help me you literature gurus., ...please. LOL Options

[xscore]

i'm working on an assignment right now. i was absent the day it was assigned, and the class had also discussed it that day. =(

the below quotations are excerpts from martin luther king's "why we can't wait".

"The girl's father is a porter in a downtown department store. He will always be a porter, for there are no promotions for the Negro in this store, where every counter serves him except the one that sells hot dogs and orange juice."

does anyone know what he means by this?
it's just not making ANY sense to me. =(





and how would you categorize the style of the below paragraph?

"This boy and girl, separated by stretching miles, are wondering: Why does misery constantly haunt the Negro? In some distant past, had their forebears done some tragic injury to the nation, and was the curse of punishment upon the black race? Had they shirked in their duty as patriots, betrayed their country, denied their national birthright? Had they refused to defend their land against a foreign foe?"


yeah, i feel pretty stupid. =x

thanks in advance.

[*stephinika*]

moved to school.

[xscore]

moved to school.

mmm...okay.
i guess it fits there more appropriately. =/

[*Blow_Don't_SUCK*]

"The girl's father is a porter in a downtown department store. He will always be a porter, for there are no promotions for the Negro in this store, where every counter serves him except the one that sells hot dogs and orange juice."

I think he's just saying that black people aren't given real or good opportunities and good service?

"This boy and girl, separated by stretching miles, are wondering: Why does misery constantly haunt the Negro? In some distant past, had their forebears done some tragic injury to the nation, and was the curse of punishment upon the black race? Had they shirked in their duty as patriots, betrayed their country, denied their national birthright? Had they refused to defend their land against a foreign foe?"

thanks in advance.

In this one I think he's saying/asking what has the black race done to deserve such cruelty and injustice.

[xscore]

^ well i know that much. the whole underlying message is pretty obvious, considering the whole essay is about racial inequality and all that.

but thanks anyway.


anyhow.
i know he uses methods of rhetoric in the second quotation. but what else? ^^;;
heh

[*Blow_Don't_SUCK*]

Oh wait I didn't FULLY read what you were asking us to do..well for the first one I did what you said, state what it's about..

as for the style of the second one..

can you explain by what you mean style?

[xscore]

^ figurative language, syntax, semantics, diction, figures of speech...all that good stuff.
i really don't see anything except maybe parallelism to emphasize what they hadn't done to deserve such treatment.

this is confusing.

[*Blow_Don't_SUCK*]

^I'm confused too...as an 8th grader, I don't think I can help.

[xscore]

^ LOL okay. thanks for trying, anyway. i appreciate it.
& you are good for an 8th grader. LOL

[*tweeak*]

^ well i know that much. the whole underlying message is pretty obvious, considering the whole essay is about racial inequality and all that.

but thanks anyway.
anyhow.
i know he uses methods of rhetoric in the second quotation. but what else? ^^;;
heh

as in, specifically which types of rhetoric?

The last two sentences contain anaphora, though I'm not entirely sure if only having two sentesnces beginning the same way actually counts. I think it qualifies as having parallel structure, since there's so many rehtorical questions...the first question might be considered metaphorical, since the misery isn't literally haunting them, though I think I might be labelling that wrong. I don't know if you look at ethos, pathos, or logois, but the quotation definitely established pathos because it creates a sympathetic mood and whatnot.


In the first quotation, you've got what it means by the promotion, right? I think the last bit is either suggesting that they're being denied basic needs (food and drink) or that they don't get the luxuries of the whites (if in fact hot dogs and orange juice are supposed to be luxuries...)

I have to do a ton of these voice lesson type things (in fact, I did one on MLK's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" a couple of weeks ago) so I hope that helped.

[xscore]

YES! that's what i looking for! thank you so much.


yeah, we have to do a freaking crapload of these. ap english + black history month. ahhhh
it's killing me. =(

thanks again. you helped a LOT. takes a load of strain off the cranium. no joke.

[*tweeak*]

No problem I've had far more practice with this this year than I'd have liked, and it's easier to not just BS things for the sake of getting them over with when it's not actually my work, which I too have far too much of