Summer Rituals - Homework

[dvan...@hcrhs.org]

Please complete and post your responses to the "Discovering Rhetorical Strategies" questions in this forum after reading "Summer Rituals."

[RYAN LYNN]

[Julianne Ferraro]

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

Please complete and post your responses to the "Discovering Rhetorical Strategies" questions in this forum after reading "Summer Rituals."

 

1)       The change in sentence length creates fluidity throughout the piece. This fluidity helps create a feeling of community, peace, and ritual. In the twelfth paragraph the first two sentences are an example of this. The first sentence is shorter and less descriptive while the next sentence is filled with adjectives and imagery like “chill Eskimo Pies, the pale hands that moved knitting needles in the dimness, and the lighting of pipes.” These changes keep the reader interested, help portray a sense of togetherness, and paint a portrait of the setting in the readers head.

2)      “oblivious to their wives chirping or snapping like fuzzball hand dogs hidden behind black porch screens” This is a simile. You learn that the captains view their wives as yapping dogs, annoying and loud, but ignoring them. You learn that the wives are trying to get their husbands attention and gossiping. Since a yapping dog is usually associated with being annoying you can tell that husbands view their wives as irritating and loud.

3)      The point of view of the author is that he enjoys the summer ritual and community of the neighborhood. He loves being outside on his porch and seeing his Grandfather and neighbors converse. Perhaps the essay could have been more effective if were reported from Douglas because he seems to really enjoy these rituals and be involved with what everyone is doing. While the Grandfather and women take this time to relax and small talk about the day. The author’s point of view helps him organize his thoughts and details chronologically and in order of importance or favorite memory. The fact that Bradbury’s middle name is Douglas should have bearing on our interpretation of the story because maybe Bradbury is Douglas and he is just writing from a different perspective.

4)      Some other rhetorical devices Bradbury uses are similes and metaphors. These devices help create the feeling of a summer night, the setting, and the community. An example of a simile “oblivious to their wives chirping or snapping like fuzzball hand dogs hidden behind black porch screens” and an example of a metaphor is “the night of susurrant, slumberous voices weaving the dark together.” The author also uses some dialogue which enhances the characters personalities, “”Always like to start sitting early in the season” said grandpa, ““before the mosquitoes thicken.””

[Max]

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

Please complete and post your responses to the "Discovering Rhetorical Strategies" questions in this forum after reading "Summer Rituals."

Max Cohen

Block 4

Honor’s Expos

Summer Ritual’s Questions

                                                                                                          

1)     Typically, variation in sentence length creates sentence fluency. It flows easily and feels like a conversation, which makes it easier to read. However, in this story, it also portrays voice. It makes you feel like you understand the narrator, like you actually know him. The way he narrates creates a mental conversation within you, and makes a reader think. For example in this passage, in the 11^th paragraph, the beginning sentence is a quick one and a half line. The next sentence is 5 lines long. The beginning sentence is a simple, concise one, whereas the next sentence gives details upon details explaining what was important. It really allowed the reader to understand what the narrator tried to portray,

 

2)     In the 10^th paragraph, the author compares the women in the story to ghosts. He writes, “at last, like ghosts hovering momentarily behind the door screen, Grandma, Great Grandma, and Mother would appear”. This is a simile and works fantastically in transitioning the story. It moves the story along in such a smooth way. It allows you to picture the women in the family just coming up behind the men, as they always do because of the “summer rituals” the family has. The comparison makes it feel like of course the women come up behind the men and take their place at that time because it is a tradition. A ghost would haunt a home at specific times. In this story, the author makes it clear that the women take the men’s place on the porch every year during this time of summer to chat.

 

3)     The point of view in this selection is one of a bystander. This bystander can account for most of what is going on in the story and allows for all the great, vivid detail. If this essay was in the point of view of anyone specific, it would not be the same. It wouldn’t be as effective in illustrating the setting, and portraying the mood. By the point of view being from a bystander, or more specifically, the author’s point of view, it allows Bradbury to organize his essay in which manner he likes because it’s how he sees it. If he sees the men watching the neighborhood reminiscing over good times, that’s what he saw. He can write about it, and add great detail to make the reader picture it. Even though Bradbury’s middle name is Douglas, I don’t believe it should have any bearing in the story because regardless of what the story is based off, the essay still will have the same effect. As long as it is not written in a different perspective, the same point is reached.

 

4)     One rhetorical strategy that is used in this essay besides description is narrative strategy. The whole essay is written based off the author’s point of view, which to me seemed like a bystander who had nothing to do with the people being described. This narrative strategy allows for the description strategy because if there was no narrator, there would be no story. In addition, another strategy is cause and effect. Throughout the entire story it explains about rituals. Because there are rituals in the family, it causes all the events in the story to occur.

[ANNA HELFRICH]

Anna Helfrich

Summer Rituals

1. The author effectively uses sentences varying in length to enhance the way the essay flows. An example of a long sentence used is shown in the end of paragraph 2, when Bradbury writes, "He acknowledged the salutes of other captains on yet other flowered porches, out themselves to discern the gentle ground swell of weather, oblivious to their wives chirping or snapping like fuzzball hand dogs hidden behind black porch screens." The long sentences used, like this one, add a flow to the essay that allow the reader to feel the timelessness of the summer. It also give the feeling that the narrator is getting lost in the memories and thoughts of his summer rituals. Following this long sentence is a shorter one that says, " 'All right Douglas, let's set it up.' " By putting this short sentence after the long one, it brings the story back to reality and reminds both the reader and Douglas what was happening before Douglas had his long description.

2. The author uses another simile in paragraph 12 when he writes, "The rocking chairs sounded like crickets and the crickets sounded like rocking chairs." This simile is used to compare the rocking chairs to the sounds of crickets. By doing this, the narrator shows how these summer rituals are like the outdoors around them. It also represents how the summer rituals are natural and occur every night in the summer, just like the crickets.

3. The story is told through the eyes of Douglas and is a third person objective point of view. Douglas seems like the perfect narrator for the essay since he is still young boy who views everything with a sense of innocence and fascination. If the story was told through the standpoint of Grandfather or of the women, the outlook on the situation would lack creativity and excitement. By knowing that the authors middle name is Douglas, it would be interesting to know but it shouldn't change our interpretation of the story. The essay will still have the same effect since its still about a young boy reflect on his families enjoyable summer rituals.

4. Bradbury uses many similes and metaphors throughout his writing to enhance his descriptions, as shown in question number 2. He also uses exemplification often to elaborate how he sees the summer rituals. Examples of this are shown by the many long sentence in the essay that effectively explain the ideas of Douglas. Another strategy that Badbury uses throughout the essay is narration. This is used to explain the summer rituals and how everyone is a part of them. 

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

[JULIA RINGEL]

Julia Ringel

Summer Rituals Discovering Rhetorical Strategies

1. Authors need to vary the lengths of their sentences to keep the reader interested in what they are saying. If an author writes too many long descriptive sentences the reader is receiving too much information and becomes bored. If an author writes too many short choppy sentences, the reader is not receiving enough information. A balance of short and long sentences is needed to keep the reader engaged but also provide them with enough detail to keep them involved in the writing. One example of this in Summer Rituals is when Douglas is explaining what the adults talk about at night on the porch. He starts out with a very short sentence saying that “nobody remembered the next day” what was said. Then in the next sentence he has a long description of the sounds that can be heard on that summer night. This keeps the reader interested because the short sentence captivates their attention and then the longer sentence builds on that statement by providing examples and description.

2. “it was only important that the darkness filled the town like black water being poured over the houses and that the cigars glowed and that the conversations went on and on” (pg 47). This is a simile because it uses the word “like” to compare darkness to black water. This simile provides much more description and creates a picture in the mind of the reader. Instead of just saying that it got dark outside, which is not descriptive at all, the author creates an image in the reader’s mind. You can see the town slowly growing darker and darker over time until all the houses are engulfed in pitch black. The whole point of similes and metaphors is to provide more detail through a comparison and a visual picture in the mind of the reader.

3. The point of view of the story is from a narrator observing the scene. I think the essay would be the most effective coming from the point of view of Douglas because he is a child leading a simple life and cherishing a tradition with his family. If the point of view was from Grandfather, the summer ritual might not have as much meaning because he has lived a long life and I doubt that putting up a porch swing would have as much meaning to him as it does to Douglas. I also believe that the women would not have such a response to the ritual because they spend most of the night talking and did not have the same experience Douglas did laying on the porch and just listening to the sounds of his childhood. Douglas represents the simplicity of remembering a childhood memory. This helps the author with his description because Douglas is not involved in the dialogue or action, he is just listening and observing. The author can just focus on describing the atmosphere without making Douglas an active participant. Because Douglas is Ray Bradbury’s middle name this leads me to believe that this essay could be a personal reflection of a childhood memory that Bradbury cherished.

4. Although description is the primary rhetorical strategy used in the essay, Bradbury also uses similes and metaphors to further enhance that description through comparisons.The author also uses sounds as the main source of description. Instead of saying what happened, he described how that action would sound which provided the reader with the same information but in a different way. “The rocking chairs sounded like crickets, the crickets sounded like rocking chairs, and the moss-covered rain barrel by the dining-room window produced another generation of mosquitoes to provide a topic of conversation through endless summer nights” (pg 47) is much more effective than saying that people sat in rocking chairs, heard crickets chirping, and complained about the mosquitoes.

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

[LISA BROWN]

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

[ETHAN HOSTA]

1.  The author does this to highlight the focus of the story.  Interestingly, he emphasizes shorter moments with drawn out, descriptive sentences while using shorter sentences to pass time.  "The women carried varieties of fans with them, folded newspapers, bamboo whisks, or perfumed kerchiefs, to start the air moving about their faces as they talked."  This sentence only covers the time it takes for women to walk through the kitchen, and he goes on to say, "What they talked of all evening long, no one remembered next day."  He did this to portray the sights, sounds and feelings the memories brought back.  His focus was not what they talked of all night.

2.   "At last, like ghosts hovering momentarily behind the door screen, Grandma, Great-grandma, and Mother would appear, and the men would shift, move, and offer seats."  He compares the older women and his mother to ghosts, with the goal of capturing how lethargic and slow-moving the summer nights are.  It's almost as if they drifted into the room, instead of making a deliberate effort to take a seat in the room with the men.  It fits with the rest of the paragraphs description, and the attitude of the evening, which was earlier described as "syrupy".

3.  The story is told in a 3rd person limited perspective.  It makes the story more effective because the essay can focus on the entire evening, without being limited or altered by a single character's perspective.  It not only helps us imagine our own summer rituals, but it helps us gain a complete view of Douglas' family and their summer rituals.

4.  Bradbury uses comparison and very precise word choice to help the reader gain some meaning from his writing. "Uncle Bert, perhaps Grandfather... into the syrupy evening,"  The use of the word syrupy particularly caught my attention.  There was  I would never think to compare a time of day or time of year to something you put on pancakes, but it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about the characteristics of syrup.  Syrup is viscous, and comes out of the bottle very slowly, similar to the progression of time in these short scenes, and it has a gold-amber color, similar to a summer evening.  Syrup is also sweet, much like the beginnings of summer the story describes.  It is easy to glance over word choice, but there was a lot of comparison to be drawn from the word "syrupy" when used to describe the setting.  He also uses simile and metaphor, like the one described in question two.

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

[CARTER RICE]

Carter Rice

1. The varying sentence lengths paints a picture in the mind of the reader that cannot be seen with sentences of similar lengths. In the drawn out sentences, the reader can visualize a scene that is occurring, while in the short sentences little is visualized, but information is instead provided that gives more detail into the characters’ mindsets. One example occurs in paragraphs 10-11, “The women carried varieties of fans with them, folded newspapers, bamboo whisks, or perfumed kerchiefs, to start the air moving about their faces as they talked. What they talked of all evening long, no one remembered the next day.” In these sentences, a picture is painted of the women moving about, while the short sentences gives the reader a sense of the scene by indicating the mindset of the women, which adds to the scene but does not illustrate it as the long sentences do.

2. One simile near the end of the essay: “And the voices chanted, drifted, in moonlit clouds of cigarette smoke while the moths, like late appleblossoms come alive, tapped faintly about the far streetlights...” We can say that the moths are a part of nature that represent nighttime because they come out at night, and we learn from this simile that the nighttime and serenity that these moths represent is accepted as its own ritual. By saying the moths are like appleblossoms, the author is directing to the reader that the characters are pleased by the moths’ presence rather than scornful, showing that the nighttime talks are another ritual that they love to repeat.

3. The essay is essentially in the third person point of view, and is more effective because of that. If it were written in the viewpoint of one of the characters, there would be more of a mental bias involved from that character, mainly because the narration would lead to inferences of what that character thinks about the summer rituals that occur. Keeping it in third person allows the essay to paint a picture of summer for the reader and to leave it at that. This perspective helps the author organize the description by allowing for events to be described as they happen, rather than revealing them through a certain character’s experiences, which would put them out of order. I think that the author’s middle name being Douglas should only make the reader think that the story is based off of his own life, but other than that there is no change to the interpretation of the essay.

4. Bradbury uses similes and metaphors to give the reader the full effect of his essay in order to convey more meaning to a certain object or character, such as, “The moths, like late appleblossoms come alive, tapped faintly about the far streetlights...” Bradbury also utilizes narration in order to almost give the scene to the reader without any underlying thoughts from the characters that would change the perception of the essay.

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

[HANNAH BRUZZIO]

1) "Douglas, being lighter, was first to sit on the swing. Then, after a moment,Grandfather gingerly settled his pontifical weight beside the boy." This example of a short sentence before a longer one gives different details and different imagery to the two characters, Douglas and Grandfather. Douglas you can see just plopping, or jumping on to the swing and a short sentence backs up that movement. On the other hand, the sentence that describes Grandfathers sitting down is drawn out and longer which supports the very lethargic and almost timid way that elderly people sit down. Also the varied sentence gives the essay flow and interest. Its flows better when the sentences are varied because if they were all one length, short or long, the essay would be boring.

2) "Miss Fern and Miss Roberta humming by their electric runabout..." This is a metaphor that is with in a sentence. It makes the point that the neighbors are coming in and out of the yard and kind of allows you to see the calm you get while sitting on the porch swing. While there you don't have to be a part of the "electric runabout" but you can sit back and watch it. it specifically describes the ladies, Miss Fern and Miss Roberta, as electric. Meaning they move fast as the run around doing errands. 

3) This essay is in third person. If it had been from the perspective of someone actually in the scene I don't think it would give the same message. With a first person view the message would be more pointed but with a third person view we are given a view of the entire scene and not just from one person. Also having the narration done by some one out of the scene allows us to connect with the scene more. It is inevitable that a first person narrator would feel connected to the scene, because their in it, but by having an outside narrator that connects with the scene it allows the reader to connect and ask "it this person watching this scene can connect then why can't I?"

4) Bradbury definitely uses sentence fluency in his essay to grab readers attention. By so greatly varying sentence lengths he is able to create an interest for his readers. He also uses comparisons, through similes and metaphors, to enhance the description of a certain object or person. Instead of just describing something he will compare it to a sound or just another object so we know what it is instead of just stating what it is. It is more figurative and rhetorical the way that Bradbury does it and the effect is much stronger as well.

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

[KYLE MALEK]

1.      The variation beetween longer and shorter sentences in this piece makes it much more engaging and interesting. Plus, if all of the sentences are long and drawn out, the reader can get bored from the bombardment of unnecessary details. But if all of the sentences are too short, the reader wouldn’t have enough information and detail about the story. The author does a good job of balancing these two sentence structures. A good example of this is in the 11^th paragraph. The author starts by saying “What they talked of all evening long, no one remembered next day”. He does this to get a quick point across. The next sentence however, is five lines long, describing what was going on as he sat there on the porch. This keeps the reader engaged, while giving detail and getting points across.

2.      An important comparison that the author makes is “The rocking chairs sounded like crickets, the crickets sounded like rocking chairs…”. This simile compares the rocking chairs to crickets. It is effective in its context because the author uses this section of the essay to describe all of the sounds that he hears whilst on the porch, this being one of them. We learn that when someone sits in the rocking chair, it makes a sound similar to a cricket.

3.      The point of view in the essay is third person. I do not think that the essay would have been better in the first person. By the piece being in third person, the reader is able to get a more generalized view of the whole picture. If it was in first person, the reader would be restricted to only the perspective of the person who is describing the situation. I don't think that the character's name being Bradbury's middle name should alter our perception of the story. He most likely needed a name for the child, and just used his middle name.

4.      The main rhetorical strategies used by Bradbury, besides description, are similes and metaphors. A simile he uses is “the darkness filled the town like black water being poured over the houses” and a metaphor that he uses is “the night of susurrant, slumberous voices weaving the dark together”. These strategies do a great job of painting the picture that Douglas sees on his porch of nature around him by relating different things going on around him to things that readers are familiar with.

On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:47:17 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote: