Ira Levin

Award-winning author and feminist Ursula K. Le Guin delivered a rhetorically complex speech to the Mills College graduating class of 1983, comprised almost entirely of women. Her speech came at a challenging time for women, as second-wave feminism began to dissolve into a myriad of disagreeing factions. The title of the speech, the “Left-Handed Commencement Address,” is a reference to her book The Left Hand of Darkness, which follows an androgynous race of space aliens. This foreshadows the content of her speech, wherein Le Guin discusses gender norms and the importance of women forging their own paths in a male-dominated society. Le Guin uses strong ethos to connect with her audience successfully, though I believe she uses her credibility as a crutch to hold up the unclear premise of her speech. In my rhetorical analysis of this speech I intend to show the quality of her ethical appeal with her intended audience, primarily through her pronoun usage, and expose the weaknesses in the content of her speech. Le Guin builds ethos quickly with her choice of pronouns. The first word of her speech is “I.” She takes responsibility for her words and establishes her authority over the subject. A few sentences into the speech Le Guin shifts to “we,” with the statement, “That’s why we are all wearing these twelfth-century dresses that look so great on men and make women look either like a mushroom or a pregnant stork” (Le Guin). This usage of “we” seems out of Le Guin’s control – indeed…

The Day in the Close I stare at the four pucks below me resting innocently on the plexiglass. Feeling the bottom-heavy stick in my hands through the old rough gloves I’m wearing. Rylan watches expectantly. I breathe in. He’s been trying too but it’s all on me now, four shots. I breathe out. It was anything but your average Monday. The last day of school had been last Wednesday and I was enjoying the fact that I didn’t have anything to do. I take my time waking up enjoying the feelings of…

The soldiers also realize that the way war is described and painted for them differed from how it really is. A slight difference between the two books is that the picture is painted by schoolmasters in All Quiet on the Western Front whereas it is painted mainly by the media in Flags of Our Fathers. “This is no joke! This is real war (Bradley, 58)!” This statement is yelled out anonymously from the roof of the KGU radio station in Honolulu during the Japanese’s bombing of Pearl Harbor. In…

Alternatives that are just as advantageous. IRA IRA stands for individual retirement accounts and you have more than likely…

do know one thing for sure: you are part of a team, a band of brothers, and prepared to pay the ultimate price for any of them. This was exactly the case for the thousands among thousands of Marines that showed themselves in the historic Battle of Iwo Jima. The book Flags of Our Fathers describes this brutal thirty-six day battle, and takes us in depth with 6 of our nation's heroes; “The Flag Raisers:” Cpl. Harlon Block, Navy Pharmacist's Mate John Bradley, Cpl. Rene Gagnon, PFC Franklin…

There are two major types of Individual Retirement Accounts, traditional tax-deductible IRAs and Roth IRAs. Although contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax-deductible, all withdrawals are tax-free. Additionally, one can contribute even if he already has a defined contribution plan. IRAs can be great investment options, but if one is not careful and responsible, they could retire with less than they…

advantage of these programs. Most employers have some very good retirement plans available. At some places the employer will match every dollar the employee put in with 50 cents and sometimes even a dollar. While this type of retirement plan is becoming harder to find, a lot of places still have or recommend a 401k type of account. With using a work placed 401k plan only experts say that there will still not be enough returns produced for clients to Another popular account with young people who…

The stage play “Dr. Cook’s Garden” by Ira Levin is set Greenfield Center, a village in the state of Vermont where all the right people seem to die. The titular Dr. Cook is the town’s only doctor as well as a complex character, with skewed moral values, an emphasis on secrecy, and, in his eyes a great and important burden to carry. POINT 1. – Skewed views on morality Over the course of his career as a doctor, Leonard Cook kills a total of 33 people. Halfway through page 33 in the script book he…

The first gothic novel The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, published in 1764, substantially contained all the paramount elements of the gothic genre. Supernatural, old castles, omens, prophecies, frantic emotions, the air of mystery and suspense, patriarchy and a woman in distress form the basic but essential foundation to this genre. From The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole to “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe to several contemporary works in the gothic genre, we see…

A staple of the horror genre has always been that of the mad scientist. From H.G. Wells ' Dr. Moreau to the more recent ideas of Dr. Josef Mengele in Ira Levin 's 1976 novel, The Boys From Brazil, these and other fictitious1 scientist 's dreams and schemes generate nothing but pure evil while running unrestricted and unaccountable, wreaking havoc upon humanity, with the ultimate result of the scientist receiving the recompense of his reward. Heather Douglas indulges herself with this fiction in…