Rhetorical Outline “Labyrinthine” by Bernard Cooper. Par. Brief description of what the author is doing. OneSentence Distillation of What the. Author is Saying. Bernard Cooper, “Labyrinthine” (). God help Bernard Cooper if this is how he felt at In the last paragraph of Labyrinthine—a shortish essay in which. That was how Bernard Cooper ended his insightful and thought-provoking essay “Labyrinthine.” Those words haunt me to this very day.
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The author as a young boy must acknowledge and learn to deal with his newly developing feelings and urges, a task that challenges his naive outlook.
That is precisely what is happening in this phrase—life is cooer to Cooper. Their cousin, on the other hand, seems to have a bit of a personality disorder.
But if switched out of the passive structure, this phrase puts the focus on Cooper. What are we supposed to believe? Bernard Cooper and the Essayistic Sentence But I cannot see beneath their surface.
Most hindering, though, is his perception of the outside world as a threat to his own way of life. He is passive, almost a victim of it.
The sentence implores us to consider the possibility that the narrator is unreliable. Unspoken rules and expectations of society present an immediate challenge to the child, who is only slowly learning the difficult truths about his own character. Again, this is an essay about the continually accumulating and confounding corridors of human life.
And, just one generation back, all three share the same ancestor: In wedge-like fashion, they are outside sources lodged into the greater whole. There is a silent framework within that phrase, which, when unmuted, reads as: The first section, which operates in assertions, is roughly three times the length of the second, which is concerned with unanswerable questions.
But if it lost the awkwardness and clunkiness of its composition, it would also lose the essence of its identity.
Bernard Cooper | By Daniel Lehman
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: I labyrinthije resolute in this decision without fully understanding why, or what it was I hoped to avoid; I was only aware of the need to hide and a vague notion, fading fast, that my trouble had something to do with sex.
Where are they going? Why are they in such a hurry to get there? I have no way of knowing what is really going on inside of this person on the street, or the next one I will pass. There is an entire world kept hidden from me in each and every soul. Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere. The list contains three phrases. It becomes a challenge to know whether anything in this essay is for certain, which then verifies its entire premise—that the ever-growing complications of life only berard to feeling increasingly lost and less assured.
I wonder what people are really thinking when you pass them on the street. They are of the same structure: The sentence is a microcosm of its home.
Bernard Cooper and the Essayistic Sentence
The word carries connotations of force and imposition, suggesting another way in which the writer is a victim of external powers. After the semicolon, the sentence shifts focus. At its root is an equative: It could be counseled to better adhere to the straight-laced, tidy structure of its cousins. By suggesting that maybe we cannot trust him, Cooper is actually being incredibly fair to his reader. It illustrates the possibility that Cooper has made into memories stories that are not his.
They are of such simple disposition and sweet demeanor.
Paris Review – Labyrinthine
So sure, the phrase could be adjusted to fit in. Lets work our way through it, starting with that first, longer, assertive section—the one before the semicolon. The third phrase in the list is related to these two as well, but in more of a cousinly way. He spends the majority of it recounting particular scenes: A quick survey reveals the sentence to have two main lanyrinthine, separated from each other by a semicolon.
The verb, wedgedimmediately jumps out. And what do we make of it? Archives for posts with tag: He is soft and allows himself to be imposed upon. It is about the inability to actively navigate its labyrinth once aware that the labyrinth exists. But perhaps he was designed that way for a reason. It is fitting, then, that this section proposes that concept as a question: It is about the sheer and ever-increasing volume and impossible intricacies of its corridors.