The Horizontal World Rhetorical Analysis In a 2006 memoir about her home state of North Dakota, author Debra Marquart describes both the clichéd landscape and the often-unnoticed greatness of the region. Not only is Debra Marquart’s memoir a personal account, it is also supported with historical knowledge of the area. This factual information and personal experience establishes a sense of credibility between the author and reader. Marquart characterizes the North Dakota atmosphere in which she grew up by using allusions, imagery, common conventionalized ideas, and historically factual events.
Debra Marquart has written a memoir titled The Horizontal World to emit readers of her love for the upper Midwest. Marquart uses diction and contrast to characterize the Midwest. In doing so, Marquart hopes to show the importance of this region to those who already have a generalized opinion of the Midwest. In the passage, Marquart uses concrete diction when describing how people such as those who visit view the upper Midwest.
John Biewen, the author of Scene on Radio for his series, ‘The Land That Never Has been Yet’ made this series to talk about different historical events that relate to U.S. democracy. Biewen retells events about democracy in the United States in his own insight that they are glories and full of flaws. Episode 2 of this series recounts a specific historical event with the purpose of interpreting how U.S. citizens used their hardship as an opportunity to demand a better life. This historical event is Shay’s rebellions. Throughout the episode, John Biewen uses different rhetorical modes like example, narration, and ethos to broad out his insights of this event.
In the excerpt from the memoir The Horizontal World, Marquart describes her experience of living in the midwest. Marquart includes her own point of view, as well as the opinions of others who do not live in the midwest. Marquart includes literary techniques to support her characterization of living in the upper midwest. Marquart recalls her life and experience of living in the midwest, and how other outside statements have changed her point of view.
With this statement, Mackinder makes a claim and says that no rational political geography can function without being built upon the ideas of physical geography. He says the idea of political geography is currently based upon no principles of physical geography and must not be considered a true discipline. This defines the complex and typically unseen relationship between political and physical geography, “Geography is like a tree which early divides into two great branches, whose twigs may none the less be inextricably interwoven.” (Mackinder 159). After Mackinder makes an interesting claim about how the rivalry between physical geographers and geologists are perceived.
The perception of wilderness can be problematic. One of the most prominent points that Cronon made in his evaluation is the ideology that wilderness is an illusion to escape reality. This perception can be ambiguous because it segregates humanity from nature, by establishing the idea that wilderness is separate from everyday life. Also, Cronon calls attention to the issue of dividing the land and calling it wilderness. The issue of this isolation is that it disintegrates humans and nature, rather than bringing them more in unity.
In the essay, “A Literature of Place”, by Barry Lopez focuses on the topic of human relationships with nature. He believes human imagination is shaped by the architectures it encounters within life. Lopez first starts his essay with the statement that geography is a shaping force for humans. This shaping force is what creates our imagination; the shaping force is found within nature. Everything humans see within nature is remembered, thus creating new ideas and thoughts for our imagination.
In the world there are amazing regions to explore and see. However, we usually don’t see them in person. Writers use the fact that readers may not know anything about their region, but are able to read or experience the region the writers provide. In fact, Twain uses this to his advantages to talk about his home village near the Mississippi River, as well as, Jewett shows us the wilderness in Maine. Jewett and Twain uses regionalism throughout both of their writings, by creating their own types of settings.
Human geography has a wide variety of different factors, one of those many is political geography. Political geography is mainly focused and influenced by political affairs and human territoriality. With this there are different factors that were created within political geography such as, nation, nation-state, multinational state and united-nations. There are factors of our globe which are shaped by imperialism and colonialism. All these make up our world all in different places.
Their arrival in the Everglades is a moment of fulfillment for Janie as she finds herself surrounded by fertile nature. Overall, her experience is generally a fulfilling one but Teacake manipulates her in small ways, raising, once again, the specter of outside domination in her life. “Literary geography is typically about humans inhabiting spaces, and at the same time the spaces inhabiting humans” (Foster 165). Geography changes your perspective of a character and sometimes a character changes your perspective of the geography. Characters also affect the earth when there is a geological change in the novel, “Since the late 1700s, geologists, geographers, and others have begun to recognise that humans themselves are having a vast and significant influence on the Earth.
In the chapter “Geography Matters”, Thomas C. Foster explains the effect of geography on a story. Geography contributes greatly to themes, symbols, and plot, and most authors prefer to use setting as a general area with a detailed landscape rather than a specific city or landmark. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, he does not reveal the actual region of America that the man and boy are traveling in, but describes the mountains and eventual beaches of their path. McCarthy might not have revealed their location because it might ruin the reader’s interpretation of the setting. For example, the pair come across a generic “gap” between mountains and this is a turning point because it confirms the man’s planned path to the south.
It also exemplifies the jurastic difference between the peaceful areas of the forest and the extreme woods in Alaska. One moment there can be a nice little open field and the next you cannot see ten feet without a tree getting in your way. From that the reader can easily foreshadow the events to come in Alex’s
Although placelessness is a problem, it does not have a solution because it is not very tangible considering the issue is unique to each individual and because our economic systems are too complex to aid the problem. It entirely possible to feel “placeless” in a very uniquely cultured area such as suburban England (mentioned in the article ‘Floating in America, or The Perils of Placelessness’ by Christie Rodgers) even if it has a strong sense of place, because placelessness is subjective; I could feel connected in a location where you do not, or you could see culture where I could not. Furthermore, in the modern era, with the internet, people can synthesize and connect with the communities in which they are most comfortable in, and therefore
Harm de Blij’s Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever explains the necessity of geographic knowledge in today’s society and the need to further expand interactions within the United States and other countries. This novel expands on the economic, cultural, physical, and political geography of our nation. De Blij outlines on the importance of geographic thought by focusing on climate change, terrorism, the rise of states, and development in Africa.. I believe that while geography has proven to make a noticeable difference in the knowledge of our vast world, it will require an extensive amount of effort in order to make geography known.
Physical geographers apply the positivist approach in trying to understand the physical world. Bennett defines positivism as “a philosophy of meaning, of what you say that something is true, when you offer it as something which others must also accept because it is, according to some allegedly neutral standard true” (2009, 310). In this paper the way in which geographers use the positivist theory to understand the physical world will be discussed along with the advantages and limitations of using this method. There are a host of factors involved in the positivistic approach to physical geography. Physical geography is viewed by many as being hands on work with less theory.
