Scipione and editorial director and literature publisher Karen Henry. To their company, we welcome executive editor Vivian Garcia. We are grateful for the careful work editorial assistant Julia Domenicucci performed in assembling the manuscript and the instructor’s manual and in carrying out the numberless tasks it took to make a second edition out of Arguing about Literature. We want to express thanks to Edwin Hill, vice president of the Humanities division of Macmillan Learning, for his support of the project. In production, we are grateful to managing editor Elise Kaise, and especially to Andrea Cava, Louis Bruno, and Andrea Stefanowicz, who turned a manuscript into a book. In the permissions department, text permissions were effectively negotiated by manager Kalina Ingham and editor Elaine Kosta, and the photo permissions were capably handled by Angela Boehler. In marketing, we are most grateful to Joy Fisher Williams and Sophia Latorre-Zengierski.

We thank Janet E. Gardner, formerly of the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth, for her contributions to the chapter on research as well as Joyce Hollingsworth of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and Laura Sparks of California State University–Chico for their ample and timely work on the instructor’s manual.

As always, John Schilb is indebted to his former University of Maryland colleague Jeanne Fahnestock and his colleagues at Indiana University, especially Christine Farris, Kathy Smith, and Lisa Ottum. John Clifford thanks Sheri Malman for her expert editorial assistance.

Of course, we remain grateful as well to the instructors whose comments on various editions of Making Literature Matter honed our thinking on literature and argument, and many of whom urged us to consider a shorter, more argument-intensive version of the book. But the most trenchant suggestions for the second edition of A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature came from those who taught from and reviewed the first edition: Katherine Baker, College of Southern Nevada; Rebecca Brothers, Jefferson Community and Technical College; Elizabeth Carlyle, College of the Redwoods; Jacob Crane, Bentley University; Mildred Duprey, College of Southern Nevada; Mildred Espree, San Jacinto College; Donna Gordon, Houston Community College; Jacquelyn Harrah, Lone Star College–Montgomery; Barbara Jones, Sam Houston State University; Andrew Logemann, Gordon College; Kenneth McNamara, Georgia Perimeter College; Kimberly Moen, Lone Star College; Catherine Olson, Lone Star College– Tomball; Christopher Perkins, College of Southern Nevada; John Rollins, Lone Star College–Tomball; Stuart Rosenberg, Cypress College; Tannie Shannon, Sam Houston State University; Alice Thomas, Lone Star College– Montgomery; Lisa Tucker, Raritan Valley Community College; and Ronald Tyson, Raritan Valley Community College.

We dedicate this book to our wives, Wendy Elliot and Janet Ellerby. May our relationships with them never be compact, always expanding.

John Schilb, Indiana University John Clifford, University of North Carolina at Wilmington

GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR COURSE WITH ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH A BRIEF GUIDE TO ARGUING ABOUT LITERATURE, SECOND EDITION

Consider an e-Book Option A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature, Second Edition, is also available as a PDF-style e-book. You can find further information about the PDF-style e-book via the online catalog page; visit macmillanlearning.com/ebooks.

Want More Literature and Arguments? Choose the Version with an Anthology As we mentioned, this guide is also included in a longer book, Arguing about Literature: A Guide and Reader, Second Edition, which features additional chapters on the themes of family, love, freedom and confinement, justice, and journeys. Each thematic chapter includes fiction, poetry, drama, and arguments, all of which are grouped in clusters that focus on particular issues — for example, stories about mothers and daughters, poems about racial injustice, plays about constraining marriages, arguments about immigrant experience — so that students can gain insights by comparing texts. Throughout are special clusters that focus on literary criticism, contexts for research, or the connection of literature to current issues. Please note that the Guide and Reader version is not available as an e- book. To view a full table of contents and order an evaluation copy, visit macmillanlearning.com/arguingaboutlit/catalog.

Gain Access to Your Instructor’s Manual A print-only evaluation copy of A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature, Second Edition, comes with teaching advice bound into it. Written by John Schilb, John Clifford, Joyce Hollingsworth, and Laura Sparks, this manual includes sample syllabi; suggestions for teaching argumentation, composition, and literature; and an annotated bibliography for further research. Use ISBN 978-1-319-07059-5 to order an evaluation copy or visit the Bedford/St. Martin’s catalog (macmillanlearning.com) for further information.

Join Our Community The Macmillan English Community is home to Bedford/St. Martin’s professional resources, featuring content to support the teaching of literature — including our popular blog, LitBits, as well as articles, research studies, and testimonials on the importance of literature in our classrooms and in our lives. Community members may also review projects and ideas in the pipeline. Join at community.macmillan.com.

Engage Your Students with Digital Assignments Teaching Literature with Digital Technology is a collection of digital assignments, each created by a contributor in the fields of literature and composition. Edited by Seattle-based scholar and teacher Tim Hetland and available as a print text or PDF e-book, this resource for instructors invites students to become knowledge-makers as it introduces creative uses of social media, digital tools, podcasts, multimodal assignments, and digital archives to learn about literature. Sample assignments can be viewed in the Professional Resources folder on the Macmillan English Community site. To order the print text, use ISBN: 978-1-4576-2948-8; to order the PDF e-book, use ISBN: 978-1- 319-07643-6.

Assign LaunchPad Solo for Literature — the Online, Interactive Guide to Close Reading To get the most out of A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature, Second Edition, assign it with LaunchPad Solo for Literature, which can be packaged at a significant discount. With easy-to-use and easy-to-assign modules, reading comprehension quizzes, and engaging author videos, LaunchPad Solo for Literature guides students through four common assignment types: responding to a reading, drawing connections between two or more texts, listening to a reading, and instructor-led collaborative close reading. Get all of our great resources and activities in one fully customizable space online; then use our tools with your own content. To learn more about how you can use

LaunchPad Solo for Literature in your course, please see the last pages of this preface.

Package One of Our Best-Selling Brief Handbooks at a Discount Do you need a pocket-sized handbook for your course? Package EasyWriter by Andrea Lunsford or A Pocket Style Manual by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers with this text at a twenty percent discount. For more information, go to macmillanlearning.com/easywriter/catalog or macmillanlearning.com/pocket/catalog.

Teach Longer Works at a Nice Price Volumes from our Literary Reprint series — the Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series, the Bedford Cultural Edition series, the Bedford Shakespeare series, and the Bedford College Editions — can be shrinkwrapped with A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature at a discount. For a complete list of available titles, visit macmillanlearning.com/literaryreprints/catalog.

Trade Up and Save Fifty Percent Add more value and choice to your students’ learning experiences by packaging their Macmillan textbook with one of a thousand titles from our sister publishers, including Farrar, Straus & Giroux and St. Martin’s Press — at a discount of fifty percent off the regular prices. Visit macmillanlearning.com/tradeup for details.

Pairing A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature with LaunchPad Solo for Literature helps students succeed.

Available for free when packaged with A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature, LaunchPad Solo for Literature gets to the heart of close reading. It offers a set of online materials that help beginning literature students learn and practice close reading and critical thinking skills in an interactive environment.

To package LaunchPad Solo for Literature, use ISBN 978-1-319-07189-9.

How can LaunchPad Solo for Literature enhance your course?

It helps students come prepared to class. Assign one of almost 500 reading comprehension quizzes on commonly taught stories, poems, plays, and essays to ensure that your students complete and understand their reading. For homework assignments, have students work through close reading modules that will prepare them for lively, informed classroom discussions.

It gives students hands-on practice in close reading. Easy-to-use and easy-to-assign modules based on widely taught literary selections guide students through three common assignment types:

Respond to a Reading Marginal questions that refer to specific passages in a publisher- provided literary work prompt students to read carefully and think critically about key issues raised by the text.

Draw Connections Students read and compare two ormore publisher-provided texts thatilluminate each other. Students candownload these texts, which havebeen annotated to highlight keymoments and contextual information,and respond in writing to a series ofquestions that highlight importantsimilarities and differences betweenand among the texts.

To explore LaunchPad Solo for Literature, visit launchpadworks.com.

Collaborate on a Reading Instructors can upload their favorite

textor choose from over 200 publisher-providedtexts to create a customized lesson on close reading. Using the highlighting tools andnotes feature in LaunchPad, the instructorcan post notes or questions about specificpassages or issues in a text, prompting students to respond with their own comments,questions, or observations. Students can alsorespond to each other, further collaboratingand deepening their understanding of a text.

It lets you create multimedia assignments about literature. LaunchPad Solo for Literature enables you to embed videos, including favorite selections from YouTube, directly into your digital course. Whether you want students to analyze a Shakespearean scene, listen to W. B. Yeats reading his poems, or compare The Great Gatsby in print and on film, the tools are at your fingertips. You can annotate these videos for your students, or ask them to leave their own comments directly on the video content itself. Consider some of these assignment suggestions:

Create a Dialogue around an Assignment Some projects are complicated because they involve many choices and stages. Record yourself explaining the project, and upload the video to the Video Assignment tool. Require students to comment by asking a question or by proposing a topic. Critique a Video as a Group Embed a video from YouTube or from another source. In your assignment instructions, provide discussion questions. Require students to add two or three comments on the video that respond to the prompt. You may grade this assignment with a rubric. Collaborate on Acting Out a Scene from a Play Although students most often study plays as written texts, it can be fun and informative to have them act out scenes for their classmates. Assign small groups of students to record themselves acting out their favorite scene from a play and upload the video for the class to watch. You can add your feedback and comments directly on the video. Compare and Share Poems Your Students Read Aloud Sound is essential in poetry, and how a poem is read can be as important to understanding as the words themselves. Invite students to record themselves — either using video or audio only — and share the results with the class. Consider giving each student a “mood” for their reading, so that the class can hear how different tones and interpretations affect their response to the poem.

Brief Contents

Preface for Instructors vii

1. What Is Argument? 1

2. Writing Effective Arguments 27

3. How to Argue about Literature 43

4. The Reading Process 88

5. The Writing Process 117

6. Writing about Literary Genres 149

7. Writing Researched Arguments 207

8. Writing with Critical Approaches to Literature 270

Index of Authors, Titles, First Lines, and Key Terms 299

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1

27

43

66

Contents

Preface for Instructors vii

Contents by Genre xxii

1. What Is Argument? PAUL GOLDBERGER, Disconnected Urbanism 3

Understanding Rhetoric 5

The Elements of Argument 7

Sample Argument for Analysis 14

DAVID W. BARNO, A New Moral Compact 15

Writing a Response to an Argument 18

Further Strategies for Analyzing an Argument So You Can Write a Response to It 19

An Argument for Analysis 22

REGINA RINI, Should We Rename Institutions that Honor Dead Racists? 23

2. Writing Effective Arguments Strategies for Developing an Effective Style of Argument 27

Structuring Your Argument: Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay 30

A Student Response to an Argument 32

JUSTIN KORZACK, How to Slow Down the Rush to War 33

Arguing in the First Person: Can You Use I? 36

Arguments for Analysis 37

LEE SIEGEL, Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans 37

SOPHIA MCDOUGALL, All Princesses Know Kung Fu 40

3. How to Argue about Literature What Is Literature? 43

Why Study Literature in a College Writing Course? 45

Two Stories for Analysis 46

DANIEL OROZCO, Orientation 47

JAMAICA KINCAID, Girl 52

Strategies for Arguing about Literature 54

A Sample Student Argument about Literature 66

ANN SCHUMWALT, The Mother’s Mixed Messages in “Girl”

88

117

Looking at Literature as Argument 69

JOHN MILTON, When I consider how my light is spent 69

ROBERT FROST, Mending Wall 70

Literature and Current Issues 72

RIVKA GALCHEN, Usl at the Stadium 72

JON RONSON, From “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life” 81

JENNIFER JACQUET, From Is Shame Necessary? 85

4. The Reading Process Strategies for Close Reading 88

A Poem for Analysis 92

SHARON OLDS, Summer Solstice, New York City 92

Applying the Strategies 93

Reading Closely by Annotating 97

X. J. KENNEDY, Death of a Window Washer 98

Further Strategies for Close Reading 99

EDWARD HIRSCH, Execution 100

LYNDA HULL, Night Waitress 104

T. S. ELIOT, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 109

ALLISON ALSUP, Old Houses 113

5. The Writing Process WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, The Solitary Reaper 117

Strategies for Exploring 118

Strategies for Planning 120

Strategies for Composing 124

First Draft of a Student Paper 132

ABBY HAZELTON, The Passage of Time in “The Solitary Reaper” 132

Strategies for Revising 134

A Checklist for Revising 135

Revised Draft of a Student Paper 138

ABBY HAZELTON, The Passage of Time in “The Solitary Reaper” 138

Strategies for Writing a Comparative Paper 140

DON PATERSON, Two Trees 141

LUISA A. IGLORIA, Regarding History 141

A Student Comparative Paper 144

JEREMY COOPER, Don Paterson’s Criticism of Nature’s Owners 144

149

207

6. Writing about Literary Genres Writing about Stories 149

EUDORA WELTY, A Visit of Charity 150

A Student’s Personal Response to the Story 154

The Elements of Short Fiction 155

Final Draft of a Student Paper 165

TANYA VINCENT, The Real Meaning of “Charity” in “A Visit of Charity” 165

Writing about Poems 169

MARY OLIVER, Singapore 170

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA, Blackberries 171

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON, The Mill 172

A Student’s Personal Responses to the Poems 172

First Draft of a Student Paper 174

MICHAELA FIORUCCI, Boundaries in Robinson, Komunyakaa, and Oliver 174

The Elements of Poetry 176

Revised Draft of a Student Paper 182

MICHAELA FIORUCCI, Negotiating Boundaries 182

Comparing Poems and Pictures 184

ROLANDO PEREZ, Office at Night 186

EDWARD HOPPER, Office at Night 187

A Sample Paper Comparing a Poem and a Picture 187

KARL MAGNUSSON, Lack of Motion and Speech in Rolando Perez’s “Office at Night” 187

Writing about Plays 190

AUGUST STRINDBERG, The Stronger 191

A Student’s Personal Response to the Play 195

The Elements of Drama 196

Final Draft of a Student Paper 204

TRISH CARLISLE, Which Is the Stronger Actress in August Strindberg’s Play? 204

7. Writing Researched Arguments Begin Your Research by Giving It Direction 208

Search for Sources in the Library and Online 209

Evaluate the Sources 211

Record Your Sources’ Key Details 212

Strategies for Integrating Sources 215

Avoid Plagiarism 216

Strategies for Documenting Sources (MLA Format) 218 Directory to MLA Works-Cited Entries 220

270

Books 220

Short Works from Collections and Anthologies 222

Multiple Works by the Same Author 222

Works in Periodicals 223

Online Sources 224

Citation Formats for Other Kinds of Sources 226

A Note on Endnotes 226

Three Annotated Student Researched Arguments 227

SARAH MICHAELS, “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a Guide to Social Factors in Postpartum Depression 228 How Sarah Uses Her Sources 232

KATIE JOHNSON, The Meaning of the Husband’s Fainting in “The Yellow Wallpaper” 234 How Katie Uses Her Sources 238

BRITTANY THOMAS, The Relative Absence of the Human Touch in “The Yellow Wallpaper” 239 How Brittany Uses Her Sources 243

Contexts for Research: Confinement, Mental Illness, and “The Yellow Wallpaper” 244

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, The Yellow Wallpaper 244 Cultural Context

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” 258

S. WEIR MITCHELL, From “The Evolution of the Rest Treatment” 259

JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG, From The Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease 264

8. Writing with Critical Approaches to Literature Contemporary Schools of Criticism 271

Working with the Critical Approaches 276

JAMES JOYCE, Counterparts 276

Sample Student Essay 289

MOLLY FRYE, A Refugee at Home 289

JAMES JOYCE, Eveline 292

Index of Authors, Titles, First Lines, and Key Terms 299

Contents by Genre

Stories

ALLISON ALSUP, Old Houses 113

RIVKA GALCHEN, Usl at the Stadium 72

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, The Yellow Wallpaper 244

JAMES JOYCE, Counterparts 276

JAMES JOYCE, Eveline 292

JAMAICA KINCAID, Girl 52

DANIEL OROZCO, Orientation 47

EUDORA WELTY, A Visit of Charity 150

Poems

ROBERT FROST, Mending Wall 70

EDWARD HIRSCH, Execution 100

LYNDA HULL, Night Waitress 104

LUISA A. IGLORIA, Regarding History 141

X. J. KENNEDY, Death of a Window Washer 98

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA, Blackberries 171

JOHN MILTON, When I consider how my light is spent 69

SHARON OLDS, Summer Solstice, New York City 92

MARY OLIVER, Singapore 170

DON PATERSON, Two Trees 141

ROLANDO PEREZ, Office at Night 186

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON, The Mill 172

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, The Solitary Reaper 117

Plays

AUGUST STRINDBERG, The Stronger 190

Arguments about Current Issues

DAVID W. BARNO, A New Moral Compact 15

PAUL GOLDBERGER, Disconnected Urbanism 3

JENNIFER JACQUET, From Is Shame Necessary? 85

SOPHIA MCDOUGALL, All Princesses Know Kung Fu 40

REGINA RINI, Should We Rename Institutions that Honor Dead Racists? 23

JON RONSON, From “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life” 81

LEE SIEGEL, Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans 37

Contexts for Research

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” 258

JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG, From The Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease 264

S. WEIR MITCHELL, From “The Evolution of the Rest Treatment” 259

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CHAPTER 1

What Is Argument?

The first word in our book’s title may puzzle you. Why would we want you to argue? Are we really inviting you to yell or sneer? The word arguing may remind you of spats you regret. Almost everyone has suffered arguments like these. They arise in the media all the time. Talk radio hosts and their callers mix strong opinion with insult. Television’s political panels routinely lapse into squabbles; guests feel required to clash. Quarrels explode on daytime talkfests; couples fight over who’s cheated on whom. Online forums are plagued by “trolls,” writers who crudely mock others’ posts. No wonder many people define arguing as combat. It often seems like war.

But our book is about arguing in a positive sense. We define it as a calm, courteous process in which you

identify a subject of current or possible debate; analyze why you view the subject the way you do; address others who may not share your view; and try to persuade them that your view is worth accepting or at least makes sense.

This better kind of arguing occurs at various times and places. You may try to coax friends who dread horror films into joining you at Saw 12. In class, you may need to explain the logic of your stand on climate change. Beyond campus, you may advocate for social causes. For instance, you might petition your city to launch recycling sites.

Let’s face it: to argue is to disagree, or to air views that not all may hold. Still, at its best, argument is an alternative to war. It’s not a contest you try to “win” by insisting you’re right. Ideally, argument is a form of inquiry, a process in which you test your beliefs, consider other views, and stay open to changing your mind. Rather than immediately attack your critics, you note principles you share with them. When their thinking differs from yours, you treat their positions fairly. If any of their ideas strike you as wise, you adjust your thinking. In the meantime, you recognize the limits of your knowledge and understanding. You admit, too, your inner conflicts: how your thoughts are divided, your values in conflict, your feelings mixed. Indeed, essayist Phillip Lopate observes that “the real argument should be with yourself.” Columnist David Brooks goes even further: “If you write in a way that suggests combative certitude,” he warns, “you may gradually smother the inner chaos that will be the source of lifelong freshness and creativity.” In their own fashion, these writers point to something important about argument: at its best, it teaches you about yourself and your world, while alerting you to what you still must learn.

Students regularly encounter this kind of arguing in college. Academic subjects aren’t just pools of information. They go beyond proven facts. Disciplines grapple with uncertainties: problems, questions, and conflicts they haven’t yet solved. Physicists disagree about the origins of the universe. Historians write conflicting accounts of Hitler’s Germany; they debate how much his extreme anti-Semitism was traditional there. Two sociologists may scan the same figures on poverty and make different inferences from them. Typically, scholars draw conclusions that are open to challenge. They must explain why their judgments are sound. They expect to engage in reasoned debate with their colleagues. They see this as their field’s best chance for truth.

In your classes, expect disagreements. They’re crucial to learning in college. Often classmates will voice ideas you don’t immediately accept. Just as often, they’ll hesitate to adopt some opinion of yours. Authors you read will deal with controversies from their own points of view. As a writer yourself, you will enter debates and have to defend your stands.

No one naturally excels at this type of arguing. It takes practice. Our book is a series of opportunities to become skilled in this art. Our book’s chief springboard for argument is works of literature. Those we include don’t deliver simple, straightforward messages. They offer puzzles, complications, metaphors, symbols, and mysteries. In short, they stress life’s complexity. They especially encourage you to ponder multiple dimensions of language: how, for example, shifts of context can change a word’s meaning. Each of our literary works calls for you to interpret. As you read the text, you must figure out various features of it. Other readers may not see the text as you do. So next you’ll argue for your view. Often you’ll do this by composing essays and perhaps online posts. From Chapter 2 on, we offer strategies for you to argue about literature as a writer.

This chapter is a general introduction to arguing. Let’s start with an example: an article titled “Disconnected Urbanism” by noted architecture critic Paul Goldberger (b. 1950). He wrote it for the February 22, 2003, issue of Metropolis magazine. Goldberger worries about cell phones. He believes they lead cities to lose a sense of community and place. At the time he wrote, these phones weren’t yet packed with apps, nor could they connect to the Internet. Still, they were a big development, which pained Goldberger. As you read, note his key points and his efforts to sway his readers to them. Afterward, we raise questions to help you study his text. Then we refer to it as we explain the basic elements of argument.

PAUL GOLDBERGER Disconnected Urbanism

There is a connection between the idea of place and the reality of cellular telephones. It is not encouraging. Places are unique — or at least we like to believe they are — and we strive to experience them as a kind of engagement with particulars. Cell phones are precisely the opposite. When a piece of geography is doing what it is supposed to do, it encourages you to feel a connection to it that, as in marriage, forsakes all others. When you are in Paris you expect to wallow in its Parisness, to feel that everyone walking up the Boulevard Montparnasse is as totally and completely there as the lampposts, the kiosks, the facade of the Brasserie Lipp — and that they could be no place else. So we want it to be in every city, in every kind of place. When you are in a forest, you want to experience its woodsiness; when you are on the beach, you want to feel connected to sand and surf.

This is getting harder to do, not because these special places don’t exist or because urban places have come to look increasingly alike. They have, but this is not another rant about the monoculture and sameness of cities and the suburban landscape. Even when you are in a place that retains its intensity, its specialness, and its ability to confer a defining context on your life, it doesn’t have the all-consuming effect these places used to. You no longer feel that being in one place cuts you off from other places. Technology has been doing this for a long time, of course — remember when people communicated with Europe by letter and it took a couple of weeks to get a reply? Now we’re upset if we have to send a fax because it takes so much longer than e-mail.

But the cell phone has changed our sense of place more than faxes and computers and e-mail because of its ability to intrude into every moment in every possible place. When you walk along the street and talk on a cell phone, you are not on the street sharing the communal experience of urban life. You are in some other place — someplace at the other end of your phone conversation. You are there, but you are not there. It reminds me of the title of Lillian Ross’s memoir of her life with William Shawn, Here But Not Here. Now that is increasingly true of almost every person on almost every street in almost every city. You are either on the phone or carrying one, and the moment it rings you will be transported out of real space into a virtual realm.

This matters because the street is the ultimate public space and walking along it is the defining urban experience. It is all of us — different people who lead different lives — coming together in the urban mixing chamber. But what if half of them are elsewhere, there in body but not in any other way? You are not on Madison Avenue if you are holding a little object to your ear that pulls you toward a person in Omaha.

The great offense of the cell phone in public is not the intrusion of its ring, although that can be infuriating when it interrupts a tranquil moment. It is the fact that even when the phone does not ring at all, and is being used quietly and discreetly, it renders a public place less public. It turns the boulevardier into a sequestered individual, the flaneur into a figure of privacy. And suddenly the meaning of the street as a public place has been hugely diminished.

I don’t know which is worse — the loss of the sense that walking along a great urban street is a glorious shared experience or the blurring of distinctions between different kinds of places. But these cultural losses are related, and the cell phone has played a major role in both. The other day I returned a phone call from a friend who lives in Hartford. He had left a voice-mail message saying he was visiting his son in New Orleans, and when I called him back on his cell phone — area code 860, Hartford — he picked up the call in Tallahassee. Once the area code actually meant something in terms of geography: it outlined a clearly defined piece of the earth; it became a form of identity. Your telephone number was a badge of place. Now the area code is really not much more than three digits; and if it has any connection to a place, it’s just the telephone’s home base. An area code today is more like a car’s license plate. The downward spiral that began with the end of the old telephone exchanges that truly did connect to a place — RHinelander 4 and BUtterfield 8 for the Upper East Side, or CHelsea 3 downtown, or UNiversity 4 in Morningside Heights — surely culminates in the placeless area codes such as 917 and 347 that could be anywhere in New York — or anywhere at all.

[2003]

It’s increasingly common for cell-phone conversations to begin with the question, “Where are you?” and for the answer to be anything from “out by the pool” to “Madagascar.” I don’t miss the age when phone charges were based on distance, but that did have the beneficial effect of reinforcing a sense that places were distinguishable from one another. Now calling across the street and calling from New York to California or even Europe are precisely the same thing. They cost the same because to the phone they are the same. Every place is exactly the same as every other place. They are all just nodes on a network — and so, increasingly, are we.

THINKING ABOUT THE TEXT 1. Imagine that Goldberger could observe how people now use cell phones in places you ordinarily go, such as a college campus. To

what extent would he see the kind of behavior that he worried about in his 2003 piece? How much evidence could he find for his argument that cell phones are diminishing people’s sense of place and disconnecting them from one another?

2. Goldberger does not say much about the advantages of a cell phone. Which, if any, do you think he should have mentioned, and why? How, if at all, could he have said more about the advantages while still getting his readers to worry about these phones?

3. Goldberger wrote before smartphones came along, enabling use of apps and the Internet. In what ways, if any, does this newer technology affect your view of his argument?

4. As he indicates by including the word urbanism in his title, Goldberger is chiefly concerned with how cell phones affect their users’ experiences of cities. If he had written about cell-phone use in suburbs or in rural areas, do you think he would have changed his argument in some way? If so, in what respect?

5. It seems quite possible that Goldberger himself uses a cell phone. If this is the case, does it make his concern less valid? Why, or why not? Moreover, he does not end his piece by proposing that humanity abandon the technology. Why, conceivably, does he avoid making this recommendation? What might he want his readers to do instead?

Understanding Rhetoric Goldberger’s article is an example of rhetoric. This is a term from ancient Greek. It means writing, speech, and visual images used for a certain purpose: to affect how people think and act. Rhetorical texts don’t just convey a message. They aim to shape beliefs and conduct. Often they’re efforts to alter these things. Probably several of Goldberger’s readers are joyously addicted to cell phones; he nudges them to reconsider their overattachment.

A related term is the rhetorical situation. It’s the specific context you have in mind when you engage in rhetoric. As Figure 1.1 shows, this context includes three major elements: your topic, your audience, and possible “channels.”

Figure 1.1 Elements of the rhetorical situation

1. The particular topic you choose. This subject may already interest the public. Any school shootings in the United States immediately provoke disputes over gun control, school safety, mental illness, and screen violence. But the topic needn’t be a calamity. When Goldberger wrote, cell phones were booming as a trend, so their effects were debated a lot. He didn’t have to alert his readers to this subject or remind them of it. Other writers must do one or the other. This was the situation for legal scholars Woodrow Hartzog and Evan Zelinger in 2013, when they posted an online argument about Facebook. At the time, people worried that Facebook’s privacy protocols wouldn’t securely protect users’ personal data. Hartzog and Zelinger deliberately shift to another subject. They recommend thinking less about privacy and more about obscurity, which they note is a word “rarely used” in debates about Facebook’s risks. To them, privacy is so vague a concept that brooding about how the site guards it is futile. They call for pushing Facebook to keep personal facts obscure: “hard to obtain or understand” when cyberstalkers hunt them.

2. The main readers, listeners, or viewers you decide to address; your audience. Goldberger wrote for readers of the city-oriented magazine Metropolis. Its mission statement declares that it “examines contemporary life through design,” publishing articles that “range from the sprawling urban environment to intimate living spaces to small objects of everyday lives.” This magazine also seeks to put design in “economic, environmental, social, cultural, political, and technological contexts.” Readers of Metropolis would expect it to probe cell phones’ impact on cities. Perhaps Goldberger hoped his piece would someday circulate more widely, as it now does on the Web. But surely his target group loomed in his mind as he decided on content, form, and words.

3. Possible “channels” for the text. These include available institutions, media, and genres. Goldberger

composed his article for a particular magazine. He used the medium of print. He resorted to a specific genre: the type of writing often called an opinion piece. Such choices do constrain an author. Writing for Metropolis forced upon Goldberger certain space limits; otherwise, he might have lengthened his argument. Today, a critic like him might film a video for YouTube, perhaps showing callers so absorbed in their cell-phone conversations that they forget friends alongside them.

Current politicians fling the word rhetoric as an insult. They accuse their rivals of indulging in it. They treat the word with contempt because they think it means windy exaggeration. But before the modern age, it meant something nobler. Rhetoric was the valuable attempt to influence readers, listeners, or viewers. In this sense, almost all of us resort to rhetoric daily. We need to learn rhetorical strategies if we’re to have impact on others. For centuries, then, schools have seen rhetoric as a vital art. They’ve deemed it important to study, practice, and teach. In ancient Greece and Rome as well as Renaissance Europe, it was a core academic subject. American colleges of the nineteenth century also made it central. This focus survives in many courses today, especially ones about writing or speech. Our book reflects their commitment to rhetoric, especially through our advice about writing.

The Elements of Argument Within the field of rhetoric, arguments are a more specific category. When you argue, you attempt to persuade an audience to accept your claims regarding an issue. To achieve this aim, you present evidence, explain your reasoning, rely on assumptions, and make other kinds of appeals.

The boldfaced words play key roles in this book; we mention them often. These eight basic elements are also identified in Figure 1.2, which suggests visually how the elements work together.

Figure 1.2 Elements of argument

Below we briefly explain the elements, using them to make suggestions for writing an argument. Taking Goldberger’s piece as a sample, we begin with issue and then move to claims, persuasion, audience, evidence, reasoning, assumptions, and appeals. We’ll return to these elements in Chapter 3, where we explain their role in arguments about literature.

ISSUES An issue is a question not yet settled. People have disagreed — or might disagree — over how to answer it. Goldberger’s question seems to be this: How are cell phones transforming culture? But he doesn’t state his question flat out. He presumes his readers will guess it. Other writers of arguments put their questions plainly. They want to ensure their readers know them. This seems to be Jeremy Rozansky’s goal in an argument he wrote for the January 19, 2013, issue of The New Atlantis. His article’s topic is steroid-using athletes. To him, debates about men like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens focus too much on whether they played “fair” or are naturally talented. Rozansky calls for thinking about something else: “What are athletes doing when they play sports, and what are we watching when we watch?” His own answer is “a certain kind of human excellence.” Then he explains how the men proved incapable of such virtue. But notice that he bluntly announces his question to begin with. By doing this, he stresses it. He signals that it’s the most important issue raised by the steroid scandals.

When you write an argument, readers should find your main issue significant. It must be a question they believe is worth caring about. Sometimes they’ll immediately see its value. But often you’ll need to explain what’s at stake. Scholars of rhetoric describe the task as establishing the issue’s exigence, the urgency or importance of the situation. Goldberger brings up exigence at the start of paragraph 4. There he states that on city streets, the use of cell phones “matters,” for “the street is the ultimate public space and walking along it is the defining urban experience.”

For another statement of exigence, let’s turn to a 2013 piece from the online magazine Slate. It’s about a strange topic: animals put on trial. Author James McWilliams points out that in 1457, a French village brought a sow and six piglets to court, charging them with killing a boy. The piglets were declared innocent; the sow was found guilty and hanged. McWilliams notes that this was just one of many animal trials in past ages. Then he states his chief issue: “What are we to make of this evidence that our ancestors imputed to animals a sense of moral agency?” McWilliams realizes that his readers may find his question trivial. They may not see its relevance to the present. So he states the question’s stakes: “These seemingly odd trials have much to teach us about how fundamentally our relationship with animals has changed and how, more poignantly, we’ve lost the ability to empathize with them as sentient beings.” McWilliams goes on to praise how courts of the past treated animals. Even guilty verdicts respected these creatures, he says. Putting them on trial credited them with powers of thought and the potential to act well. McWilliams wants modern humans to adopt the same attitude. At present, he believes, they treat animals as objects. Whether or not you agree with McWilliams, he resembles Goldberger in stating why his issue matters.

CLAIMS Perhaps you associate the word claims with insurance companies. It’s familiar as a term for the forms you fill out when someone bashes your car. You may not be used to calling other things you say or write claims. But even when you utter a simple observation about the weather — for instance, “It’s beginning to rain” — you make a claim. A claim is a statement that is spoken or written so that people will think it true. With this definition in mind, you may spot claims everywhere. Most of us make them every day. Most claims are accepted as true by the people to whom we make them. Imagine how difficult life would be if the opposite were so. Human beings would constantly fret if they distrusted everything told them.

But claims may conflict with other claims. We’ve defined an issue as a question with various debatable answers. Claims, as we use the term, are the debatable answers. In this sense, most of Goldberger’s statements are claims, for readers might resist them. Take his main claim, which he identifies at the start of paragraph 6. There he argues that cell phones are prime forces in a pair of “cultural losses.” These are “the loss of the sense that walking along a great urban street is a glorious shared experience” and “the blurring of distinctions between different kinds of places.” Readers might object to Goldberger’s view in various ways. Some might argue that neither of these losses has occurred. Others might say that these losses have happened but that cell phones didn’t cause them. So Goldberger has more work to do. Like all debatable statements, his requires support.

When you write a college paper, typically you’ll raise an issue. Then you’ll make one main claim about it. This can also be called your thesis, a term you may know from high school. It won’t be your only point. You’ll make smaller claims as your essay continues. But stating your main claim, and remaining focused on it, will be important.

PERSUASION It’s commonly assumed that if two people argue, they are dogmatic. Each insists on being proclaimed correct. But at its best, argument involves efforts to persuade. You argue in the first place because you want others to accept your claims. Yet you can’t expect them to applaud at once. To attempt persuasion is to concede that your claims need defense. Goldberger knew that much of his readership adored the phones that disturb him. He’d have to justify his stance.

Most likely he figured that he couldn’t turn all the fans into critics. Such conversions can be hard to pull off. But he could pursue a more modest goal: showing that his claims merit study. Whether or not they gained approval from everyone, he could make them seem reasonable. Probably he’d be happy if a reader said, “I’m fonder of cell phones than Goldberger is, but I can’t dismiss his criticisms. I’m willing to keep reflecting on them.” A response like this can be your aim, too. Realistically, persuasion doesn’t mean everyone eventually agrees with you. An argument you write may leave some readers maintaining another view. But you’ve done much if they conclude that your ideas are credible — worth their bearing in mind.

AUDIENCE The word audience may first make you think of people at plays, concerts, movies, or lectures. Yet it also describes readers. Not everything you write is for other human eyes; in college courses, you may produce notes, journal entries, blog posts, and essays for yourself alone. But in most any course, you’ll also do public writing. You’ll try to persuade audiences to accept claims you make.

This task requires you to consider more than your subject. You must take your readers into account. McWilliams realized that his audience wouldn’t know about animal trials. He’d have to begin with anecdotes explaining what these hearings were like. By contrast, Goldberger’s average readers would be aware of cell phones. Also, he supposed that they had a certain vocabulary — that they knew “boulevardier” and “flaneur” meant someone who likes to explore city streets. Evidently he saw his audience, too, as holding two beliefs about cell phones. One is that they help people connect. The other is that they make private life more public, for chatter on them is often overheard. Deliberately, Goldberger challenges both ideas. He argues that because cell phones distract people from their surroundings, they lead to “disconnected urbanism” and turn “a public place less public.” Unfortunately, sometimes your audience will have a vaguer profile than his. You may have to guess what your target group knows, assumes, and values.

EVIDENCE Evidence is support you give your claims so others will accept them. What sort of evidence must it be? That depends on what your audience expects. Disciplines differ in this respect. In literary studies, claims about a text seem more plausible if they’re backed by quotations from it. (We discuss this standard more in Chapter 2.) Scientists must not only conduct experiments but also describe them so that others can repeat them and see if the results are the same. Anthropologists feel pressured to base their conclusions on field research. Not that your audience will always be academic scholars. It can easily be more diverse. Goldberger’s audience included experts in design but also nonprofessionals with interests like theirs. In short, his readership was mixed.