Killingsworth makes a strong argument about tropes and their usefulness in discerning functions of appeals; that each metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony all play important roles in the purposes of various discourses. According to modern theorists, the use of tropes is “pervasive and unavoidable” because, as George Orwell states in “Politics and the English Language,” language is made up of “dead metaphors” that become common phrases and concepts (Killingsworth). With that said, Daniel’s hypertext essay absolutely uses the tropes discussed in the reading, and that use of tropes enriches the reader’s experience.
There is a heavy presence of synecdoche within Daniel’s essay--visually, and in terms of navigation. The entire text is navigated by a “black & white” design that contrasts public space/freedom with prison/incarceration--light with dark (Daniel). It also presents a visual/conceptual double entendre that suggests a disparity between reality and what the public has chosen to ignore; the design essentially can be a supporting argument for the author’s purpose.
I especially paid attention to the trope of irony while navigating through the essay. Daniel’s use of language in the navigation menu especially, using the binaries Inside/Outside, Bare-Life/Human-Life, and The Public Secret/Utopia is blatantly ironic. As the contrast is directed to the “free” audience, those outside of the prison’s walls, it creates an uncomfortable atmosphere that pulls the reader in, wanting to know more. Naming heading that contrasts with “The Public Secret” “Utopia” creates a jarring distinction, placing the reader in a place of self-awareness as a free-person in the apparent “Utopia,” and suggesting that the reader doesn’t know something they should. I think the author’s decision to organize the essay with these headings (especially) makes a powerful statement that successfully contextualizes the audio and textual content.
Another important factor about Daniel’s project Public Secrets is its multivocality. Daniel’s is making a choice to allow her subjects to speak for themselves to the outside, instead of strictly speaking for them. Landow cites Bakhtin in his Hypertext and Critical Theory that the original “multivocal novel” was “constructed not as the whole of a single consciousness, absorbing other consciousnesses as objects into itself,” but as a whole formed by the interacting of multiple consciousnesses (Landow). Landow goes on to connect Bakhtin’s theory of multivocality into the hypertext, arguing that it does not permit a “univocal voice,” but one that is formed from the combination of the reader’s experience with the text and its presented content (Landow). Spending even 15 minutes engaging with Daniel’s project will expose one to at least four distinct voices and stories of incarcerated women who obviously have learned first-hand the injustices practiced in the prison system. The author’s voice here is only repeated from her opening statement in the form of typographic designs, and the focus is instead directed toward the audio clips. The more you listen to the audio clips, the clearer the stories become--most of them eerily relatable. Here, multivocality is the driving force, the life-blood of the author’s intent. It opens up a path of discourse between the reader and those incarcerated that encourages a discussion of justice and the issues regarding human rights.
I think that it’s important to note the connections between Killingsworth’s tropes and Landow and Bakhtin’s claims about multivocality. When it comes to Public Secrets, lingual tropes like irony are needed to share ideas and create meaning through comparisons and contrasts, and the presence of many voices support that need. Like we’ve said many times in class, associations and disassociations must be made in order to create meaning, to add to that, multivocality is a strong feature of hypertexts that add authority and create new paths of discourse. Some of the audio clips in Daniel’s hypertext aren’t totally clear without both the visual elements supporting it and the reader’s conscious choice to spend time with it.
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Daniel, Sharon. “Public Secrets.” Vectors 2.2 (Winter 2007): n. pag. Web. http://www.vectorsjournal.org/projects/index.php?project=57
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. “Appeal Through Tropes.” Appeals in Modern Rhetoric: An Ordinary- Language Approach. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2005. 121-135.
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ReplyDeleteIn Daniel’s Public Secrets, I also recognized the importance of the multivocality in the hypertext. There is no doubt that had Daniel not drawn from different women and their stories, the experience would not be the same for the audience. Had Daniel taken it upon herself to transcribe the interviews with the women and giver her interpretation of their stories, I believe the audience still would have gained exposure to a creative and interesting project while still receiving the same information. In the way the project was put together, however, the audience gains access to this information on a deeper level. With the presence of multivocality, it is as if we gain access to the personal lives of each of the women with a transcript on the pages of the hypertext.
ReplyDeleteObserving the tropes used in this project led me to question, how else might Daniel have composed this hypertext without the use of tropes? What other strategies might she have used had she chosen not to use tropes including irony and synecdoche? And finally, are these tropes the only/best way to get her message across as effectively as she did? I am not sure if the strategies used by Daniel were the only way of conveying this message, but I cannot think of a more effective way of possibly composing a project such as this one.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that Sharon Daniel's "Public Secrets" is undoubtably multi-vocal. For one, she uses many different voices to convey her message. I see where this idea of multivocality comes into play with 'heteroglossia'. What Daniel has done with her hypertext essay is to bring multiple voices together to reach a conclusion. In "Public Secrets", we get three major perspectives: the inside people's, the outside people's, and Sharon Daniel's (Daniel). All of them come together for the reader to see what happened to Daniel's perception of prisons when she was frequenting them to gather research (Daniel).
ReplyDelete"Three years ago, on visiting day, I walked through a metal detector and into the Central California Womens' Facility. It changed my life. The stories I heard inside challenged my most basic perceptions - of our system of justice, of freedom and of responsibility." (Daniel)
Questions arise from these different points of view. The prison system no longer becomes black and white. The gray areas of wrong and right are shown in her hypertext. This is the irony of Daniel's choice of using the black, white, and gray colors to convey her message (Daniel). It is apparent that, by using the color gray for the words spoken by the women that were in prison at some point or still are, she is saying there is more than just 'good people stay out of prison' and 'bad people go to prison' (Daniel). The reader, if actively looking into the different aspects of Daniel's hypertext, are able to take a big step back and look at the prison systems with a new perspective, which is what Daniel wants the reader to do (Daniel).
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Work Cited
Daniel, Sharon. “Public Secrets.” Vectors 2.2 (Winter 2007): n. pag. Web. http://www.vectorsjournal.org/projects/index.php?project=57
"According to modern theorists, the use of tropes is “pervasive and unavoidable” because, as George Orwell states in “Politics and the English Language,” language is made up of “dead metaphors” that become common phrases and concepts (Killingsworth)." I agree that tropes are unavoidable. Im sure we use it everyda and don't even realize that it is being used. It brings me back again to say that is trope really "a way of thinking". When we speak or write we normally think, and if we are using trope and sometimes don't even realize it, is it really a way of thinking? I know trope is definitely used in politics, but it is used to challenge the mind, and again i argue is the use of trope something that can be mastered and only a few understand?
ReplyDeletePointing out synecdoche is really useful to an understanding of the rhetoric going on in this work; it’s entirely made up of synecdoches. Being that it uses so many familiar tropes—synecdoche, visual irony, dichotomies—is it then fair to say that its genre can only be determined by the purpose it serves? The Public Secret serves the same purpose as various essays and articles and documentaries—making an exigence known to the audience in hopes of changing circumstances for the better—but its format makes use of devices that are both as common as tropes and as innovative as technology-based formats can be. Its innovative style complicates the idea that genre can be determined by the purpose the work serves; similarly, its heavy use of familiar tropes complicates the idea that style or format alone makes any work at all impossible to categorize.
ReplyDeleteBut you make the usefulness of technology-based works in the format of The Public Secret evident when you point out how synecdoche in The Public Secret helps facilitate the strengthening of its argument. Allowing the meat of the “essay” to be in quotes from incarcerated women and others talking about the prison system makes the essay all the more pathological. You write, “multivocality is a strong feature of hypertexts that add authority and create new paths of discourse.” In this way, it is evident that even a work that does not clearly fall into any rules of genre can still carry out its purpose.
I was happy to see that you included the Orwell quote about language being made up of "dead metaphors," and I completely agree that tropes in language are "pervasive and unavoidable." Sharon Daniel's hypertext proved to be an excellent example of the tropes Killingsworth (who built off Burke and other theorist) discussed in her work, and I of course also wrote about the tropes most obvious to me in my blog post last night. I decided to focus on metaphor and irony, and in contrast, you took a look at synecdoche and irony. In connection to my statement on irony and yours, we both mention the navigation menu binary bare-life/human-life being "blatantly ironic." I had never heard the term bare-life before viewing the project, and it was helpful that Daniels broke it down using Giorgio Agamben's explicit idea on the subject. According to Daniels, Agamben once declared that the state can only assert its power and affirm itself by separating "naked life" or biological life from its "forms-of-life." The prisoners are stripped of all forms of human life, and are left bare only to stand as a "expression of sovereign power." The irony of the entire project is alive and fluid throughout the work.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I had some trouble with the synecdoche trope and I was hoping to find a post from someone in the class who could clarify it for me and provide a concrete example. You state that in your post that "there is a heavy presence of synecdoche within Daniel’s essay--visually, and in terms of navigation. The entire text is navigated by a “black & white” design that contrasts public space/freedom with prison/incarceration--light with dark (Daniel)." According to the Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, a synecdoche is a figure of speech/trope in which part of something is used to represent the whole or, occasionally, the whole is used to represent a part (507,508). I'm not sure if I have a solid understanding, but I think that, in reference to your example, the synecdoche is the light and dark aspect of the design of the project which represents the overall theme of imprisonment vs. freedom.
In terms of the multivocality in the Daniels hypertext, I definitely agree that it is the “driving force” and the “life-blood of the author’s intent.” Without all the different narrators, the piece just wouldn’t be the same, and I don’t think it would be as powerful either. This hypertext acts as a multimodal and multivocal site with the goal of shaking and exposing the truth.
Works Cited
Daniel, Sharon. “Public Secrets.” Vectors 2.2 (Winter 2007): n. pag. Web.
http://www.vectorsjournal.org/projects/index.php?project=57
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. “Appeal Through Tropes.” Appeals in Modern Rhetoric: An Ordinary-Language Approach. Carbondale: Southern Illnios UP, 2005. 121-135
Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, Third Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009.