In the article "The Liberal Gloat," Ross Douthat criticizes liberals for feeling smug and superior, when they won the election based on economic and social fears rather than enlightened values. The literary technique that Douthat takes the most advantage of is syntax, and he also uses a little detail.
Douthat uses syntax to pull the reader into the article before he gets to the main point. He makes the gloating Democrats seem mocking and almost childish by "quoting" what they might say: "'Those poor, benighted Republicans!' runs the subtext of their post-election commentary. 'They can’t read polls! They can’t reach Hispanics! They don’t understand women! They don’t have a team of Silicon Valley sorcerers running their turnout operations!'" His use of an anaphora makes the reader think that Democrats are ignorant and rude to Republicans. He further shows how Democrats feel superior with pop culture references, showing "that Republicans are now Radio Shack to their Apple store, “The Waltons” to their “Modern Family,” a mediocre Norman Rockwell to their digital-age mosaic." This parallelism compares the Republicans to old culture, while the Democrats are the future of America in the Democrat's eyes. This comparison makes the Republicans feel even more agitated. They want to prove that they aren't old fashioned.
Finally, Douthat gives his opinion supported by a small amount of detail, but his explanation doesn't provide as much excitement as the beginning of the article. He uses facts such as a "single life with children — (which) is now commonplace for women under 30," and spins them to show how this insecurity would lead single women to vote democratic. They aren't candidates of social justice, they only fear living without welfare. For all the other kinds of people who vote democratic, he uses this same technique, which gets boring fast. The article has some different perspectives, but they are not presented in an interesting way.
"The Liberal Gloat" makes the Democrats seem conceited, but it doesn't do a good job of backing up this claim.
What unites all of these stories is the growing failure of America’s local associations — civic, familial, religious — to foster stability, encourage solidarity and make mobility possible. paralleism
But it’s just as easy to see a coalition created by social disintegration and unified by economic fear.
I think if you indented your paragraphs this piece would be easier to follow, and I also would talk about another literary technique from DIDLS because you only mention two of them. You do a good job at providing examples that support your point. You also say that Douthat criticizes liberals, but what is the meaning behind his doing so? By finding the meaning of the article you then can see how Douthat uses the literary techniques to convey his point, instead of just saying how Democrats and Republicans feel.
ReplyDeleteYour second paragraph, addressing syntax, has a lot of potential. I think if you made the connection between Douthat's language and his intention for the audience a bit more explicit, it would really help. Also, I'm not sure how the second example really relates to Douthat's criticism of Democrats being superior and smug. Again, being a bit more explicit with your explanations would help here.
ReplyDeleteThe paragraph about details, at first glance, doesn't really seem to connect here. You spend much of your time saying that it is boring and doesn't really help, but I believe you're supposed to be talking about well his use of details backs up his points. While I understand that your point is that it isn't helping his point, I think you could make that a bit more obvious by stating that in your introduction so your readers will know what to expect. I also wonder whether you could give another example. I know you stated that he does the same for the rest of the social classes, but saying such a thing doesn't really stick out in the mind of the reader and it might be missed altogether, which weakens that paragraph's point a bit.
Like Caroline said, you are supposed to address three literary techniques from DIDLS in this, so you seem to be missing one here. I believe her advice on finding the meaning behind Douthat's criticism of liberals could also help you elaborate on the article more, by focusing on Douthat's intents for writing the article and explaining what techniques helped accomplish that.
There's not much I can say that isn't echoing the others. You have some very good information here, and all it needs is to be added to and connected more to the thesis. The paragraph on details especially could be altered to connect back to the idea of pompous Democrats while still expressing how he used details in a partially ineffective way.
ReplyDeleteIt was a little unclear what the author's intent was. It was clear that he thought democrats were arrogant, but what did he want to prove by saying that? Elaborating on that will give your analysis more clarity.
As the others said, use another example of DIDLS so you can fully accomplish what the rubric for this sort of assignment asks for.