Reid 1

Katie Reid
22 March 2015
Erin Workman
ENC 1145
Reflection
Let me start by saying I hope your weekend was not too terrible AND I have a
joke that is not funny at all but it is my favorite anti joke, its really quite terrible actually
but here it is: Why did Sally fall off the swing? Because she didnt have and arms.
Terrible.. I know.
Anyway, writing this research paper was definitely a process. First of all I dont
even want to be in college, I want to move to India and become and Jain nun. But
unfortunately my parents think its important for me to get an education So this makes
it difficult to be passionate about anything school related, more specifically finding a
major that I am interested in. Subsequently the topic I chose had nothing to do with my
major but rather the rhetorical situation in the literary world. When I was thinking about
my topic and what I should include in my paper I thought about writers who used
rhetorical situation to affect their readers in the way they desired. Chelsea Handler and
Edgar Allan Poe. People who could not be more unalike, but theyre both writers so it
works! Handler is a disgustingly, wonderfully, vulgar comedian of the twenty first
century. She had her own talk show and was one of the most successful female late night
comedians. Her charisma and blunt attitude attributed to her growing fame and inspired
her to write several books. One being the most recent: Uganda Be Kidding Me. The novel

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includes several anecdotes of her time she spent in Africa with several friends and many
drugs. The stories are very detailed and quite hilarious. She uses a certain diction that
catches the reader off guard and gets them laughing. When annotating and analyzing the
story I had to figure out what points I wanted to include in the paper to let my reader
know what I was trying to say. I knew that I had to involve the way she addresses her
different anecdotes and explains her reasoning behind her action. I started by discussing
her different devices she utilizes, such as her cursing to catch her audience off guard, the
use of anecdotes to explain a point, and several other devices. Its always somewhat
difficult to tear apart a piece of text to get down to the core of it and discover what the
possibly meaning is behind the words. I had to include several quotes to show my
audience what I meant when I said that Handler was blunt or raunchy. But I made it work
in the end (at least I hope so?) with the different rhetoric I used.
Edgar Allan Poe. What a fucked up dude. He had a terrible life which was made
incredible obvious in his writing. Nonetheless, his writing is beautifully dark and rich in
symbolism. It seems Poe really loved to bask in the ambience of his depression. His
poems could be interpreted to have a ridiculous amount of hidden meaning behind every
word. By using his certain choice of diction and rhyme pattern he creates a melodic tone
to the dark nature of the text. I chose to analyze the Tell-Tale Heart, which is not a
poem but is still a great Poe work of art. I wanted the audience to really see how Poe was
and what kind of writer he was. I included several different quotes from the story and

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made connections with what he was trying the say. Whenever I believed that there was an
underlying meaning behind something he said in the text I would break down that
meaning and explain to the audience in a detailed fashion. For instance, the different
numbers he used to describe the process of the narrator preparing to murder is roommate.
Poe chose the number seven for the number of the days the preparation was underway
and the number three for the amount of floorboards used to hide the dismembered body
parts. In my paper I included the possible meaning behind the use of the numbers seven
and three. I talked about how they are both biblical numbers used to describe something
of divine perfection. This was meant to get the audience thinking. When first reading the
short story the reader may not notice the connection with the numbers and the plot. By
picking out the symbolism in the text I was able to give the reader a different angle to see
the story line. This is what I was going for. The whole point of the paper was to address
the rhetorical situations in the texts of the two very different writers. Fingers crossed I
accomplished my goals.