What Makes Gregor Mendel Insane

In the middle of the 19th century, Gregor Mendel was an uneducated monk living at a monastery in the Czech Republic. Throughout his life he was never given the chance to become educated or wealthy. No one thought that he would ever amount to much more than a simple plebian. But alas, Mendel proved society wrong by discovering and documenting genetics and genes. Similarly, the author of the preceding passage endeavors to provide an argument that he is not insane but instead was placed in a circumstance of horror. He uses emotion to prove that he was a victim of circumstance by appealing to the reader with sorrow and sympathy, followed by optimism. This effect on the reader is caused by the authors proper usage of syntax, diction and tone. The

He even doubts himself stating, “Where my very senses reject their own evidence.” However, he ends his paper with optimism and hope that one day someone, much more intelligent than he, will be able to understand his horrors as simply “nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.” In doing so, the author is causing the reader to feel sorrow and sympathy for a story that might not even be believed, but by ending the paper with hope that others will be able to cure this madness as simply ordinary circumstance of human nature. The author’s usage of diction provides evidence that this narrative may cause consequences that are unforeseen. He begins the passage by describing that he is not mad, rather scarred by circumstance. However, his diction is also contradicting, because he discusses that “mad I am not,” but then later in the narrative he discusses how ordinary circumstances have caused him horror. Events that have caused horror should not be able to be disproven by the intelligent, and if so then the author may be mad. This contradiction is done so on purpose, as it causes the reader to feel sympathy for the author if he is actually