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The Poisoner's Handbook Chapter 2 Summary

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Chapter 2 of The poisoner’s handbook by Deborah Blum has an aggressive style. Elements of diction support this style. Some of the elements that support the style are connotation/ denotation, cacophonous, and monosyllabic/polysyllabism. Connotation and denotation help to show the aggressive style of the writing in chapter 2. When describing mustard gas, Blum states the its effect include “searing the eyes into a crusted blindness” (Blum, 2010). The connotation of searing gives the reader a violent image of the agony that the mustard gas victim is going through. one may think of flesh bubbling and burning, attributing to the aggressive style of writing. Its denotation is equally brutal. Searing literal definition is to burn or scorch painfully or in a way that causes injury. Once again, the act of searing contributes to the aggressive style. Cacophony is …show more content…

While researching Wood Alcohol, Gettler told doctors “This is poison. Warn everyone. do it now” (Blum, 2010). all of the monosyllabic words in this series of sentences bring attention to the message being conveyed. He is trying to warn people, plain and simple. His tone is an assertive and aggressive one do to the lack of polysyllabic words in this series of sentences. a sense of urgency is also created, giving the story excitement. Polysyllabism is used throughout the chapter describing characters and the processes in which the poison is analyzed such as in the “process of distillation and oxidation” (Blum, 2010). This gives the reader an accurate and detailed description of what the author is trying to convey, making it easier for the author to show urgency in other situations. Deborah Blum uses elements of diction to support the aggressive style of her story. some elements used by Blum are connotation/ denotation, cacophonous, and monosyllabic/ polysyllabism. this style can easily be supported by other elements as

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In chapter 6 titled “Carbon Monoxide (CO), Part 1” of The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum the most interesting story developed within the chapter was the death of Anna Fredericksen after inhaling carbon monoxide. It was interesting because the way the murder was convicted, it created the impression as if Francesco Trivia had cut her into pieces, making him look like a lunatic killer. As Gettler noted in his inquiry, “In each glass vessel, each ceramic dish, the bloody solutions, instead of turning the darkish grays of normal oxygenated blood, flamed that brilliant red. Her blood was saturated with carboxyhemoglobin.” (Blum 148).

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The writer and teacher, Lindsay Rosasco, creates strong diction through the use of informal word choice. Her diction style relates to her audience, who are teenagers in high school. She is trying to convince them that she is not out to get them, she just wants the best for all of them. Rosasco doesn’t use a higher level of vocabulary or more grandiose style because if she did, then teenagers could turn away from the text and she is writing like how the students talk. By doing this, she lets the readers know that she understands how they live.

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Kelley’s diction adds a tone to the piece and allows her to get her message across with helping the reader understand more deeply . Kelley’s use of imagery, appeal to logic,

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In the film, The Poisoner's Handbook, director Rob Rapley tells a tale of several poisoning cases that happened during the 1920s. Throughout this documentary, Rapley analyzes two well-known men who have an impact on the field of forensic science; toxicologist, Alexander Gettler and medical examiner, Charles Norris. Both, Alexander Gettler and Charles Norris went to great lengths in their profession to make a difference in criminal investigations and forensics. In addition to Gettler and Norris, French criminologist, Alphonse Bertillon developed a measurement system to help identify criminals in the late 1800s. In addition to Bertillon, the first anthropologist to become a forensic expert within the United States was George Dorsey.

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In writing, authors chose particular words and phrases to effectively convey their message or to engage the reader. Writer's word choices, also known as diction, can help communicate ideas, reveal emotion and opinions that they may have toward something or someone. There are many different levels of diction such as formal diction, used by Richard Rodriguez in his autobiography The Hunger of Memory, and neutral diction, used by Charles Bukowski in his novel Ham on Rye. The use of diction in these pieces make the stories come to life in the reader's head. Richard Rodriguez uses very formal diction in his autobiography,The Hunger of Memory, his words express his emotions and motives of being a writer.

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