1.
Why does Ascher open her essay with the
description of the “grinning man”?
a.
Ascher opens her essay with the description
of the "grinning man" in order to illustrate the ambiance of
isolationism surrounding him and the ambiguity as what to do with the
"grinning man" throughout the rest of the reading. The "grinning
man" is a homeless man, a dirty lost soul with no purpose in society, and
his description sets the neutral tone for the rest of the reading.
2.
“On Compassion” might be divided into four
parts, the first running from paragraphs 1 through 6, the second from
paragraphs 7 through 9, the third from paragraphs 10 through 12, and the final
part consisting of paragraphs 13 and 14. Explain the differences in the modes
of discourse among the sections. What is the effect of Ascher’s organization?
a.
Part 1 details the actions of a mother as she
gives a homeless man a dollar.
b.
Part 2 details the observations of a customer
as she views a homeless man being given coffee and food by the cafe owner.
c.
Part 3 details the mayor as he wants to move
all the homeless people into Bellevue Hospital.
d.
Part 4 details the origins of compassion, the
purpose of it, and why it is important to have.
e.
The effect of Asher's organization
strengthens the argument of the reading, which is what is compassion and why
compassion is important. The constant presence of the homeless man help elevate
the acts of "compassion" (a dollar, to coffee and food, to shelter) and
perfectly highlight the fact that compassion, "must be learned, and it is learned by having
adversity at our windows, coming through the gates of our yards, the walls of
our towns, adversity that becomes so familiar that we begin to identify and
empathize with it.". As far as modes of discourse goes, Parts 1 has a purpose of decription as it depicts the homeless man and his environment before moving the purpose to narration for Parts 2 and 3 in order to replay the sequence of events she saw in the 1st pserson, and then ending with a purpose of argumenation to prove the validity of her definiton of what compassion is by presenting facts like the Greek origin of compassion.
3.
Note the questions that Ascher poses
throughout. Which ones are rhetorical questions? What purpose do they serve?
a.
Rhetorical questions are:
i.
Was it
fear or compassion that motivated the gift? Or does she simply want to rid her
shop of his troublesome presence? Could it be that this was the response of the
mother who offered the dollar, the French woman who gave the food? Could it be
that the homeless, like those ancients, are reminding us of our common
humanity?
b.
The purpose
of these rhetorical questions are to get the reader to ponder insightful
situations and for a lack of a better saying, "get them to think", to
question the principle of compassion is why we do it. It brings up the idea
that most people perform acts for reasons more selfish than to just help out,
and eventually leads the reader to the notion that compassion must come after
one obtains empathy.
4.
Cite examples of the speaker’s appeals to
ethos,logos, and pathos. Which one is more prevalent in the essay?
a.
Ethos is displayed through the 1st
person as seen in, "Twice
when I have stopped here to stave hunger or stay the cold, twice as I have sat
and read and felt the warm rush of hot coffee and milk," and " Twice
I have witnessed this, and twice I have wondered, what compels this woman to
feed this man?"
b.
Pathos is depicted very much throughout the
entire reading in the form of vivid imagery and contrasting diction between the
fortunate and the homeless. The juxtaposition between the homeless man with, "His buttonless shirt, with one sleeve
missing, hangs outside the waist of his baggy trousers...his gait is the
shuffle of the forgotten ones held in place by gravity rather than plans."
and " A man with a briefcase lifts and lowers the shiny toes of his right
shoe, watching the light reflect, trying to catch and balance it, as if he
could hold and make it his, to ease the heavy gray of coming January, February,
March." establish a clear divide between the two in which you should feel
sorry for the homeless man.
c.
Logos is demonstrated through reasonable
claims such as, " If
expulsion were her motivation she would not reward his arrival with gifts of
food. Most proprietors do not. They chase the homeless from their midst with
expletives and threats." where it's evident the narrator had put in
thought as to why the cafe owner would repeatedly give food the homeless man.
d.
Obviously pathos is more prevalent in the
essay and it should be since compassion
stems from emotional connections.
5.
It is not until paragraph 7 that the reader
knows for sure that the piece is delivered in the first person. What might be
the purpose of withholding this perspective?
a.
The reason for withholding this perspective
is to allow the reader to develop his own perspective on what the
situation/setting entails. Had she brought in the 1st person
immediately the reading would lose the initial ambiance and ambiguity since
instead of coming up with thoughts on his own, the reader would simply just read
and accept what the narrator thought.
6.
How effectively does Ascher use personal
experience to prepare the reader for her conclusion? How effectively does she
make her individual perspective universal?
a.
Ascher
use personal experience to expertly prepares the reader for her conclusion
because by bringing in such anecdotes, the reader can understand exactly what
Ascher was probably feeling during that time (the curiosity, the uncertainly,
the, "Why would she do that?")
and in doing so sets the reader up for her definition of compassion. On top of
that, the limited usage of the first person allows the reader to place himself
in her shoes to view the various situations, effectively making her stories
universal. We were allowed to see everyhting through our own perspective and even when Ascher brought in the 1st person, it didn't feel like it interrurpted the flow of the narrative, but simply vocalized the thoughts in our own brains.
