Wrap-Up

Quindlen wants us to disregard the expectations of society. McCandless wanted to find himself and discover happiness and fulfillment in life. Thoreau wants to live a life devoid of illusions and instead based on a foundation of perspicuity and simple reality. They all agreed on how relationships should have a priority on oneself; instead of living a life in which we chase after others and are concerned with how people and the world views and relates with us, we need to first get ourselves together in terms of accurate self-awareness and acceptance.

I agree with all three of them to a certain extent. I agree with Quindlen on how we mustn’t be caught up in worrying about whether we meet the expectations of others. Her stance on how we should all pursue a life centered on our contentment and happiness appealed to me because I also think that we shouldn’t shoulder the burden of perfection and expectations, and instead should learn to live to be happy with who we are and what we want. I agree with McCandless on how we mustn’t be caught up with the limits of life and that we should strive to surpass them if we want too. Life isn’t about comfort and conformity; dreams are meant to be pursued, goals are meant to be attempted, and desires are meant to be achieved. I agree with Thoreau on how we mustn’t be blind to reality and that we should come to face ourselves and the life that we’re leading now with an unbiased perspective that isn’t so carried away with the insignificant details of life. But I also think that all three of these perspectives are to be true within reason. Relationships and responsibilities are both things that I value and regard very highly, and I think that there are times when they will come first before my own shallow desires. These three people all seem to value the idea of self-priority, individualism, and reality; responsibilities and relationships may be perceived as equally important, but they seem to fall in somewhere beneath the three; this, I do not agree. 

Thoreau

This piece of Thoreau’s writing was bit obscure and hard for me to grasp fully, but I think that in terms of responsibilities and relationship, he has two main things to say: simplicity and reality. Thoreau seems to prefer to live a life not of delusions and distractions, but rather a life stripped of trivial specificities and details that many are so consumed with. Severing our wants and perhaps even needs to stick to a comfort zone of regularity and routine, we should instead view life with certain alacrity that will take us farther in life. Life was not given to us so that we can spend most of it in an illusionary perspective, and Thoreau seems to want us to shake off any burdens of frequent changes and fluctuations in our lives that may weigh us down, and instead focus on viewing this world with an accuracy that will stress reality. Relationships and responsibilities have a certain limit in this lifestyle, as I think that Thoreau thinks that both of them require/have a certain degree of specific concerns and vague uncertainty that we can’t figure out immediately. Instead of being absorbed with the many connections and obligations that we may have with either people or objects, we should attempt to have equanimity in everything so that we won’t get swept away by concerns and instabilities. I disagree with Thoreau, partly perhaps because I didn’t really understand him, and partly because I think that we should delve into every detail and change in life. I admit that Thoreau is right on how we mustn’t choose to withdraw into a shell of false protection, but I don’t think that in order to live a life based on reality, we need to choose simplicity. 

Chris McCandless

Chris McCandless was a bright guy, certain about the direction he wanted to take and focused solely on what he thought was important. He had a strong life and even though it unfortunately short, I think he managed to live a fulfilling, at least much more than other people did. Because of his desire and hunger to leave his civilized life and to embrace a raw and challenging lifestyle where he would explore himself, McCandless threw away and left behind his responsibilities to his family and friends and, according to his parents, to himself: responsibilities of being a son, a brother, a friend. McCandless treated the very idea of relationships kind of like a secondary, rather than a centered, part of his life. During the long period when he was wandering and travelling, he sent occasional letters and postcards to friends, and hardly ever to his parents. I think he was big on privacy and individualism; he seemed to think that he was responsible for himself, and he was responsible enough to claim to be solely responsible for himself, and so therefore he disregarded the efforts of many to form a long-lasting relationship with him in order to be with him or to be updated throughout his journey that he wanted to take alone. Some may say that McCandless was a rash and unwise man for leaving his old life and pushing away his family and friends, but I think that what he did wasn’t condemnable. I agree that a person’s responsibility and choice of relationships are up to them, and even though McCandless took this to the extreme, he wanted a life of self-exploration for happiness and contentment, and if that life did not include his family and other people, then that’s that. 

Anna Quindlen

Ann Quindlen believes that our relationship-priority is to ourselves; there is no need for us to be pressured into being responsible for reaching the expectations of society. The wants of many people to be perfect is ridiculously strong in this age and culture. The burden to be the individual that can be admired and respected and acknowledged by others through his/her attributes and characteristics and abilities is inescapable. We care about what other people think and how they view us, so we always strive to reach a status in society where we are, in a nutshell, perfect. But Quindlen says otherwise; she urges for us to throw away our shallow dreams of being a flawless individual and to simply, as cliché as it sounds, to follow our hearts and be ourselves. I agree with Quindlen; although many think that her perspective is a bit self-centered, I think that instead of seeking the acknowledgement of others, we should instead be seeking self-acknowledgement, and be able to look at ourselves full-on and be content and satisfied with what we see. Our weaknesses, our flaws, our imperfections, we should embrace each and every one of them and learn to live with knowing that they’re characteristics that makes up who you are; we have to disregard the notion that to have wonderful relationships with friends/family and society in general, we need to shoulder the heavy burden of meeting the demanding expectations of this world. Life is simply too short and fast for us to spend a majority of it worrying and feeling obliged to listen to the pompous claims of others who think they know what there is to know about a good life. 

Rhetorical Analysis of "12 Angry Men" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"

There are many ways for a producer to make a point through a film; even the most subtle details and things that may seem insignificant at first can all add up and merge together into supporting and emphasizing the central message. Of course, an individual has to pay attention and watch out for these details in order to fully appreciate the producer’s efforts, and I’m sure that I missed quite a few things when I was watching the two films, 12 Angry Men and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But from what I gathered, even though the two films are significantly different in terms of plot, they both used the devices of the Aristotelian appeal to  logos and pathos, and juxtaposition, all used to convey the worth of unyielding persistence.

The Aristotelian appeal is very apparent in the two movies, logos more so in 12 Angry Men than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and pathos more so in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington than 12 Angry Men.

In 12 Angry Men, use of logos is more common than pathos because persuasion was a goal for the twelve men and they all often used the appeal to logic than to the emotions. Arguments and disagreements were circling around and around throughout practically the whole movie, and often times the men found themselves back at square one after a heated debate. However, the sole juror who voted non guilty and the other opinion-changing jurors later on together found the smallest details and proved them wrong with a series of logical arguments; the volume of the train, the time it takes for it to pass, the distance the witness had to walk to reach his door, the glasses imprint on the woman’s face, the angle at which the knife was plunged in to the father’s chest, all of these details were deftly proven wrong and worked towards the advantage of the boy’s innocence. The extent to which one particular juror had been resistant to these logical proving further stressed the fact that there was indeed nothing for the anti-not-guilty jurors to have a foundation for their opinion on the boy’s guilt. I found that these consistent approaches to logic that the jurors used were good at pointing out any personal prejudices that got in the way of the case, and as these biases were all rooted out I could see the extent to which the jury had changed from the beginning, when they were all hot, tired and annoyed at the supposedly simple case that was taking too much time, to the end, when they were all chastened into admitting the facts and making the right decision thoroughly and without backing down.

In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington I didn't really get to notice a lot of instances of logos because the excerpt was pretty short, but pathos was clearly demonstrated in the clip. From the beginning when Smith was standing alone in the court room till the end, when Smith was bent over the table, being barely able to speak due to exhaustion and strain, I found that I was often sympathizing and empathizing with Smith. His stubborn stance on how corruption should change was an admirable thing, and as the clip progressed I got to admire and respect him for his 23-hour long filibuster. Besides the sympathy and admiration that I personally felt, it is also clear that the people in the movie were emotionally moved as well. In the beginning people weren't very supportive towards Smith, but thanks to the printing and circulation of the newspapers, the outside world was shifting towards Smith’s side. This usage of pathos was a successful move in the producer’s part because it made the impact of Smith’s persistent words and actions more significant to me, and it also helped stress the extent to which his actions were causing a ripple of change in the American society.

Juxtaposition is also apparent in both films; in 12 Angry Men, the stages of changes and development of thought among the men concerning whether the boy was guilty or not was noticeable and the differences were practically laid there side-by-side because the arguing was continuous throughout the whole movie. The lack of change in the setting or characters especially helped me to notice this progression of the jury’s thought and decisions; the consistency and stability of the movie was good for me to understand the plot a bit better because there weren't any alternations between different places or anything like that. I could see how a certain point was different the other, and how one man was consistent in this aspect of the argument while another man hardly had any good footing in his points at all. The producer worked this use of juxtaposition to his advantage because it helped him to emphasize how successful or correct the direction towards the decision-making for the case.  

For juxtaposition in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the scenes of Smith at court and the different scenes of the people’s reactions to Smith helped in making connections between them. The excerpt swiftly escalated in terms of the extent to which the public was responding because in the beginning things were pretty stagnant, but the newspapers were a stimulus to change because thanks to the circulation, the public was now riled up and aware of Smith’s cause. Soon marches were organized and signs were waved as the people were wanted to support Smith. Following right after these scenes were the parts when these positive movements were being suppressed. These three different types of scenes together made an impression on how the situation progressed from the beginning to the end.  The short, abrupt shots of people running around, newspapers printing, Smith speaking, etc all helped to bring into light the differences the excerpt’s parts had and the overall effectiveness of Smith’s filibuster and how this effectiveness affected society.

Even though the producers of both films obviously used more rhetorical devices other than the Aristotelian appeals and juxtaposition to help prove their point in their films, those three were the clearest ones that I was able to catch. Logic, appeal to emotion, and side-by-side placement of different scenes stressed the aspects of the characters and the plot, particularly the development of both as in the two films there were escalation and change going on in the jurors’ opinions and the public’s perception of Mr. Smith.