SUNY Geneseo Department of Computer Science


Quotations

Tuesday, February 25

Intd 105 13, Spring 2014
Prof. Doug Baldwin

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Next assignment (handed out Thursday) will be to revise these essays

Revise = Improve, based on

Quotations

They Say, I Say chapter 3

When to use quotations, and for what?

Example

Exercise

Katie, Ooha, Adam: Sherlock Holmes as a character is a brilliant man but he’s also quite arrogant. He simply assumes that he has solved the case correctly even though he doesn’t have all that much evidence to prove his point. When he is explaining how he broke the code of the dancing men, he states: “...in a word of five letters. It might be ‘sever,’ or ‘lever,’ or ‘never.’ There can be no question that the latter as a reply to an appeal is far more probable... Accepting it as correct, we are now able to say that the symbols stand respectively for N, V, and R”. On the one hand, the fact that Holmes was able to assume that the letter missing would be “N” is arrogant on his part because there are two other possibilities that he is just ignoring. But on the other hand, “N” was the correct letter, so somehow he was able to deduce that without plugging each letter in. In that case, Holmes proves himself to be brilliant.
In The Adventures of the Dancing Men, Sherlock Holmes may be brilliant, but he also comes off as arrogant. Although he does not explicitly say that he is above everyone else, it is implied through his dialect. For example, Sherlock and Watson have a conversation about the deductive process leading to Holmes’s conclusion of Watson’s recent behavior. Watson states, “I see no connection.” to which Holmes replies, “Very likely not; but I can quickly show you a close connection. Here are the missing links of the very simple chain.” In this statement, Holmes implies that it is no surprise that Watson did not reach the same conclusion that he did himself. He says that the process was indeed quite simple, displaying his arrogant belief that only someone of his intelligence could solve a puzzle of this caliber and belittling the intelligence of Watson.
Sherlock Holmes could arguably be the best detective in literature. However, it is not too hard to see that Sherlock Holmes is brilliant, but arrogant. When faced with a problem, Holmes feels that “every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you.” When Holmes states this, he is assuming that everyone would be able to solve problems with ease. It seems as if Holmes is stating this with a condescending tone, and identifying himself as a master problem-solver. Also, Holmes says “explained to you,” as if he is identifying himself as a superior. In this, Holmes is assuming that no matter the degree of the problem, he is confident he would be able to solve it. Additionally, Holmes is assuming that if a major problem were to arise at the hands of another individual, similar to what is seen in the cipher, he is sure that he would have the necessary intellect and capacity to solve that problem and undermine that individual.
In many instances the ways in which Edgar Allen Poe  portrays Jupiter is racist in his story ,“The Gold Bug.”  Jupiter’s inferiority  to Legrand illustrates Poe’s views towards African Americans with respect to the time period. Legrand threatens Jupiter to break his neck if Jupiter does not obey his commands.  Jupiter replies, “Yes, massa, needn’t hollo at poor nigger dat style.” The dialect Poe uses for the character of Jupiter demonstrates a lack of intelligence and inequivalence. The derogatory language used by Poe does not accurately portray all African Americans in the context of the time it was written. Instead, it  establishes false views of the times. Not all African Americans spoke with a similar dialect. In fact, many were able to use traditional English language to convey their thoughts and opinions. Therefore, Poe develops a racial stereotype in his literary work.
Clowns tend to be the comic relief of a circus and they are not taken seriously, Poe writes Jupiter in this way because he probably wanted a character to add a comic element to such a serious story as illustrated when he writes
“Pay attention, then!—find the left eye of the skull.”—LeGrand
“Hum! hoo! dat’s good! why dare aint no eye lef at all.”—Jupiter
This illustrates that Poe uses Jupiter as a clown because misinterpreted such a basic concept that most people should know it. It also makes Jupiter seem unintelligent in this way. Another way he makes him seem unintelligent is the plantation dialect which makes Jupiter speak in broken English and so people take him less seriously.

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Plagiarism


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