An increasingly popular form of mass media persuasion is the "docudrama," a hybrid of the informative documentary and the dramatic film. The docudrama format presents viewers with a purposive viewpoint or value-laden interpretation of reality and contains some degree of historical accuracy and factual authenticity. The docudrama also…

The Disney film "Pocahontas" appears to be an attempt to respond to growing cultural diversity, calls for multiculturalism, and strong female role models in the United States. This paper provides an analysis of the film, examining how Disney's claims to the creation of positive, pro-social representations of women and Native Americans in…

Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Anne Tyler have all dealt with spiritual journeys and card reading in their writings. In his book "Tarot Revelations," Joseph Campbell discusses his first association with tarot cards, dating from 1943, when he was introduced to the symoblism of playing cards by his friend and mentor, Heinrich Zimmer. Carl…

The uncritical acceptance of Plato's treatment of sophistic doctrines (specifically in Plato's dialogue the "Gorgias") in the university has resulted in an impoverished contemporary view of sophistic rhetoric. Since Socrates' foundational epistemology allows for the knowledge of immutable truth and Gorgias' relativistic epistemology does…

Reproduction is part of the regulations of daily speech. Everyday experience shows there are different ways to convey the same information: starting sentences that are quickly rephrased using other words, manuscripts passing through draft states before the writer decides upon the final version. In more ways than one, any text is always but the…

In teaching the principles of rational discourse in advanced expository writing, it is necessary to clarify the similarities and differences between the logic and rhetoric of Aristotle and to identify a common ground between the two. The study of logic within rhetoric focuses on the inductive standards used to support two kinds of argument: the…

Three components seem central to the definition of a documentary film: (1) the filmmaker should seek to provide as valid a record as possible of the facts, (2) the filmmaker must not neglect artistry in the portrayal of reality, and (3) a persuasive purpose is inherent to the form. Thus, documentary film provides for the artistic portrayal of…

This paper shows how literary criticism can enrich the high school English classroom. Specifically, the paper focuses on how an Internet teaching tool called the WebQuest helped one educator's students learn about literary criticism and apply it to "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. The WebQuest homepage defines a WebQuest as "an…

In both speaking and writing, the goal is communication with the intended audience. Rejecting the view that rhetoric is based on an established set of conventions, this article examines the writings of Charles Dickens as models of rhetorical expression. Passages from Dicken's novels illustrate how the writer violated grammatical rules and broke…

As an initial step toward discovering whether a separate genre of women's rhetoric exists, this paper analyzes rhetorical forms used by Mary Daly in the book "Gyn/Ecology." The paper first outlines criteria for determining whether a form has rhetorical significance and traces the historical background of the contemporary feminist…

The way in which children's rebellion against adults is handled in literature may be examined through analyses of three works in which adults meet their deaths at the hands of children. "Hansel and Gretel" depicts with candor the struggle of children against adults but indulges in moral oversimplification that encourages children to think in terms…

Modern society is an ever-changing pattern of pressure and counter pressure. A social movement in conflict with the dominant society is labeled with easily identifiable stereotypes--bearded long hairs, bra burners, terrorists, bleeding hearts, uneducated rednecks. Traditional criticism has failed to say anything meaningful about social movements…

Explores the response of a Vietnam veteran to the film "Platoon." Notes that the film combines two voices, the veteran as journalist-critic and as priest, which mystify rather than explain the Vietnam experience. Argues that this form of priestly rhetoric serves an enduring hierarchy of power and knowledge. (KEH)

In "The Reason for Poetry," the first of two lectures contained in this booklet, the poet William Meredith argues for a more generous definition of poetry. To move away from the narrow appreciation of poetry as "what I like," Meredith suggests that readers must shift their focus from their own expectations on reading a poem to…

The location of tension in the text of "A Streetcar Named Desire" is accomplished by close readings of traditional sources, particularly notes on Kazan's "Production"; Williams' thoughts on his script and Kazan's "Production"; and Williams' personal relationships. By logical twists the analysis supports, in this case,…