Writing Feedback / Tragic Hero in "Antigone" by Sophoceles- essay feedback [7]

PROMPT: Explain who is the tragic hero of the play, as well as that particular character's tragic flaw that leads to his/her end.

-Could someone please grade this essay according to the Massachusetts MCAS long composition rubric as well as give me a letter grade? Also any further advice/grammar corrections would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!-

The world does not contain an ideal individual for every man is flawed in some aspect. The imperfection of man and the problems resulting from them are the very basis of which Greek tragedies are written. The protagonist of a tragedy is called the tragic hero and the tragic hero has to possess a tragic flaw that eventually leads to his demise at the end. In "Antigone" by Sophocles, the tragic hero is Creon and the tragic flaw that he possesses is his arrogance.

Creon's character has all the requirements needed for him to be considered the tragic hero of "Antigone." His character is regarded as the protagonist because he is the principal character that supports a righteous cause. The play is based on King Creon's rule of the city of Thebes and therefore he is one of he main characters. Creon strongly believes that Polyneices, the brother of the former king, should not be allowed any form of burial since he fought his own brother for the throne and caused a battle in which they both perished. As a result of his righteous beliefs, Creon establishes a decree forbidding anyone to bury Polyneices, the traitor. Moreover, Creon possesses a tragic flaw that ultimately led him to his downfall. His flaw, which was his arrogance, left him "alone...[and] guilty"(Exodus:121) and directly "killed...[his] son and wife"(Exodus: 135). Creon's arrogance can be shown in his interactions with Antigone, Haimon, and Teirasias.

Antigone, the sister of Polyneices, decides to bury her brother despite the death penalty for doing so established by Creon. When Antigone is caught in the act, Creon sentences her to death by surrounding her "in a vault of stone... in the wilderness" (3:143-4) despite the fact that Antigone is his niece and his son, Haimon's, fiancé. Creon thinks so highly of himself and his law that he doesn't take into account who has committed the crime or for what reasons and punishes Antigone according to his law. In the eyes of Creon, he can only see that an anarchist has defied him and therefore is punishable by death. When Haimon goes to reason with his father about Antigone's unreasonable sentence, Creon tells him that "a man of ...[his] years and experience [should not] ...go to school to a boy"(3:94-96). From this statement it's clear that Creon has excessive pride because he sees his son as an immature boy while he's a grown, intelligent man when he's the one being unreasonable. Further into the play, the blind prophet, Teirasias, deliberately goes to the king to warn him of the severe consequences of his actions after seeing a sign from heaven that the gods were angry. In response, Creon disregards him and even accuses Teirasias of telling false predictions for money when he says that "the generation of prophets have always loved gold" (5:61). The warning was obvious that Creon was going receive punishment for his actions but his pride overpowered him. As a result of his arrogance, Creon paid no attention to reason or warnings and caused him to live in a world outside of reality.

At the end, Creon attempted to mend his mistakes by burying Polyneices and freeing Antigone from her vault of stone but all was too late. Antigone had committed suicide and not long after that so did Haimon. When news spread to the queen, she also committed suicide to reunite with her son. All that happened could have been prevented if Creon learned to put aside his pride and listen to reason as well as warnings. If he did so, Creon would have found that Antigone didn't deserve a death sentence for burying her own brother even if he was a traitor for "there is no guilt in reverence for the dead" (2:106). Both Haimon and Teirasias tried to warn Creon of his perverse behavior without success, but if Creon wasn't blinded by his pride, only one would have been enough to alter the tragic ending. Arrogance has brought Creon nothing but pain and suffering when it directly caused the destruction of his family.

Creon failed to heed obvious warnings and failed to see clear reason when arrogance corrupted his judgment. He was truly the tragic hero with a tragic end all due to his arrogance. Mankind has many flaws but arrogance is one that can bring about much destruction and can lead to one's downfall.

Writing Feedback / President Bush's September llth Address to the Nation [7]

Please revise this essay. I have to discuss President Bush's use of persuasive appeals in his September llth Address to the Nation. Examine how he uses these appeals to achieve his purpose and how President Bush structures his speech.

I have to talk about the appeals (ehots, pathos, and logos)

I wonder if I explained how and why for each examples for the appeals.
Please give some feedback/comments.

THANK YOU!!!

Many had suffered through their lives surviving the September 11th attack. Some were able to survive while others couldn't. Due to the attack, others had felt weak and aren't able to move on with their life. As a result, President Bush reassures others to be strong together even though their loved ones had past away in September 11th. In President Bush's September 11th Address to the Nation, he uses appeals to structure his speech in order to show an easier understanding of the purpose.

President Bush appeals to emotions more than logics and authority throughout the speech. President Bush tries to make people feel better when he says "the victims in airplanes or in their offices-secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors." He accentuates that different level of class men all have an equal chance of dying. Everyone, at some point in their lives, have all suffered and lost somebody, because that's how life is intended to be. He gets personal by the end of the quote when he concluded "moms and dads..." which indicate that even the cherished ones decease. President Bush is making people feel better, because some may think how it's not fair for them to loose the ones they love. Another example, President Bush states that "terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America" in which President Bush develops a tone of strength of how to be strong when an attack occurs again. He discusses that a terrorist attack cannot destroy the strength that Americans have when he applies the metaphor that compares steel to strength. The audience feels that America will be well prepared if such thing happens again now. President Bush utilizes emotions in his speech when he revealed our responsibilities to take care of "those who have been injured and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks." This portrays the protective tone that President Bush establishes with strong chosen words. The chosen words that Bush had concluded in his speech are "help", "precaution", and "protect" which are all words that make a person feel more secured. Bush makes the audiences feel the emotions that he had wanted them to aim for to understand the speech which helps them to move on with life.

President Bush presents his authority to the audience by appealing to his attack in the speech to claim that he had "implemented our government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it's prepared. Our emergency teams are working in New York City and Washington, D.C., to help with local rescue efforts." He uses the word "I" demonstrating his power of authority that he had realized what the plan was going to be. Bush wants to make the people believe in him that the emergency teams will work and prepare together to achieve further attacks that may occur in the future. For another instance, President Bush sounds stronger as a leader as he "directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice." He uses the most common first person word "I" highlighting that he was the one who had informed the army to find the terrorist who had caused this attack. The word "I" had identifies the written voice in the argument, because he only included himself in the situation and not "we." Bush supports his sayings with logical reasons that America "had stood down enemies before, and... will do so this time." Bush applies this logical reason to make people feel more optimistic, so they would have the confidence that America can do face this situation. Somebody's mind can be lead to thinking in a much better way as authority is applied to this speech.

In appealing to logic, President Bush inserts cause and effect into the speech saying that "America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world leaders who have called to offer this condolence and assistance." If we join together as one to protect America, we will win the war when facing up against terrorists. Bush was confidence that they will win the war if they form a whole group, making others feeling comforted. He had also utilizes religious texts as he said "and I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evils, for You are with me.'" The "You" being capitalized is referred to God. Bush portrays his religious side of him, because most people are somehow religious in their own ways. He reveals that he believed in God when he said "I ask for your prayers...pray..." in which is using the word "pray" couple times. If there was an atheist President, he wouldn't be using such religious quote and telling people to pray for others. He hopes that real text would help people feel better since it's real. Logos can be the only thing that helps reassured people since it's more logical.

In conclusion, the purpose of the speech was to help Americans to establish the sense of security and unite them. As a result, President Bush appeals to emotion, logic, and authority. They had helped President Bush to achieve his purpose of making people feel strong after the September 11th attack. Even the structure makes a difference to the speech in many ways. The speech was effective with strong chosen words such as "help", "precaution", and "protect" that fit perfectly into the speech. By appealing to emotion, authority, and logics, as well as using strong effective words, President Bush successfully accomplished his purpose.

Writing Feedback / Writer's Duty (Faulkner's Nobel Prize Speech and Dillard) [3]

Please help revise this essay.

Prompt

In a well-organized essay, define and explain what Faulkner's Nobel Prize Speech and Dillard each believe to be the writer's duty. Then, using the selection form Dillard's An American Childhood, analyze how she achieves the writer's duty.

I have to use enthymene consisting of major premise, minor premise, and the conclusion of it.

1st para.-explain the major premise
2nd para.-explain minor premise
3rd para.-conclusion of major and minor

THANKS!

Writing has many reasons or duty for writing any type of genre. Writer's duty is to convey his or her message to the audience. William Faulkner and Annie Dillard both achieved their purpose through the definition of writer's duty. According to Faulkner's Nobel Prize Speech and Dillard's "To Fashion a text," writer's duty requires not giving up writing, because every numbers of writing has a purpose that needs to be achieved. Annie Dillard does not give up. Therefore, Annie Dillard achieves the writer's duty.

Faulkner and Dillard inform writers not to give up in portraying the message that he or she intends for the audience. For example, Faulkner tells young writers not to give up when he stated that they "must teach [themselves] to be afraid" and not forget about being afraid "forever, leaving no room" in himself for improvements. The speaker illustrates that young men and women should be afraid of what to write, because everyone's been through that case before. If one quits writing because of his or her fear, he or she's giving up on this opportunity of becoming a great writer. For another example, Dillard doesn't tell readers directly not to give up, but says that the "structure of a given text, which is of great intense to the writer" wakes him or her "out of bed in the morning and impel [the writer] to the desk" (To Fashion a Text 56-57). Dillard gives an example of a writer who gets out of bed to write, telling the audience that he does not give up on writing the purpose. The purpose is accomplished through the structure that the writer forms, so Dillard's example of writer does show persistence. The writer gets out of bed to structure his text for the audience to have a better understanding of the message. Also Dillard claims that writers portray his or her message well when there's "deep love for and respect for language, for literary forms, for books." This is what makes the writer get up every morning to write, because "it's a privilege to muck about in sentences all morning." Writers do not give up because it's their passion to write. When they have their abilities of being persistence, their message will be easier to understand. Faulkner and Dillard both inform writers not to give up, because that's what helps get messages across to the audience.

Dillard illustrates that she does not give up having her message fully developed, and therefore achieves the duty. In a part of her memoir, she puts in a man that she and her friends threw a snowball at when the man was driving. Dillard puts a whole section about the man who had catches them by chasing" passionately without giving up." Dillard demonstrates her persistence by writing about this man to help build her message. Her message in this part was to inspire adults to not be so lifeless. The man's purpose of chasing them is to experience the childhood once again, because adulthood is too "ordinary." Even Dillard says this "ordinary adult evidently know what [she] thought only children who trained at football knew" which was to "forget yourself, aim, dive." The unknown man did forget about himself and to have fun. Adults are too ordinary that even children think they don't know anything that they've learned during childhood. Dillard could have told readers not to give up and not go through this whole situation of a man chasing them. However, she described the situation giving audience the idea that she doesn't give up on her writing. Her passion of writing by being perseverant is to display the message that she aims to reach for the readers. The messages are conveyed through the perseverance of a writer.

Annie Dillard achieves the writer's duty through her text. Her achievements lead other writers know the importance of not giving up on the message that they want by writing a sentence or two. The message would be well achieved if the writer puts her or her effort into the text. If the purpose was given directly without readers pondering upon it, there's no fun for the readers to read about it. Then every book out there would be very easy to be published because all writers get straight to their point. The whole thing about writing is to express the purpose of the writing. By writing, you have to have the patient to

Every writer out there should have the ability of not giving up, because it's their passion to write. Annie Dillard is similar to other writer who explains their message thoroughly to the audience. Faulkner and Dillard both explain the importance of not giving up in order for all authors to show their message. Messages would be consisting of more effective and powerful language if a writer is persistence.