TOW #13- "Bright Lights, Big Predators"

Richard Conniff, an Amerian non-fiction author who specializes in human and animal behavior, wrote the article "Bright Lights, Big Predators" for the New York Times this past weekend.  The increasing population of wild animals in cities around the world has become a controversial issue due to the animals' threat to humans.  Conniff uses personification and comparisons of this issue to other issues in big cities to convey to his audience that the animals aren't as dangerous as they may think and the thought of coexisting in cities is not entirely impossible.  He uses personification to justify the animals' placement in cities.  Conniff shows his audience the innocence of the animals when he writes,  "That leopard on a hilltop in Mumbai didn't move into the city.  The city rose up and engulfed its world."  He uses the personification of the city to place a blame for this impending situation.  When people think of these animals invading their city living space, they are incorrect.  The city has been built in places of wildlife, so it is not the fault of the leopards for roaming around in the city lights at night.  Once Conniff shows his audience that the wild animals are not to blame for their coexistence with humans in cities, he uses comparisons to other issues in the city in order to convince his audience that they have had much greater danger before.  Conniff compares the wild animal situation with the existence of rivers in cities when he writes, "We have learned to protect and restore rivers in our cities, says Adrian Treves at the University of Wisconsin, even though floods sometimes destroy homes and drown people." By comparing the wild animals to another risky situation that humans are totally comfortable with in their cities, Conniff lessens the validity of the fearfulness towards such dangerous creatures.  If they have allowed things just as harmful in their city to exist peacefully in nature, why can't they do the same with wild animals?  Conniff then takes an even more common and effective example of a high risk allowed in the city when he writes, "... we let cars dominate city streets, though they kill more than 4,700 pedestrians in the United States every year."  Something as common as a car poses a much higher risk to city-dwellers than the four-legged prowlers of the night.  With these comparisons Conniff can show his audience that the risk posed by wild animals is nothing crazy when compared to the many other dangerous things that we allow to exist in our towns and cities.  His audience, people who live in the city, cannot ignore the strong points he makes against the rationale for eliminating the threat of wild animals to the civilians of large cities.  His article is effective due to his personification and comparisons, and makes his readers contemplate living a life in harmony with four-legged friends.

TOW #12- IRB: Unbroken

I am so happy I am finally getting the opportunity to read "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand because I have heard such great things about it from many of my friends.  Since page, 1 I have been hooked on this book and it has been such an interesting read so far.  One of the ways that Hillenbrand does this is by delving deep into the details of some of the little moments amongst the daunting events that take place in Louis's life.  The author makes Louis's story come to life and gives readers a connection to his story through her use of detailed description and a zooming perspective on the events of the book.  In Hillenbrand's description of the German Graf Zeppelin, she successfully makes Zamperini's childhood memory come to life through her description of the airship.  Hillenbrand writes that, "He could see only the blackness of the space it inhabited.  It was not a great presence but a great absence, a geometric ocean of darkness that seemed to swallow heaven itself." In this description the aircraft becomes a powerful monster rather than an amazing new advancement in aircraft technology.  The fear that people may have had at the time period easily transcends to the readers through Hillenbrand's description.  We, as the audience, are able to imagine ourselves there in that moment, watching the Zeppelin float above us.  This connection that Hillenbrand bridges from the biography to the readers helps her audience feel an attachment to Louis's story.  This description of the aircraft comes before the author begins to talk about Louis's troublesome childhood.  The zoomed perspective she has on the aircraft gives readers the context of Zamperini's childhood time period before the audience even gets Louis's entire story.  This is important to helping the audience understand the actions and emotions of the people in the biography.  After zooming in on the Zeppelin, Hillenbrand then takes a step back to change focus, and talks about Louis's childhood.  She writes, "Thrilled by the crashing of boundaries, Louie was untamable.  As he grew into his uncommonly clever mind, mere feats of daring were no longer satisfying.  In Torrance, a one-boy insurgency was born."  The change in focus gives the reader information about Zamperini's childhood, while still giving the audience and attachment to his life.  Hillenbrand is precise in the way that she places the details of the time period and the biography of Louie in order to give the readers the best understanding of what he went through during his life.  Through the changing scope and the detailed descriptions of historical context and Zamperini's biography, Hillenbrand creates a book that audiences can easily connect to in order to receive an inspirational reading experience.

"The Screening Process We Wish We Had" by Gary Varvel

      Protection and security of the people in our country has been a topic of controversy for quite some time and is clearly a very serious and relevant topic today.  This cartoon was from the Washington Times Newspaper created by Gary Varvel.  He has been a cartoonist for the Indianapolis Star for 16 years.  The audience for this cartoon is the US public.  In the visual text, "The Screening Process We Wish We Had", Gary Varvel uses juxtaposition of heart sizes and hyperbole of to argue that there is no easy answer to the issue of the security of America.  The cartoon expresses that America wishes that it had a machine that could measure the size of someone's heart.  With this machine it shows their ability to see that there is a man with a considerably smaller heart than the rest of the people in the line.  The juxtaposition of this man's heart size to the rest of the people in the line show how he must be more dangerous due to his small heart.  Varvel does this to show how the country wishes we could clearly tell the difference between someone who could hurt people and someone who is an average person.  Clearly, this is unable to happen so easily.  Varvel uses hyperbole to show how difficult finding a solution to the security issues in our country would be.  First, he exaggerates the size of the man's heart.  If someone is more inherently evil than another person or even has bad intentions, their heart would obviously not be smaller than a normal person's heart.  The author shows the difficulty of finding a solution to America's security issues through this exaggeration of the heart size.  Also, the hyperbole of the advancement of technology helps him to achieve his purpose.  It's evident to the audience that the machinery used in the cartoon is not realistic and probably will never be in the future.  Through the author's hyperbole of the technological advancements in the American security system, he shows the difficulty of finding a realistic solution to the country's security issues.  He argues the impossibility of finding a full-proof solution to this issue and leaves his audience considering the future of American security.  Although we wish that we could always be safe, and technology could improve our security, Varvel argues that we will never be able to be 100% protected.