Bop by Langston Hughes (190)

Bop written by Langston Hughes is about two kids, one white and one black, listening to a type of music known as Bop (or Be-Bop). The origin of bop comes from the sound that a police club makes when a police officer is beating a negro. The one white boy does not understand bop and calls it nonsense simply out of the fact he doesn't comprehend it. Simple goes on to tell him that he can't understand it because he hasn't suffered much or dealt with dark days so he can't appreciate the art of Bop.

Langston Hughes was an American poet and social activist. Hughes was a black writer and was one of the earliest creators of the then-new art style called jazz poetry. Since Langston Hughes is black like one of the main characters in the essay, he is attempting to send a message about racial segregation at that point in time. Blacks were treated as inferior to whites for many, many years. Simple explains later in the essay that bop is a way of expressing the sounds and emotions a man makes and feels while being beat down, not only by a police officer, but by the world as a whole. That is the attempted message that Hughes is attempting to convey to the reader. That although in this essay it was just literally cops that beat down on Negroes, it is everyone in the whole world that was constantly beating them up.

Hughes intended audience was anyone who was unaware or ignorant to how severe the racial hatred and physical abuse was for African-Americans. Hughes tried to use an analogy through this essay of Bop to parallel what was going on in society at that point in time. I do feel that Langston Hughes did the best job out of all the essays I read at accomplishing his purpose. In this short, very rudimentary essay, Hughes was able to put in his powerful and emotional message about the abusive world that African-Americans live in.

Hughes was trying to use a setting of just two innocent boys listening to music to help demonstrate the awful police brutality against Negroes that took place at that point in time. (Photo found on Pintrest.com)

The Figure a Poem Makes by Robert Frost (176)

In The Figure a Poem Makes, Robert Frost speaks about his own interpretation of how a poem should be made and how a poem should be viewed by others. Multiple times in his essay, Frost states how he believes a poem should run: from delight to wisdom. In the end Robert Frost addressed the fact that poems are eternal and no matter how old they are, they will always have their truth and wisdom.

Robert Frost is a very well-known American poet, who is remembered for his one poem The Road Not Taken. It is key to take not that this poem was written in 1939. By that time in Robert Frost's life he was already fairly well known and was a highly acclaimed poet of the time. Being the highly remarkable and well-respected poet that he was, gave him the necessary ethos to talk about how poems are designed and how they should be interpreted by the readers.

As already previously noted, Frost's purpose is to let everyone know what he deems an appropriately crafted poem and how people should treat poems. I would imagine that Robert Frost's intended audience was composed of anyone that reads or creates poetry. He intends to send his specific message across on how poetry should work to the people that enjoy making or reading poetry.

Clearly one of the major rhetorical devices Frost used was connotation. The entirety of the essay was based around his connotation of poetry. He had a suggested and implied specific meaning for what he believed poetry to be. Also as previously mentioned Frost's ethos played a vital role in this poem. Without a doubt I do believe that Robert Frost accomplished his purpose of the perception of poetry and how poetry should be crafted. The real reason why he was able to accomplish his goal was because he was a reliable source to be listening to this information from.

The entire essay was about how Robert Frost believes a poem should be interpreted. This photo shows how something usually looks and then when you look through the glasses, that's how Robert Frost wants you to view it. (Photo found on joshflom.wordpress.com)

The Future Is Now by Katherine Anne Porter (193)

I was nothing short of intrigued after reading the title to this essay. By stating that the future is now, it contradicts the basic order that our society lives upon. The present is considered what is going on now and the future is something going on later. The title to this essay is a paradox but after further reading the essay, it actually makes sense.

Katherine Anne Porter published this essay in 1950, which is a post-WWII world. In this essay Porter takes a moment to sit back, observe, and realize where we as mankind are in the history of Earth. Porter continuously goes back to the atomic bomb, which serves as a symbol for mankind's deliberate inclination for self-destruction. She comes to the conclusion that life isn't worth doing for the future but for doing for right now.

Katherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, an essayist, and a political activist. After reading Porter's essay I truly believe that her intended purpose for this essay was to open people's eyes up and give them a whole new perspective on our society. This essay was intended for anyone that currently lives in our society. She wants people to change how they're living, and how they few such things as war and nuclear bombs. She brings the point up that we invent weapons of mass destruction to use on our enemies yet we get shocked by the amount of deaths that happen by the monster we created.

Aside from creating a paradoxical essay, Katherine Anne Porter also used some other Rhetorical Devices. Porter uses a few allusions altogether in one sentence. "How much of this are we to believe, when with the pride of Lucifer, the recklessness of Icarus, the boldness of Prometheus and the intellectual curiosity of Adam and Eve..." (196). The whole introductory to that essay can also be viewed as an anecdote. Porter starts the story off with a personal anecdote that took place at her workplace. In conclusion, I do believe that Katherine Anne Porter accomplished her intended purpose with this essay because after reading it, I am now definitely thinking about our society in a different way.

 I felt that Ferris Bueller's wise words really helped simplify the message that Katherine Anne Porter was attempting to convey. (Found on Pintrest.com)