Sunday, February 23, 2014

TOW#19: IRB "The Nazi Officer's Wife" by Edith Hahn Beer

Safe Is Not So Safe

Elie Wiesel is a famous author known for his memoir, "Night". He wrote about his life during the Holocaust; He describes the torture and the devastation he went through with his father. However, a woman named Edith Hahn Beer, who was also Jewish, went through the exact opposite of what he went through. Yet, she was just as terrified. Beer writes her story in "The Nazi Officer's Wife", and shows that life was actually still terrifying even though she was "safe" by appealing to ethos and using descriptive diction.

Beer appeals to ethos by retelling a true story about herself in order to make herself more credible to the audience. This book is a true story in her perspective about the horrible things that she had to go through during the Holocaust. Because this story is true and in her perspective, she is more credible rather than a person writing about her. If another person had written about her, the readers would think that the author changed a few details here and there to make the story more interesting. But this story is told from the primary source. The readers are, therefore, able to believe Beer and be more engaged with the story. Thus, the readers are more fascinated that all these events in the story are true. 

Beer also uses descriptive diction in order to add detail into her writing to make it sound interesting. She talks about the terrible ride to Munich by saying, “I murdered the personality I was born with and transformed myself from a butterfly back in into a caterpillar. That night I learned to seek the shadows, to prefer silence”. This shows that she was a different person now. By stating "I murdered the personality" shows that she has gotten rid of who she used to be and became a different person; But not in a good way. She also says that she "transformed myself from a butterfly back in into a caterpillar", which also shows that she is now in hiding and in the process of becoming a different person. By using descriptive diction such as "murdered", "transformed", "butterfly" and "caterpillar", she is able to imply her feelings without being banal and too straight-forward, which would not sound as intriguing. 

Beer was able to avoid the torturous Holocaust that many people went through, by meeting a non-Jewish man who promised to keep her identity a secret. However, she lived in fear everyday, fear that she might be caught. Ultimately, she managed to stay hidden for the rest of the Holocaust. Yet, she writes a book about how terrified she was despite her luckiness by appealing to ethos and using descriptive diction. 

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

TOW#18: A Boy Saw A Classmate Getting Horribly Bullied. It’s What Happened 4 Years Later That Made Me Cry

            Just Say "Hello"

          The hardest thing to do is the easiest thing to do. An inspiring but untrue story tells of a boy named Kyle who is bullied. He carries multiple books to and from school and a bully always knocks them down and calls him a nerd. One day, a classmate sees this and goes up to help him when no one else did. Many others may have avoided to help Kyle because they were afraid that they might look like a “loser”. Little did the classmate know that Kyle was on his way home to kill himself that night. But the classmate saved him. In this short anecdote, the author appeals to ethos and uses suspense to show that good deeds have greater outcomes than one would imagine.

            The author appeals to ethos by speaking in first-person to show his credibility towards the story and show a more emotional insight to the character. It says, “As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went out to him.” This shows how the character felt and the reasons for him going up and helping him. By speaking in first-person, the reader is able to understand the character’s feelings better and have empathy, rather than if it said, “He felt this, so he did this.” Speaking in first-person also makes the story more believable and touching. Thus, the author's first-person perspective gives the story more of a personal feel and credible. 

            The author uses suspense in order to lure in the reader’s attention to make the story more exciting. During graduation, as it states in the story, the character, Kyle, says,  “‘I am going to tell you a story’.” By saying this, the audience can predict that he is going to talk about how he was bullied and his encounter of his first friend. But since he says “story”, the reader is able to predict that there is more to the story than the first time they met, which is true. Kyle goes on and talks about how he was on his way home to kill himself, but one person helped him from the bullies, which ultimately saved his life. This shows that by using suspense, the author is able to grab the reader’s attention and give more to the reader than they were expecting.

            This was not a true story. But then why would the author write it? Bullying has become a serious issue and many people have been ignoring this fact. Therefore the author decides to write a story with a moral, which is that good deeds have greater outcomes than one would expect. He shows this by appealing to ethos and using suspense. A simple “hello” can save someone’s life.  

Picture used for the story 
(http://avmediastudio.com/blog/a-boy-saw-a-classmate-getting-horribly-bullied-its-what-happened-10-years-later-that-made-me-cry/)







Sunday, February 2, 2014

TOW#17: Teen Pregnancy Advertisement

(http://aapci.org/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/teen-pregnancy-ad.jpg)
Teen Pregnancy is Not Cool

"16 and Pregnant" and "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" are television shows that depict the possible lives of being a teenager with a child. However, these shows tend to show that being a pregnant teenager is manageable. This causes people to forget the consequences of having a child at such a young age. Also, it is not only the teenagers that suffer from the pregnancy but it is also the child who suffers as well. This advertisement (shown above) describes how children with teen parents are not likely to graduate high school. The advertisement appeals to pathos and uses bolded words in order to show that teen pregnancy is ruinous to the future of a teenager's child.

The advertisement appeals to pathos by its use of a picture of a crying baby. The crying baby brings a sad emotion to the audience. If the advertisement did not include the picture, people would most likely walk past the advertisement without even taking a glance at it. The first thing people would see as they walk past this advertisement is this crying child. This would cause them to wonder why the child is crying. Then they would read the text on the advertisement to see what it is about, allowing them to see the facts of teen-pregnancy. The crying child catches a person's eye and cause the audience to sympathize for the child. The picture of the advertisement also may influence possible teenagers who decide to make poor choices in the future. This picture on the advertisement brings out guilt, thus making the picture effective for the advertisement. 

The advertisement also uses bolded words in order to emphasize the key words in the advertisement. The bolding of the words, "not", "high school", and "teen" makes it simple for the audiences to understand the main point of this picture. If the words were not bolded, people would probably be too lazy to read the entire text. The bolded words summarize the main idea and cause others to want to read it more since the words are bolded, showing a sign of importance. The bolded words stand out; it is the first person the audience would see right after the picture of the sad baby. Also, the use of bold words are found in the bottom of the advertisement where it says, "KIDS OF TEEN MOMS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY NOT TO GRADUATE THAN KIDS WHOSE MOMS WERE OVER AGE 22." This was also to emphasize that it is teenager mothers that risk a child's chance of graduating high school, not adult mothers. This shows that being a teenage mother is very risky and immoral to the child being born. Ultimately, the bolded words emphasize the important texts of the advertisement so that the audience reads the key elements of the text. 

Was this advertisement necessary? Do people not know that teenage pregnancy is wrong? People are beginning to forget the negative outcomes of teenage pregnancy. This advertisement was a reminder and a "heads-up" about how teenage pregnancy affects more than one person. The advertisement brilliantly conveys this idea by appealing to pathos and using bolded words. 



IRB Intro: "The Nazi Officer's Wife" by Edith Hahn Beer

This is a memoir about a woman named Edith who is a Jew living during the Holocaust. She lies about her identity to keep herself from getting persecuted. She meets a man named Werner, a member in the Nazi party, who falls in love with her and promises to keep her identity hidden. Will Edith survive?

I chose this book because I wanted to read about other perspectives of the Holocaust than from Elie Wiesel. I think this book will be really interesting because this woman is not living a horrible life, since she lies about her identity. But will she be living peacefully even after that?

I hope to gain more insight into the troubling days of the Holocaust. Because of this book, I get to see a whole other side of this time period. I can't wait to read it!