American Pastoral

Roth lets us know what his chapter will deal with from his very first sentence.
“The Swede. During the war years, when I was still a grade school boy, this was a magical name in our Newark neighborhood, even to adults just a generation removed from the city's old Prince Street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly Americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a high school athlete.”
It’s about the character of The Sweed, his significance as a figure in the context of the war, told through the perspective of a school boy in Newark, a common American town. Roth does not want his reader to be lost, instead, he wants to take us by the hand and tell us the story as clearly as he possible can. This long sentence where all the pieces of the puzzle are clauses linked together is his way of telling us that we should view his story as a whole, think of everything at the same time and not as a disjointed series of facts and motifs.
His task then is to weave the plot, the simple suburban characters with his heavier themes and the resonance they have in the context of the war. He uses the character of The Swede as his link, a character that is more walking theme and legend than a real person, an “anomalous face” that would be use to reflect what he wants to say.
The narration of his protagonist is one of that who now has distance from the fact. More than nostalgic, the sentences are trying to make sense of life back then; they attempt to explain something that others who lived it merely forgot.
“It was a cheer that consisted of eight syllables, three of them his name, and it went, Bah bah-bah! Bah bah bah . . . bah-bah! and the tempo, at football games particularly, accelerated with each repetition until, at the peak of frenzied adoration, an explosion of skirt-billowing cartwheels was ecstatically discharged and the orange gym bloomers of ten sturdy little cheerleaders flickered like fireworks before our marveling eyes . . . and not for love of you or me but of the wonderful Swede. "Swede Levov! It rhymes with . . . 'The Love'! . . . Swede Levov! It rhymes with . . . 'The Love'! . . . Swede Levov! It rhymes with . . . 'The Love'!"
Roth builds his sentences from being analytical to grounded in a powerful sensation he wants to share with us. He plays with the distance of the narrator, at times reminiscent, but moving closer and closer to the moment and eventually putting us right there in the sports march in this paragraph. He starts by coldly describing the rhythm of the piece. That sentence achieves two things- it gives the narrator distance from the scene. If he’s breaking down the cheer, then he’s not merely living it. But it also puts the rhythm in our head, so that when we get to the actual cheer, we’re right there in the moment. The narrator then suddenly becomes our narrator too, we were engulfed in the cheer- he backed out and allowed the moment to be.
His voice reappears in the second paragraph, starting with “Yes,”- this sentence structure choice, the yes and the comma, goes back the narrative voice and pulls us out of that scene he sat us in. W e go back to his statue of a character, who time and time again serves a s a bridge. The Swede is, after all, how we get to his brother, who by contrast is fiercely human.

The Uncanny

Far from clinical, Freud’s rhetoric engages the reader in a tone that does not report, but rather explains (sometimes casually) what he’s trying to say. This is a voice fascinated with its own subject, one that thinks on the page and holds the reader’s hand through what may otherwise be much to obscure.
There’s a clear distinction between an “I” and a “we”- I, Freud am telling you what’s known until this point, we shall explore together from this point on.

“I know of only one attempt in medico-psychological literature, a fertile but not exhaustive paper by Jentsch (1906). But I must confess that I have not made a very thorough examination of the literature, especially the foreign literature, relating to this present modest contribution of mine, for reasons which, as may easily be guessed, lie in the times in which we live; so that my paper is presented to the reader without any claim to priority.”

Freud as an “I” is established early on in the reading, but not until after a disembodied couple of brief paragraphs, were the subject of the essay is introduced from a much more foreign and impersonal point of view. It is only until Freud interrupts the general discussion of the uncanny with this bit of opinionated background information that we as readers identify a guiding voice.

By the second section, the investigation becomes “our own”.
The plural, however, does not mean a suppression of Freud as an authority in the essay. He suspends sentences with clauses like “and I hope most readers of the story will agree with me”, this is still his idea (“I will show you”, Freud says)

Freud then does not beg for the reader to believe him, it’s not a tone that begs with understanding or agreeing from the reader, it’s one that assumes it.

“It only remains for us to test our new hypothesis on one or two more examples of the uncanny.” Halfway through the second section, his idea is our idea.

Freud is like a school teacher, with the authority of his singularity, the “I”, comes the assumption that the reader is on the same page, that there’s no skeptical student that needs to be persuaded.

The professor approach comes in his literary analysis, where he first uses the story of the Sand Man to get us on board with him. Literature is used as the bride between famous psychoanalyst and the public.

The long plot summary just emphasizes the need for synchrony between writer and reader, though it never begs for it.

We, as readers and Freud and guide become a solid team by the third section, where we analyze the “creative writer” (a third, distant party) together.

Frederick Douglass' Chapter VII

Douglass earns an affective response from his readers, even if he doesn’t have to fight for it. Readers would readily feel sympathy for a person in his position, but only from a distant perspective. Here, we feel not for former slave, but for Frederick Douglas.
He does this by showing us who he is. The chapter does not start with great, devastating emotion. He instead starts off with his mistress, thus delaying what, (or who) the chapter is really about. He’s patient, and so are his sentences.
The suspension is first off grammatical- sentences are formed with long, slow clauses that transmit a calm, controlled voice. Douglas does not shift from this sentence structure, even when things get more emotional. We’ve seen stylists show emotion through changes in sentence length- long when they’re calm, short and snappy when conveying anger. That’s not the case here:
“I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed. While in this state of mind, I was eager to hear any one speak of slavery.”

Douglass shows passion without loosing himself. He’s the same one in moments of great desperation as he is when he’s introducing the subject- he’s though a great deal about his situation (profoundly since at leas the age of 12, as he tells us) so there’s no burst here. It’s not about self-discovery or a live breakthrough, it’s an explanation, which is why he makes use of metaphors:

“It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out.”

The self-reflection came long before these words made the page.
When I say that Douglass is in control, I mean he’s scholarly, not robotic.
His diction is almost religious, making his sentences resonate. He uses words like evil, behold, wretched and soul. Powerful emotion is evoked, but only after we meet Douglass as a person and not as an example. By the time the chapter elevates to its more passionate moments, we already know that this is a cerebral, controlled man that can reflect on the world and the people that surround him (his mistress), a man that can explain his own feelings about being a slave without being the overly emotional voice we’d expect.

Suppression of the individual is what slavery is all about, so even if a generic retelling of the horrors of the time period would suffice to achieve empathy from the reader, Douglas must achieve individuality on the page, which in the larger scale proves more powerful than his metaphors.

The Secret Sharer

Being a story driven by the voice of the protagonist, Conrad has the task of shaping the sentences in his prose in such a way that lets us know who this captain is.
His use of high style is revealing of the man’s character. He’s educated (he uses big words) but he’s also a romantic, one that dwells on abstractions as much as he does in action (in theme as much as in plot).
The story opens with a description of the setting that echoes throughout the story. The captain describes the sea as solid. Latter, he says:

“And suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that untempted life presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose.”

The character is unsure of what to do or what to say in matters of human interaction, but finds comfort in the “straightforwardness” of the sea.
After being burdened with matters of the crew, he suddenly has this change in rhythm and tone, where the pace of the prose picks up with great emotion. First, he makes a distinction between what he finds safe and what he does not, the next clause is self-reassuring (I know I like the sea, I picked it as my career choice), then he glorifies it in a way that is not exclusively poetic, but rather helpful in deciphering who this man is. We are discovering it with him, for this sentence also serves as a moment of realization for the character, (an A-ha! Moment, if you will.)
But in matters of “the land”, this imperfection of narration- this learning as he speaks device is not romantic or poetic, it’s neurotic.

“My action might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only knew how that absurdly whiskered mate would "account" for my conduct, and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new captain. I was vexed with myself.”

These collection of short sentences that aren’t nearly as poetic as the majestic, certain one about the sureness of the sea. These are shaky in emotion and even a bit snappy (“that absurdly whiskered mate”, having “account” surrounded by quotations). The segments ends with a short, troubled little sentence- a far cry from the rhythmic, tranquil longer one he has when calm.

Unfiltered self-reflection carries the voice.

“I should have gathered from this that he was young; indeed, it is only the young who are ever confronted by such clear issues. But at the time it was pure intuition on my part. A mysterious communication was established already between us two — in the face of that silent, darkened tropical sea. I was young, too; young enough to make no comment.”

Conrad has the captain dubbing his new friend as “my double” in his mind. This man has come to act as a mirror for the narrator, something that he’s discovering as he tells us. The dash interrupts his thought, as if he’s taking time to ponder. This segments works that way. First he’s being clever and calling this man young for traits he observes in him, then he says how alike they were, and then the realization that he too was young.

Henry James, author, wrote paste, which is a story with long, suspensive, sentences that just when you think will climax, won't.

Henry James delivers sentences with great suspension, but what stands out is the fact that there’s no climax at the end of them. In short, he makes us wait, and wait, and wait and when we finally get there, there’s just another door.
“The pair of mourners, sufficiently stricken, were in the garden of the vicarage together, before luncheon, waiting to be summoned to that meal, and Arthur Prime had still in his face the intention, she was moved to call it rather than the expression, of feeling something or other.”
He describes the characters, sets the setting, gives us names, details and ends with “something or other.” The voice of the piece then is almost asthmatic. We wait, clause after clause to get “something or other.” But that doesn’t mean we get sick of it, or at least, that wasn’t my experience. Instead, you say “fine, Henry, I’ll open the next door” so on and so forth. Because there is no majestic explosion after the suspension, the entire piece becomes suppressive, one sentence slowly rolling into the next and into the next.
Here, the list of one sentences gives the sense continuing beyond its period and into the next:
“They met her eyes for the first time, but in a moment, before touching them, she knew them as things of the theatre, as very much too fine to have been with any verisimilitude things of the vicarage. They were too dreadfully good to be true, for her aunt had had no jewels to speak of, and these were coronets and girdles, diamonds, rubies and sapphires. Flagrant tinsel and glass, they looked strangely vulgar… “
It won’t stop. And from the rubies we go to the tinsel and how they looked vulgar and what that says about the character and on and on.
In sharp contrast to his prose, the dialogue of his characters is fragmented and with sharp edges:
"Cheap gilt, diamonds as big as potatoes. These are trappings of a ruder age than ours. Actors do themselves better now.”
They allow us to breathe before and move quickly before we get stuck back again into the intentionally swampy, slowing prose.

High, high style.

Pleasure is a quality of very little ambition: it thinks itself rich enough of itself without any addition of repute; and is best pleased where most retired. A young man should be whipped who pretends to a taste in wine and sauces; there was nothing which, at that age, I less valued or knew; now I begin to learn; I am very much ashamed on`t; but what should I do?

As high as high style can get. Montaigne’s writing comes from an experienced, wise point of view. Earlier in the essay, he mentioned that youth looks forward and old age looks backward, which is what fuels the tone of passionate melancholy that drives the essay. He indeed writes from a pedestal, taking liberties in language that essayists are not expected to take.
Deeply personal and achingly philosophical, Montaigne decorates, twists and personifies at will. In the passage above, Montaigne explains his first clause through these linguistic liberties. “Pleasure is a quality of very little ambition”- the clause is broad and vague, and Montaigne then proceeds to personify “pleasure”, which “thinks” in the second part of the sentence.
But Montaigne’s stylistic ornamentations aren’t there to show off. This method of getting his point across (pleasure is detached from intellectual ambition) is thoroughly explains by the essay’s style. The language play is there to help the writer deliver his message, it has a purpose.

Later in the essay jealousy has a sister and her name is envy, they’re both dumb so he won’t dwell on them. High style does not mean pompous- in that case, through the use of personification, Montaigne is funny and readable.

Going back to the excerpt on pleasure, Montaigne further grounds his point by setting an anonymous, generalized example, he speaks of a “young man”. He finishes up his point by bringing the idea closer to him and inserting his own experience in the essay- what could be more grounded than explaining a point through anecdote?
First he creates a broad amorphous statement up in the clouds, he captures it with graceful, poetic moves, he brings it down to human level and then close to his- a human, Montaigne himself, was at the center of his point. By the end of the idea, we’re really close:

I am more ashamed and vexed at the occasions that put me upon`t.

And speaking of personal:

do not consider how little it is that is given, but how few have it to give; the value of money alters according to the coinage and stamp of the place.

Montaigne does the opposite in this paragraph. He speaks of female “virtue” but does so at a distance, so far as using euphemisms. This is one of the longer paragraphs in the essay, where the writing really does circumvent the topic, being appropriately delicate and never quite approaching it directly. He knows how close is too close and therefore leaves the personal at a mere “we”, instead of telling us of that one time he wanted to take the local girl’s virtue.

Manifesto

The communist manifesto works in a very clear way- it’s concise, economical paragraph facilitate the understanding of the document, which is key to its success as a persuasive text.
Rooting their claims in history, the manifesto starts not by finger pointing and condemning, but by exploring the source of the problem, which sets the ground for them to present a solution. It’s insistence in drawing parallels through their examples is systematic and effective-

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

This paragraph begs the reader to ask “well, what about now?” and then the manifesto says “well, let me tell you”.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

The constant use of suspension in the sentences force the reader to remain alert. The pattern of explaining through evidence make it an easy read. Difficult things are explained in the document, but this introduction serves as a well-written high school text book- it simplifies but does so with the intent of making the reader leave the text with a clear understanding of what’s happening. The manifesto earns our trust and our attention and thus effectively sets the stage for it to start manifest