Right off the bat Morrison employs rhetorical strategies when she uses an example to support her claim that we assign stories to strangers we meet too often. The example she uses is her story of the woman wearing “...men’s shoes, a man’s hat, a well-worn colorless sweater over a long black dress” (75). By doing so, Morrison is making the essay more personal and allowing the reader to imagine a situation in which a story was assigned to a stranger. Also Morrison’s writing becomes more successful when she establishes a sort of process when she describes how she felt “cheated, puzzled, but also amused” (76) followed by “...annoyance then bitterness [which] takes the place of [her] original bewilderment” (76). She is describing a process that she goes through after discovering the strange woman was not who she imagined her to be. Something that stuck out to me was how this process (of puzzlement then amusement then annoyance then bitterness) is a series of stages that is almost similar to something like the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Moreover, because of this, the message I got behind “Stranger” was that we create these elaborate stories and design these situations in which we interact with certain people, but once they fail to occur the way we had imagined we go through this process of bitterness and grief, as if we lost something that never even existed. Morrison delivers this message through her example and her description of this process. Also, the author describes the cause of this whole story-making tendency we have as humans, hence establishing a cause and effect. She describes how “...routine media presentations deploy images and language that narrow our view of what humans look like” (78). The media feeds us these images that we learn to love and desire and as a result we allocate these images to people we barely know. Overall, Morrison employs a variety of rhetorical strategies which strengthen and make her argument so meaningful: we all are guilty of blaming some stranger for “turning a personal world into a public hell” (77).
Morrison elaborately uses a metaphor of a stranger to communicate to readers a larger message- one that speaks of the unavoidable judgment that people initially lay on others. Morrison initially describes herself as approaching the other woman and immediately noticing “men’s shoes, a man’s hat, a well-worn colorless sweater over a long black dress (Morrison, 75).” Many individuals might negatively judge such an appearance of a woman, but Morrison writes that she approached her as a “feeling of welcome (Morrison, 75)” washed over her. After spending time with the woman for just a short period, they must leave each other, but not until promising to meet again. With time, Morrison realizes that her encounter was not all that she had thought it was. While the encounter might not have been legitimate, Morrison gains an understanding that proves to be even more legitimate: initial perceptions can cloud realities. Later in Morrison’s essay, she extends her stranger metaphor and ties it to contemporary examples of clouded realities, such as media. “Routine media presentations deploy images and language that narrow our view of what humans look like (or ought to look like) (Morrison, 78),” meaning that media sources skew the images of celebrities in such a way that they become part of a practically distorted reality. They are not portrayed in a legitimate way, and unfortunately, individuals begin to perceive such false realities with the truth. Morrison’s use of an extended metaphor of a stranger shows the essential difference between perception and reality, and helps her address contemporary issues of distorted realities.
In the article “Strangers”, author Toni Morrison sought to persuade and inform her audience, the whole human race, that we tend to assume a “specific individuality (78)” for our own emotional sustenance upon encountering strangers. The structure of the text is guided by the emotional appeal from a personal anecdote that function as an allegory: delighted, bewildered, annoyance, bitterness, and finally, rejection. Using a narrative voice, Morrison incorporated diction, allusion, repetition, and other rhetorical devices to establish the purpose. In the beginning, the narrator claimed that the setting is “newly [hers](75)”, which elicits a sense of curiosity to explore the place just like how she is drawn to communicate with the stranger. She then “noticed with pleasure (75)” about the unique style of the stranger’s clothing, which might be amusing for her to see, but arguably not a pleasure for the stranger to wear. The narrator also accuses the stranger of stepping into “[her] space (77)”, for which she followed with a parenthetical explanation that the woman is at the “fence, where the most interesting things always happen (77)” because it is the barrier between an individual and others that suggest the narrator’s affection for the stranger. Later, the narrator alluded to both the prophets in the Bible and Jean-Paul Sartre, a French existentialist philosopher not only to establish authority, but also to make connections with the audience with archetypes such as “hell (77)”. By using the word “public hell (77)”, Morrison effectively implied the significance of “other people (77)” to us because they can in fact “unveil us (79)” from the reflection of parts of us that we see within them. Another important idea to note is that repetition of words such as “instant (78)”, “immediately (78)” as well as the asyndeton used to describe the stranger’s clothing; they all give a sense of haste, suggesting that the conclusion made by the narrator and by others when they first encounter strangers is influenced by the initial perception, which is often different from the reality. Finally, the anecdote also introduces the idea of identity. The stranger told the narrator that her name is “Mother Something (76)” , a very ambiguous identity that “reminds [the narrator] of someone, something (76)” because this ambiguity allowed the narrator to attribute an identity or a “specific individuality (78)” to her.
In Toni Morrison’s “Strangers,” Morrison chooses to describe her personal experience of judging a women she sees fishing near her property to prove her point that when one sees a stranger, he or she will automatically make assumptions and prejudices about who the stranger is and what they are like based on what the person looks like and is doing at the time. Morrison implies that the root of our making assumptions comes from a feeling of fear. She states that “the randomness of an encounter with our already known…selves summons a ripple of alarm”(78), meaning that because people are uncomfortable with things they are unsure about, they make assumptions to fill to fill a void that they feel must be filled in order to feel at ease. Her statement is something that her audience can easily relate to and understand, which is why her own story about the fishing women can be easily understood by her readers. To prove her point, Morrison alludes to Jean-Paul Sartre and the Bible by describing both Sartre and the Bible’s claim that “strangers…are understood to tempt our gaze, to slide away or to stake claims”(77). By making the allusion, she supports her previous claim about fear being the cause of our actions. Furthermore, Morrison’s condescending tone when criticizing social media for “deploy[ing] images and language that narrow our views of what humans look like... and what in fact we are like”(78) helps explains what happened in her story and what we do on a regular basis. Lastly, one of the most powerful choices that Morrison makes as the author is challenging the credibility of the word truth. Her mentioning of the value of the word truth, may be a further religious allusion talking about the difference between truth, which is basic fact that can be proven, and Truth, which is a worldwide accepted concept or idea. People have trouble distinguishing between the two and also the Truth has been majorly affected by the plurality of world views, which is why Morrison states that the word’s "absence is stronger than its presence”(78). By Morrison’s usage of personal experiences, condescending tone, allusions, and word diction, she establishes her credibility to her audience and allows her readers to validate her claim that because of fear, all humans make assumptions based on prior experiences before they know the actual facts.
Toni Morrison starts off her “Strangers” not only by introducing the fisherwoman as a stranger, but buy using the present and progressive tenses—not talking to the reader, but more to herself, saying “I am in this river” and “I see a woman sitting on the seawall” (75) creating the atmosphere that reader, himself or herself, is a stranger. Additionally, in the first paragraph, the meeting is not so much a “meeting” as a one-sided witness of the woman in the river. She observes her “men’s shoes” and “man’s hat” and “well-worn colorless sweater” (75). This is the imprinting “imagery” Morrison talks about later in the essay—one of the “godlings,” next to language (78). The tone of the essay begins light-heartedly, softly. When Morrison meets the woman in the river she describes a “feeling of welcome” wash over her (75), and that feeling translates in her writing with her simple sentences, which allow the reader to easily follow the simple, light, friendly encounter she describes. She says that their parting is “with an understanding that she will be there the next day” (76). She daydreams of conversing with the woman again and hopes that she can invite the fisherwoman, whom she calls “Mother Something,” to her house “for, coffee, for tales, for laughter,” (76) using the repetition of the word “for” to give extra emphasis and attention to those actions; obviously this woman has left a positive, hopeful impression on Morrison—but it changes once the woman does not show up at the river again. The tone changes slightly from hope and anticipation to disappointment, puzzlement, and betrayal (76). The author begins to use rhetorical questions to begin her paragraphs, such as “Isn’t that the kind of thing we fear strangers will do?” following such a question with one-word, separate-sentence answers: “Disturb. Betray” (77). These are blunt words placed in a blunt fashion meant to not only stick out to the reader, but also stick the reader in the side. The simple sentence structure is continued, but the purpose is not for soft comprehension but for frankness, which displays the change of tone into this betrayed attitude. She stops calling the woman “Mother Something,” a honeyed title for a stranger, instead calling her just “fisherwoman.” Morrison carefully chose diction that was meant to contradict, even confuse. She used antonyms to describe things or ideas; repeats similar letters: “form from formula” (78); similar sounds and words: “rules the realm,” “feeds the form,” “to remain human and to block dehumanization” (78); similar suffixes: “humanity from commodity” (78)—all to intrigue the reader and get him or her to question. She questions the need for quotations around the word “truth,” so “its absence (its elusiveness) is stronger than its presence). She also uses unclear pronoun references when referring to the “different selves” and the “Other” in paragraphs nine. Morrison uses manipulation of language to somewhat confuse the reader (only to the point in which they must reanalyze either her words or his or her own thoughts). She displays in her writing the very “power of embedded images and stylish language to seduce, reveal and control” that she makes mention of on page 78 with her connotative descriptions of language, image, and experience. Her “definitions” of these devices does not denote the styles, but are instead a list of meaningful verbs, even using personification, saying that language “can encourage,” “mandate,” and “surrender” (78). The very last paragraph of the essay, Morrison speaks hypothetically about an important event “of artistic endeavor” only to revel that the gallery by Bergman is said important event. This is done to extenuate the uniqueness and significance behind the artwork in the gallery. She finishes her essay with a statement that his work could capture the “singularity, the community” of the human race, conflicting ideas that express the complexity of people that Morrison
Morrison makes frequent use of varying sentence structure, and asyndeton to create a sense of finality in her essay. In addition she uses rhetorical questioning and allusions to evoke emotional response and personal connotative meaning to her points in the reader. She talks about how she forgot language and image's ability to “seduce, reveal, control. Forgot, too, their capacity to help us pursue the human project” (Morrison, 78). By structuring her sentence without conjunctions, she adds a certain finality to her assertion that language can seduce, reveal, and control. It adds a building tension and emphasizes the words she uses. Followed immediately by a fragment, her previous sentiment about language’s ability is emphasized in an added capacity to reveal humanity. She uses a similar approach on page 77 when she describes what strangers do: “Disturb. Betray. Prove they are not like us.” The stand-alone words/sentences leave the words lingering, imprinted in the readers’ mind. By using short, choppy sentences, the meanings are emphasized and easier to digest than long-winded sentences. Throughout the work, Morrison also evokes the readers’ personal connotations with the topic through rhetorical questioning and in allusion. She asks “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do?” (Morrison, 77) and “why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another?” (Morrison, 78), and by doing so invokes the reader to associate their own personal feelings and experiences with the topic she is addressing. It allows the points to become more relatable, more understandable, more memorable, and thus more impactful. Similarly, she invokes the readers’ own experiences when alluding to the “religious prophets” (Morrison, 77) in reference to how we treat strangers. The religious prophets are figures most people are somewhat familiar with and have certain connotations with. These connotations color the way we view strangers, and thus the points Morrison discusses in this work.
Toni Morrison plays around with the relationship between diction and tone to establish and change the mood in her essay Strangers. The essay starts out very warmly as exemplified by “a feeling of welcome washed over me” (75). Morrison uses very familiar and homey words to create a familiar atmosphere for the reader . Morrison uses words and phrases like “homemade,” “feeling of welcome,” "easy smile,” “ pleasure,” “well-worn,” “reminds me of someone,” “understanding,” “causal,” and “effortless” to create a very wholesome, friendly, safe environment that is not normally present when meeting and talking to strangers. Her word choices create a familiar atmosphere and that atmosphere creates the tone of the first paragraph— very light, loving, easy going, nurtured, and safe. Then there is an abrupt change in diction seen through Morrison’s word choices including “no value,” “annoyance,” “bitterness,” “deceit,” “disappointment,” “awful,” and “unforgivable.” This change can be seen through Morrison’s use of ethos as well as diction when she says “I feel cheated, puzzled, but also amused, and wonder off and on if I have dreamed her” (76). The abrupt change in the diction of the essay immediately changes the mood as well as the tone from warm, fuzzy and friendly to angry, discontent, and irritated. Morrison makes the essay personal, to the point where the reader feels as if they are witnessing and they are apart of the events described in the story. Not only by making the essay personal and anecdotal, Morrison is using both ethos and logos to get her point across to her readers— we are often too quick to judge someone/thing based off of our perception and what we already know and that can be dangerous. Morrison truthfully admits that with a hint of ethos when she says “my instant embrace of an outrageously dressed fisherwoman was due in part to an image on which my representation of her was based” (78). Morrison demonstrates logos when she says “it took some time of me to understand my unreasonable claims on that fisherwoman” (78). Morrison realizes and acknowledges that she judged the fisherwomen based off of her appearance and she set preconceived notions and that is not something that should be done when dealing with strangers because "there are no strangers,” rather there “are only versions of ourselves, many of which we have not embraced, most of which we wish to protect ourselves from” (78). Morrison’s use of contrasting words to change the essay ultimately in its tracks and change it completely catches the reader off guard, but it manipulates the reader into empathizing with Morrison, and then agreeing with her epiphany and ultimately, the reader can get a new perspective on strangers from this.
Morrison provides the anecdote of the woman in the river to reveal the broader meanings within one snapshot of Robert Bergman’s photographs. Evidently she reveals that we are drawn to the mystery and the unknown that strangers uphold and often we fill the “unknown” with qualities reflecting ourselves. From the start, Morrison is drawn not merely to the woman but rather to her “men’s shoes, a man’s hat, a well-worn colorless sweater over a long black dress”(75), thus she uses description to prominently depict the differences that this woman obtains. These differences elicit the mystery that draws Morrison in. As a result, Morrison than fills in particular unanswered qualities with that of her own as she subconsciously forgets the woman’s name but remembers that it is “Mother something”(76). Morrison, being a mother herself, would obviously see this as a very positive quality leading her to assume that the stranger is “full of wisdom”(76). The author makes assumptions that she believes to be logically correct proving the point that we automatically fill unknown qualities with reflections of ourselves. Subtly, Morrison claims, “she reminds me of someone, something. I imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful”(76). Unknowingly, Morrison is reminded of herself as most of what she thought she knew of the stranger was made up in her mind. Morrison’s ability to subtly portray this reflects the subtleness in which we depict strangers. That is, being drawn to the mystery of strangers and subconsciously filling in the blanks with reflections of ourselves.
Organization is a key rhetorical strategy in Strangers Toni Morrison. The essay begins as a narrative, progresses into an analysis of her behavior in the narrative, shifts into a more general analysis of strangers and their role in our lives, and finally connects it all to Bergman’s photographs, which the essay introduces. Beginning the essay with a personal narrative brings the reader in. It is somewhat of an en medias res narrative; the reader is dropped into the story without context. This device confuses the reader just enough to intrigue them and make them want to keep reading to understand what they’ve just been thrown into. The reader is further pulled into the essay by the uniqueness of the narrative. The themes of false hope, being let down, and expectations not being lived up to that is played out in the narrative triggers an emotional response in the reader. Morrison then gets into the more analytical portion of her essay, which is much more effective because of the intrigue attained from the reader through the set up of and emotions triggered by the narrative. If the essay had instead started out with the analysis/explanation of strangers and their role in our lives or if the personal narrative had been omitted, it would have been much less effective.
In this essay, Morrison writes on the effects that complete strangers can have on us for the purpose of introducing and explaining the significance of Robert Bergman’s photography. Morrison succeeds in having such a strong effect on readers by using rhetorical strategies, such as strong diction and various literary devices, but the most important rhetorical strategies that she uses are organization and the use of emotion. The organization of this essay definitely contributes to its success. Morrison begins by describing a mysterious event that involves a stranger. This immediately captures her reader’s attention and makes them ponder why the stranger had such a big effect on Morrison. Morrison then briefly abandons her story about the mysterious fisherwoman and talks generally about the role strangers play in our lives and what they really represent. Next, Morrison connects her story with her explanation of the significance of strangers by explaining why she was so affected by this woman; she concluded that she was actually “missing some aspect of [herself].” The order in which she wrote the essay allowed me to think for myself why a stranger was so important to her and why one might be important in my life. Then, it made me think even more deeply about the role of strangers once she connected her story with her analysis. In this way, Morrison uses emotion in the essay to have a greater impact on her readers. While reading it, readers are forced to think about their own encounters with strangers, and once Morrison connects her story with her analysis, it forces readers to think about the deeper meaning of their experiences with strangers and what they really represent or reveal about themselves. After reading this essay, it is impossible to deny the importance of strangers in our lives, which is why it is so successful in introducing the ingenuity of Bergman’s portraits.
Toni Morrison provides “Strangers” as an introduction to a book of photographs by Robert Bergman. The purpose of Morrison’s “Strangers” is to show the impact strangers can have on you. This is fittingly the introduction to a book of photographs because with each person in a photograph, you encounter a stranger. One way she explains the purpose of the photographs is by bringing the reader into her story. In her first words, she pulls you right in with her. She doesn’t provide context or background information; she just starts telling you a story. She says, “I am in this river place,” and immediately you’re there too (75). This is similar to a photograph. You’re attention is immediately captured by the image, and it pulls you in with whomever is in the picture. You can only start to figure it out if you continue looking because there is no explanation—just a picture of a person. You don’t know that person’s name, similarly to how the narrator only remembered the woman’s name to be “Mother Something,” (76). You don’t know that person’s backstory. You don’t know anything. Another way Morrison pulls the reader in is by directly asking the reader questions. “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do?” (77). By asking the reader questions, Morrison makes her explanation more personal and relatable in allowing the reader to actually apply it to him or herself. The questions provide a connection between the author and the reader. Morrison parallels her story about Mother Something and the reader with a photograph of a stranger and its observer. After her explanation of the impact of a stranger on someone in her engaging story by pulling the reader in, Morrison then draws a connection to the reader with her direct questions to him or her. After this, she relates the story and explanation to strangers in photographs, providing an engaging and logical explanation to the impact strangers and effectively introducing a book of photographs of strangers.
In Toni Morrison’s Stranger, Morrison uses descriptive language such as “a feeling of welcome” and “pleasure of clothes” along with “an easy smile” in order to distinguish pathos or appeal to the senses with the reader. The reader feels the emotions and experiences Morrison’s story with her through these descriptive words. Morrison emphasizes her excitement to have a relationship with the stranger she meets by the use of asyndeton, as seen in the quote “I imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful.” Again, Morrison uses pathos in the quote “every morning of her deceit and my disappointment” to express her upset with no longer knowing where her new friend has gone. Then, Morrison switches tones and brings in ethos or authority to prove her point about strangers. She quotes Jean-Paul Sartre and his opinion on love as possession. Morrison lastly establishes logos by explaining that “language, image, and experience” are people’s only resources to determine which experiences are real and which ones are from people’s imagination. Morrison effectively conveys to her readers that she was happy to meet this stranger while also being very upset when she could no longer find her. Morrison then establishes logos and ethos in order to prove that someone’s perception of strangers is up to their emotions and that someone’s senses are what they rely on to decided what is a reality and what is false.
Morrison begins by telling the story of a stranger she saw fishing at her neighbor’s house. She experiences “a feeling of welcome” as she approaches her. She goes on to to say that the stranger never comes back like she had hoped. When I was reading this, I thought it was just going to be a story when in actuality she only used the story to add a picture to her main point and as most stories do, it also established pathos because it gave the audience something to connect to, a feeling of emotion to draw them into the essay. The story is a personal experience of something that everyone finds themselves guilty of–judgment, which Morrison goes on to use her unique language to make the reader think and realize how they view strangers in their lives. The organization of this essay is brilliant because it starts off with a simple story that turns into something so much deeper and more complex. Morrison uses very descriptive, clear language to get her point across. In the first paragraph on page 78, she uses many lists of 3 carefully chosen words like “encourage, mandate, and surrender” when talking about how languages can breech the distances around us or when she says image often shapes, becomes, and contaminates knowledge. Each of these lists force the audience to think and analyze each list and individual word in order to help them understand how language, image, and experience affect the relationships we have with other people. While Morrison informs us about her claim, she also uses questioning to force the reader to evaluate his or her own life. She asks, “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another?” and “Why would we want to close the distance when we can close the gates?” She asks these questions to get the reader thinking about what they believe, too. I mean why would we want to know strangers if it is easier to be around the people we are already comfortable with? It is a valid question and probably one that no one has ever seriously considered before.
In Toni Morrison's Strangers, Morrison utilizes rhetorical strategies to express the idea that strangers are in fact not strangers, but instead “only versions of ourselves” (78). The first part of the essay describes an anecdote that depicts a spontaneous encounter between the narrator and another women—whose very existence is left unclear to the narrator. The narrator uses the anecdote as a rhetorical device to demonstrate the effect that this “stranger” had on her life. In her anecdote, Morrison employs many rhetorical devices in order to appeal to the reader’s emotions, such as listing. As an attempt to explain the reasoning behind the strange encounter, she uses this device by noting that the encounter gave her feelings, “…of female camaraderie, of opportunities for [her] to be generous, of protection and protecting” (77). Another way that she appeals to the emotions is through diction. Multiple times throughout the text Morrison mentions religion and art, two institutions that elicit both a higher sense of spirituality and controversy. The author believes that “in the admonition of a prophet and the sly warning of an artists strangers as well as the beloved are understood to temp our gaze” (77). Morrison also uses questions as a rhetorical strategy. In order to maintain the reader’s attention and keep the reader engaged, the narrator asks questions that she does not necessarily answer. She uses this by asking multiple questions succession such as, “What was she doing in that neighborhood anyway?... How could she be missed on the road in that hat, those awful shoes?” (77).
Morrison starts off the essay with a story that automatically draws the attention of the reader, and causes the reader to reflect on his/her own life, to try and see if they have ever experienced a similar situation. The story she tells has to do with her meeting a stranger and feeling drawn to her, "notic[ing] with pleasure the clothes she wears: men's shoes, a man's hat, a well-worn colorless sweater over a long black dress" (75). Describing her immediate reaction to this woman draws a parallel to the judgement that one places on another during the first meeting, and it also appeals to the emotions of each reader because it offers a circumstance every reader can reflect upon. Morrison then explains how the stranger disappeared by giving a list of emotions she went through, "cheated, puzzled, but also amused... annoyance, then bitterness" (76). Morrison employs her rhetorical strategies to hint to the reader that strangers aren't really all that different or strange, but instead "only versions of ourselves" (78) that can be found through meeting strangers. She poses an interesting question to the reader, regarding why there is a sort of universal fear of strangers. She states that people are afraid that strangers will "disturb. Betray. Prove they are not like us" (76). By asking this question, the reader questions why, in fact, he or she has grown up knowing that strangers could be dangerous, not to talk to them, etc. She then brings up the topic of religion, a rhetorical strategy that seems to be very useful, since almost everyone has had some sort of experience with religion. She says "the love that the prophets have urged us to offer the stranger is the same love that Jean-Paul Sartre could reveal as the very mendacity of Hell," (77). She then goes on to explain how everyone is responsible for the world being the way it is by saying ""other people" are responsible for turning a personal world into a public hell," (77) which explains how the actions of others affects everyone else, a topic that every reader can be familiar with.
Morrison begins the essay with choppy, definitive sentences to emulate the thought process one has when meeting a stranger for the purpose of bringing the reader into what they're about to experience in the book. Her descriptions of the first woman she talks about are all things you could notice from observing a picture: "men's shoes, a man's hat..." (75). She then proceeds to "imagine a friendship" (76) with the woman. This word choice is also evokes one feels when looking at a picture of someone. This strategy is indicative of the book Morrison wrote this essay for. On page 77, Morrison begins to write long-winded sentences that reflect her personal feeling about strangers. By establishing pathos with the reader, Morrison brings him or her to view the subjects in the photograph in a new way for the purpose of connecting with it. Morrison then establishes credibility by commenting that the photographs in the book are what made her come upon her reflection. Her praise for the book continues on page 79 where she uses words like "burnished majesty" and "rapture" to describe the work for the purpose of intriguing the reader.
Toni Morrison begins her essay “Strangers” with an anecdote, about meeting a woman, a “stranger”, fishing in her neighbor’s back yard. She immediately begins the anecdote with “I am in this river place” (75). Right off the bat she pulls the audience in and allows the reader to catch a glimpse of what she is experiencing. She further pulls the reader in with her use of asyndeton, causing him or her to become attune to Morrison’s thoughts and feelings when she is with the woman, for example, when she says “I will invite her into my house for coffee, for tales, for laughter…I imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful” (76). In addition, Morrison uses words like “we” and “us” for the purpose of making the audience take a look into and evaluate their own lives to see if they are guilty of treating strangers in such a way that Morrison does. When she uses “we” and “us” she includes the reader into her claims such as, “We deny her personhood, the specific individuality we insist upon for ourselves” and “That makes us reject the figure…It is also what makes us own, govern, administrate the Other. This creates an uneasy feeling in the reader for it makes known actions that he or she may not have been aware they adhered to. She effectively categorizes as not only her but also us collectively who fall short in seeing strangers as people and not just foreign.
As soon as you start reading Toni Morrison's "Strangers," you notice a rhetorical strategy: descriptive story telling. Morrison writes, with great detail, about the first time she met a woman. Morrison uses such detail because she wants to express how much of an impression this woman made on her. But the thing is, Morrison doesn't know her name; she calls her "Mother Something." Morrison chooses to call her "Mother Something" to emphasize the point that the first time you meet a stranger, you don't really know the person. You have to spend a lot of time with him or her to truly understand him or her. She writes that she forgot the stranger's name to really drive home that point. Another device that I found interesting was in the line "(next to it, anyway—at the property line, at the edge, just at the fence, where the most interesting things always happen)." Morrison described the edge of her property three different ways. She did this because she wanted to stress how different views on something can cause an interesting outcome. She thought that the stranger was allowed to sit on her neighbor's wall, while her neighbor has never heard of this stranger. The interesting outcome of this situation is that Morrison now has to find out who this stranger is, and why she was sitting there.
Toni Morrison writes Strangers in order to convey the idea that strangers are “only versions of ourselves”(78). She achieves this through many rhetorical decisions including her use of parallel sentence structures which connect a more personal, specific example to one on larger terms that encapsulates our society as a whole. For example, she explains that language breaches the gap between individuals, whether it be “continental or on the same pillow”(78). Morrison uses repeated parallelisms like this in her sentences to throw out the distinction between the relationships of those in societies versus the relationship of friends, reinforcing the idea that strangers are simply a concept we have made up to avoid aspects of ourselves. In the beginning of the essay, Morrison takes her readers on the roller coaster of emotions that come with establishing a friendship then having it be ripped away. She begins her essay with a personal narration of this experience in order to institute a connection between her emotions in the scenario and each reader’s emotions while reading the story, resulting in pathos. Morrison starts the essay with the establishment of pathos to hook the readers- kindling their interest in the rest of what the author has to say and allowing her to construct a foundation to her claim that strangers are “only versions of ourselves".
Morrison’s “Stranger” claims people initially judge “strangers” through her usage of a metaphor, repetition, and rhetorical questions. Morrison describers her encounter with another woman—a fisherwoman referred to as “Mother Something”. They only spoke for a short period of time and promised to meet again. Morrison later realizes that her encounter was not real—it was simply a metaphor to represent the process of how individuals judge strangers. Morrison insults the metaphorical woman’s hat and “awful shoes”(Morrison 77) after their meeting, which provides a credible example of an individual judging another person. In addition to creating a metaphor to exemplify the judgment, Morrison repeats objectifying sentiments, including “I am, I see, and I feel” observations in the start of her essay. She does so to emphasize how humans are solely focused on what they see and feel, which makes people jump to forming opinions of a stranger rather than understand him or her. To speak to the reader’s emotions and own understanding of judging strangers, Morrison presents rhetorical questions. “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do?” (Morrison 77) Morrison asks the reader after analyzing her fake encounter with the woman. She is presenting her statement as a question, which gives it complexity. Morrison’s illegitimate fisherwoman story, repetition of opinion-based statements, and rhetorical questions all serve to support her statement that people judge strangers with their own opinionated perception, rather than acknowledging the reality.
Toni Morrison uses rhetorical devices such as logos, word choice, and diction to explain to the reader the influence of strangers on our lives. In the beginning of her essay, Morrison gives an anecdote of an experience she had with a stranger, whether this stranger was real or fake, she still influenced Morrison. After not seeing the woman she knew as “Mother Something”, she felt “cheated, puzzle, but also amused” (76). This stranger has caused Morison to miss someone she only talked to for fifteen minutes. Toni Morrison uses this as an example to prove that “There are no strangers. There are only versions of ourselves” (78). Morison primarily remembers the distinct images about “Mother Something”, which she later connects with the idea that we develop emotion towards these images and strangers just as she did with the fisherwoman. Also, at the very end of the essay, Morrison connects the idea that strangers are in images to the idea of Photography for the purpose of introducing Robert Bergman’s book of photography. She involves the reader in the text by using such words as “us” and “we” to develop a relationship between not only herself and the readers but also between the readers and the images. Morison varies the length of sentences to develop emotion because Morrison expresses her emotion toward her encounter with the fisherwoman. She writes, “I tell myself it was an encounter of no value other than Anecdotal. Still. Little by little, annoyance and bitterness takes the place of my original bewilderment.” (76). Morison adds still into the essay as it’s own sentence to create a pause and a distinct separation between the two surrounding sentences.
Toni Morrison’s “Strangers” exemplifies its purpose with the descriptive introduction leading to an alternative organizational structure, the incorporation and lists, and the continued use of first person pronouns. Morrison opens up the essay with an anecdote, using clear, precise, descriptive language. This descriptive language flows into a more scattered, yet organized thought process as Morrison blends the story into a more philosophical assessment of strangers. This organizational structure may be a little confusing but it encourages the reader to keep reading as this short story turns into a self evaluation on strangers. This organizational structure works because it supplies the reader with a story to compare to his or her daily life as Morrison allows for an examination with a deeper philosophical idea. Throughout the essay, Morrison uses lists to describe both the personal experiences and her philosophical thinking. She writes “I feel cheated, puzzled, but also amused” (76) and “encourage, even mandate, surrender” (78). These two specific examples provide clear, precise verbs to describe a specific feeling or idea. By incorporating these lists, Morrison provides a non definite answer to the feelings and thoughts she experiences. Thus, reminding the reader that we often feel more emotion at once, helping the reader to understand the different ways experience, language, and image affect how we view relationships with one another. Morrison utilizes first person pronouns such as “I” “me” “we” and “us” to make the essay more personal. By incorporating these pronouns, the essay speaks to the reader and allows the reader to compare what Morrison has to say about everyday life. Morrison’s purpose is to reveal the idea that strangers “are only versions of ourselves” (78). In other words, strangers bring out different parts of ourselves that when people meet, recognize as part of themselves. By adding these pronouns, Morrison builds on this idea of applying this to everyday life. All in all, this essay works because Morrison utilizes these rhetorical devices to accomplish her purpose.
In Strangers, Toni Morrison employs a narrative, anecdotal tone that soon switches to an analytical, reflective one to impart the reality of interacting with strangers and the resources in which human beings use to evaluate the said stranger. In addition to the different tones that eventually merge together to bring about the core of the piece, Morrison also employs varying sentence lengths and artistic allusions to convey how the perception of a stranger in an encounter reflects deeper aspects of ourselves that might or might not be desired to know. Morrison opens up the piece with an experience with a stranger, establishing her credibility and drawing the reader in at the same time. The anecdote of the fisherwoman draws in readers because it is relatable in the sense that they might have been in a similar situation, and are curious to see how Morrison responds, as her response might be the same or different, or a mixture of both. The anecdotal tone lasts through Morrison’s disappointment and anger as the fisherwoman does not return to the neighbor’s garden. Morrison’s use of short, choppy sentences, “She is not there the next day. She is not there the following days, either. And I look for her every morning.” (76) reflects her disappointment, imparting the effect strangers can have on a human being’s conscience. Morrison then goes on rhetorically question “why I am missing a woman I spoke to for 15 minutes” (77) revealing that the encounter with the stranger fisherwoman has brought up thoughts about aspects in her life that she may have thought she acquired but in fact lack like, “female camaraderie, of opportunities for me to be generous” (77). Morrison then distances herself from the reader by employing artistic allusions, implying that encounters with strangers are like Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, “as the very mendacity of Hell” (77), which is a reflection upon her own conscience. She also introduces the resources in which humans evaluate other humans which are “language, image, and experience” (78) in a very systematic manner, explaining the causes of human judgement based on language and image. Morrison then employs a reflective, analytical tone in regards to her experience with the fisherwoman and the resources of language and image she used to not only show how her original perception of the stranger revealed what is already embedded in her conscience, but also how her reflection and analysis of that moment revealed what she desires in life, and what she wants to change. The introduction of Robert Bergman’s portraits ties up the essay, revealing that the portraits don’t provide us comfort, but in fact discomfort because they uncover desires that are conjured by the appearance, or image, of the stranger.
In the short story, Strangers, Toni Morrison employs techniques of first person tense, rhetorical questioning, and asyndeton in sentence structure to illustrate how portraits reveal more about the observer than the person photographed. Morrison’s use of first person tense allows her to descriptively reveal the emotions she experienced in her interaction with the stranger. Noting feelings of “annoyance then bitterness…deceit and…disappointment,” Morrison develops an immediate relationship between herself and the reader over universal sentiments that everyone encounters. The author’s rhetorical questioning further personalizes the author’s connection with the reader by inducing “meditation” on his or her emotional reactions. By inquiring, “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do?” she encourages the reader to connect with the passage on an intimate level, interpret his or her inner responses, and so grasp her view more completely. The solitary and fragmented ideas in describing how strangers induce fear: “Disturb. Betray. Prove that they are not like us,” provide a more palpable definition in which the author highlights certain words for emphasis. Morrison’s asyndeton impresses upon the reader exactly how strangers evoke certain emotions. More negative than positive, the isolated words assist Morrison in reasoning how human nature is generally inclined to presume, often jumping to conclusions, certain opinions on strangers.
The organization of the text and the way Morrison choses her words in her essay entitled Stranger, contributes to the idea of perception versus reality in a profound way, intending to anecdotally teach a lesson of how misguided hope can be “unveiled” through the said photographs in the book. She starts off by establishing a homey tone with her diction and description by saying that there was a “feeling of welcome” in her “neighbor’s garden” with “homemade” (75) home decor to instill a sense of hospitality and security before she launches into her story about the stranger. Her conversation with the stranger seems incessant and filled with substance as they talked “about fish recipes and weather and children” (76). Morrison employed the tactic of polysyndeton in that sentence as if to frame out that within that short time, many topics were explored, and many connections were made. She then moves on to empathize about her situation and the most important thing in the middle paragraphs is that Morrison poses question after question about this stranger, which furthers the idea that the stranger was just “an image on which [her] representation was based” (78). The essay continues at a brisk pace, reflecting her rising emotions, when she starts to use the word “whether” (78) as an anaphora, drilling in her opinions without so much as a pause. Morrison wants to set the tone for the readers of the book to see the other perspectives of the photography in the book, and so she jumps from the small anecdote, to an expression of her feelings, to an analysis of her claims of an unreasonable stranger, then to circle it all back to human behavior in such a structured way, is the way Morrison sees life; in that there should be some struggle before a revelation and new perspective can be seen. Her tone throughout the text goes from narrative, to ponderous, to conclusive, and is all around conversational, which is shown evidently through the parenthetical statements scattered throughout the text. Morrison would state one thing and then in parentheses further elaborate it, for example when she says “it narrows our view of what humans look like” (78) and then in parentheses goes to say “or ought to look like” (78) inevitably shows the underlying theme of reality and perception that Morrison tried to convey throughout the essay. The emotion given in writing about such a uncommon topic such of a stranger makes the essay a perfect leeway into Robert Bergman’s book, as it unconventionally taught of looking in a different perspective.
Toni Morrison’s essay, “Strangers”, serves to comment on the day-to-day human encounter of individuals we are unfamiliar with. The author claims that strangers are only strangers because we ourselves make them so. She begins her demonstration of this through the use of an anecdote. By beginning with a short narrative, Toni Morrison immediately pulls the reader in. Her encounter—whether a true occurrence or one she imagined—serves as an example and evidence for the claim that she will make. Thus, she establishes her credibility as someone who has personally experienced what she argues. Her assertion is that strangers are strangers because we do not see the real them. Instead, we project our own wants and desires onto who we wish to see them as or how we wish to feel, thus ourselves creating the stranger. Morrison at first describes “Mother Something” in a flowery and optimistic way, “She is witty and full of wisdom…I will invite her into my house for coffee, for tales, for laughter. She reminds me of someone…I imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful” (76). The repeated positive illustration of Mother Something and her fictional relationship with the author serves as a false reality that Toni Morrison creates and imposes on the unfamiliar person. Thereby, she herself created a stranger who she never really got to know because she was too busy assigning her own characteristics and predictions about who she wanted Mother Something to be, and how she wanted their relationship to play out. However when things do not turn out as the author expected in the narrative, she feels “annoyance” (76), “bitterness” (76), and “chagrin” (77). Yet Toni Morrison was disappointed by no fault other than her own. Toni Morrison sets up a comparison between her own fantasy encounter with Mother Something and the media and its “truth” to prove to the reader through a real life example that what she and others experienced is valid. Morrison writes that, “media presentations deploy images and language that narrow our view of what humans look like and what in fact we are like…media can blur vision” (78). Likewise, humans implement images and language that simplify, compartmentalize, and idealize others—a skewed vision of the reality that others truly are. The author says, “the stranger is not foreign, she is random, not alien but remembered…we deny her personhood, the specific individually we insist upon for ourselves” (78). Here the author appeals directly to human emotion through the use of the word “we” and “she”. By including the readers in her analysis, she forces them to reflect on themselves and people they know—not just her and her narrative. If anyone has experienced something like this, it thus only further helps her to prove her point. Toni Morrison essentially argues that strangers are created to an even greater extent by the human fault of imposing our own perceptions upon them—even if it does not match up with the reality of who they are. She uses an anecdote to give herself credibility, and afterwards analyzes it through real life examples that readers can relate to and understand, and furthermore appeal to their emotions. Through these strategies, she elucidates her argument.
Toni Morrison’s essay, Strangers, is an allegory - a narrative that serves as an extended metaphor. The intention of Morrison’s allegory is to communicate the disguised moral message that we, as humans, continuously use generalizations so that we may distinguish ourselves with a “specific individuality” (78). By choosing to write this essay as a personal narrative, as seen throughout the essay when she speaks in first person about her experiences, Morrison is able to illustrate to the readers the importance and influence the experience described has on her. What makes the essay an allegory is Morrison’s storytelling of a time when she met a “witty” (76) woman who sat “on the seawall at the edge of a neighbor’s garden” using a “homemade fishing pole” to fish (75). This woman, who is merely a figment of her imagination, serves as the extended metaphor to convey Morrison’s beliefs. Morrison specifically states that the woman’s name is “Mother Something” (76). “Something” is a vague word. Morrison names the woman with a generalization term in order to show how people label others as unclear and uncertain to them. The denotation of the word “something” suggests that a “thing is unknown”. This is where the title of her essay is derived, Strangers. The denotation of the word “stranger” directly means “a person whom one does not know”. Morrison uses vague, open-ended language in order to allow the reader to interpret her intended message in the way he or she can best possibly do so. With the use of Mother Something as a metaphor, Morrison is able to communicate her idea that people categorize other people into large generalizations in order to make themselves feel more individualized and special.
Toni Morrison gives the audience an image of the setting and atmosphere from the very beginning of the essay. The essay is told with the intention of introducing the photography of Robert Bergman Morris. The author expresses the importance of one specific stranger that she encountered in her voice. Morris’s word choice captivates the audience as well as supports the purpose of the essay. Morrison encourages the audience to connect with the literary piece. The author notes that there are preconceived notions about strangers. She asks, “Isn’t that the kind of thing that way we fear strangers will do?” (77). The author then goes own to answer herself saying that strangers typically disturb and betray like all of the other ones. Morrison uses the diction to change the mood of the essay. The beginning of the essay is written in a lighter tone. The author plays with words such as “delightful” and “welcome”, which then turn into words like “unforgivable” and “disappointment”. (76)(77). The ending of the story is a bit darker than the beginning and it is also honest. Morris says, “… the word truth needs quotation marks around it so that its absence is stronger than its presence.” She never articulates or definite opinions without changing the tone. The tone and diction shaped the entire atmosphere. Strangers bring out different parts of us, and the general public is under the impression that it is insisted upon to “specific individuality.” The predicament of the essay is that annoyance and bitterness took the place of the original bewilderment. The tone completely shifts in this scene because Morris changed moods in a very short period of time.
The purpose of Toni Morrison’s introduction is to make the audience, the people who will view Bergman’s portraits, question the conventional way to view strangers as completely random people through her personal narrative, inquisitive tone, and definitions. When Morrison writes her personal narrative about the woman who is fishing and who suddenly disappears, she connects with the audience by creating pathos through a common situation. Morrison states that the woman “reminds [her] of someone, something. [She] imagines a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful” (Morrison, 76). She appeals to common hope that meeting a seemingly nice stranger could lead into a new, fun, and hopefully lasting friendship. Her personal narrative stereotypically ends with the stranger disappearing and her feeling the ache of “disappointment” (Morrison, 77). Morrison shows that her personal narrative is a relatable and a stereotypical encounter with a stranger through her inquisitive tone. She asks, “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do? Disturb. Betray. Prove they are not like us” (Morrison, 77). Morrison questions the common fear the audience has with interacting with strangers—the possibility of a stranger not reciprocating kindness or acknowledgement. Her rhetorical question fits in with the conventional way to view strangers as people that should be avoided. Her next few rhetorical questions further this view: “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another? Why would we want to close the distance when we can close the gate?” (Morrison, 78). The audience does not feel comfortable with strangers, and Morrison makes this idea clear through her personal narrative relating to what the audience typically experiences and explains their reasoning for avoiding strangers through her inquisitive tone. In contrast to the audience’s beliefs, Morrison exposes her purpose of making strangers “versions of ourselves” (Morrison, 78) through the definitions she establishes while analyzing strangers. She redefines “language, image, and experience” (Morrison, 78). According to Morrison, language “can encourage…the breach of distances among us” (Morrison, 78), “image increasingly rules the realm of shaping…knowledge” (Morrison, 78), and both of these together “feed and form experience” (Morrison, 78). By redefining these powerful words, Morrison shows how the audience can help to redefine how they view strangers and see them as “our own mirrors” (Morrison, 78). In conclusion, Morrison changes the view of the audience that she portrays through personal narrative and her inquisitive tone by using definitions to show “that there are no strangers” (Morrison, 78).
Toni Morrison uses the strategy of story telling to help the reader further understand and visualize his point, and answer the question: “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another?”(78). The use of adjectives in the beginning of Morrison’s story elicits a positive tone, but as the story advances, more of a negative tone develops. Morrison describes his stranger with characteristics such as “easy smile”(75) and “witty and full of wisdom” (76). As the man is talking to this stranger, a feeling of “welcome washes” (75) over him and he can “imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful”(76). Through the use of story-telling and positive adjectives used within that story, Morrison draws a picture in which a man becomes friends with a stranger leading the reader to believe that it is easier and better to become friends with a stranger because positive reactions come from it. However, Morrison changes the tone of the story, with the use of adjectives, to further demonstrate that befriending strangers is more hurtful than anything. Adjectives such as “awful”(77), “deceit” (77), and “disappointment”(77) are used to describe the stranger and describe how the stranger makes the man feel, which is the opposite of how he felt in the beginning of the story. Morrison used the rhetorical device of tone changing to show that it is easier to estrange a stranger than become friends with one because the feeling of disappointment will be avoided. Morrison uses Robert Bergman’s portraits of strangers to help answer his question: “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another?”(78). Through Morrison’s analysis of the portraits, he comes to the idea that it was not the stranger that evoked these negative feelings within him, but himself. Strangers “are only versions of ourselves that we have not embraced” (78) and that is why the tone changes in the story, because a new side of the man is being brought out, a side he has never seen before and a side that he is unfamiliar with. Toni Morrison uses the rhetorical device of tone change in his story and explanation of the portraits to demonstrate his point that its not befriending strangers that is hard, but befriending a side of oneself that has never been unveiled.
In Toni Morrison’s “Strangers” essay, the structure of the essay ultimately leads up to Robert Bergman’s photographs. To start, Morrison starts the essay as a narrative and then switches to a very general description of strangers and who they are in our lives. By starting her essay with a narrative about herself and saying “I see a woman sitting on the seawall” (75), she confuses the reader and makes them feel as if they are the strangers. When she then goes into generally describing the woman, a stranger, she uses very simple sentences and language. These simple ideas in it give the reader a general perception of who the woman is. Also, since her essay is titled “Strangers” and she just met a stranger, she uses this simple writing style to illustrate how we only tend to know the basics about someone we first meet. Also, Toni Morrison’s language in the essay is very important to the underlying message that she is trying to get the reader to think about. Her diction includes a lot of contradiction and alliteration. When she says things like “feeds the form” or “rules the realm” and “humanity from commodity” (78), she makes the reader curious about what she is trying to say, making them rethink what they are reading or their own views on the issue. Similarly, Morrison places questions in the essay to continue to confuse the reader and question their ideas. However, to counteract the uncertainty of the reader, Morrison then inserts blunt words like “Disturb. Betray” to add a sense of certainty to the story. At this point, the reader can be confused about what is being said and this is when Morrison connects strangers to the photographs of Robert Bergman. This is where she states the importance of strangers and their impacts on a community as she also introduces a book of the photography of strangers.
Toni Morrison employs the use of story telling in her piece entitled "Strangers." She talks about a woman she met in her neighbor's yard, whom she looked for but never found again. Her tone throughout the story portion of the text is casual, as if she is in conversation with the reader. Her sentences are straightforward and easy to understand. Her casual tone in telling the story allows the reader to view the situation as Morrison does. Once her story ends, her tone shifts to a more complex one. She references outside sources, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Robert Bergman, to establish pathos. She uses phrases that are more difficult to understand and require more than solely reading, such as "succumbing to the perversions of media" (Morrison 78). She also uses rhetorical questions: "Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another? Why would we want to close the distance when we can close the gate?" (Morrison 78). These questions indicate to the reader Morrison's train of thought, which, once again, allows the reader to view the situation from Morrison's point of view. She ends her essay by telling the reader the reason for her reflection, which were Robert Bergman's "radiant portraits of strangers" (Morrison 78). She praises his gallery, stating that his "photographs unveil us, asserting a beauty, a kind of rapture..." (Morrison 79). Her final reference to Robert Bergman, while establishing pathos as I stated before, also shows the importance of art in society, which is an underlying message of her essay. Morrison's use of story telling, a shift in tone from casual to complex, and rhetorical questions allow the reader to step into her shoes and see the situation as she does. Morrison does so in order to illustrate her point that strangers are "not foreign," but "random" (Morrison 78), and that they represent a "version of ourselves" that "we have not embraced" (Morrison 78).
Toni Morrison uses the construction of her essay as a major rhetorical device in portraying the complex relationship between strangers. She begins with a friendly tone, describing the stranger with “pleasure [of] clothes” although she’s in “men’s shoes [and] a man’s hat.” However she quickly changes tone when stating “awful shoes.” This change in tone describes the conflicting beliefs between strangers. Following the simple, personal narrative, Morrison shifts into using wordy language, providing a philosophical-like tone. She melds together many complex thoughts about strangers in order to force her readers to do a close, thoughtful reading—taking into account every single word. Additionally, it is key to notice Morrison’s abrupt change in language: she describes the strange woman at first glance of having “an easy smile” and a “feeling of welcome”, but when she discovers that no one else knows of this stranger she speaks of, the woman becomes of “no value” and “awful.” Because Morrison feels “cheated, puzzled, but also amused” this change in tone is done to display how as humans, we blame others for our confusion and frustration in order to protect ourselves.
Toni Morrison exhibits a sense of equality with the reader as she, step by step, exemplifies the flaw in entrusting hope into a stranger through her methods of paragraph organization, word choice, and sentence structure. Morrison seeks to show her audience, someone with whom she speaks to as her equal—not to instruct or educate but, rather, to explain her thought process to as she experiences it herself. She displays the regression of her hopefulness in mankind through the tone of each of her paragraphs. The first paragraph shows clarity, her thoughts are concise and sentences include one or two clauses which do not stray from the point, describing the woman with clear observations, “easy smile”, “the clothes she wears:…” (75). This attitude slowly transforms to that of the second, giving the reader a bitter taste in their mouth of doubt, regret, and betrayal. What once began as methodical lists of the Mother Something’s characteristics, transformed into transparent, illusionary descriptions, using words such as “dream”, “deceit”, “space”, and “opinion” (76-77). This shift in tone exemplifies to the reader that the author is, in that moment of transition, experiencing a drastic shift in moral perception—coming to a deeper understanding of the stranger’s importance. Morrison purposefully separated the two attitudes of the passage through word choice and the content of ideas is done in order to parallel the real life feeling of betrayal and doubt. She takes the reader along for the ride as if they are experiencing this deceit first hand right along side her.
The author of “Strangers”, Toni Morrison, uses her influential power of tone to establish a warm, welcoming, and secure mood at the beginning of the essay. This setting, which is achieved by short sentences and familiar, sensational diction, eases readers into her thought process and experience of meeting a fisherwoman, a stranger to her. This occurrence however is simply for the purpose of exemplifying her broadening of the logic behind Robert Bergman’s portraits. The established feeling of comfort is suddenly changed as Morrison felt “cheated, puzzled, but also amused” (76). This moment, intensified by the contradictory word choice, sets the new tone for the rest of the essay, in which Morrison addressed human perception of the concept of strangers. Rhetorical questioning plays an important role in inviting the reader to reflect upon their own experiences and evaluate the feeling encountered when interacting with a stranger. Additionally, it allows readers to form their own opinions on Morrison’s claims. She asks “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do? Disturb. Betray” (77). While she goes on to claim that the purpose of strangers is to prove they are not like us, the original question proposed asks the readers to simply think of their own view. Morrison’s expert use of these rhetorical devices allows her purpose to come through fully.
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Right off the bat Morrison employs rhetorical strategies when she uses an example to support her claim that we assign stories to strangers we meet too often. The example she uses is her story of the woman wearing “...men’s shoes, a man’s hat, a well-worn colorless sweater over a long black dress” (75). By doing so, Morrison is making the essay more personal and allowing the reader to imagine a situation in which a story was assigned to a stranger. Also Morrison’s writing becomes more successful when she establishes a sort of process when she describes how she felt “cheated, puzzled, but also amused” (76) followed by “...annoyance then bitterness [which] takes the place of [her] original bewilderment” (76). She is describing a process that she goes through after discovering the strange woman was not who she imagined her to be. Something that stuck out to me was how this process (of puzzlement then amusement then annoyance then bitterness) is a series of stages that is almost similar to something like the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Moreover, because of this, the message I got behind “Stranger” was that we create these elaborate stories and design these situations in which we interact with certain people, but once they fail to occur the way we had imagined we go through this process of bitterness and grief, as if we lost something that never even existed. Morrison delivers this message through her example and her description of this process. Also, the author describes the cause of this whole story-making tendency we have as humans, hence establishing a cause and effect. She describes how “...routine media presentations deploy images and language that narrow our view of what humans look like” (78). The media feeds us these images that we learn to love and desire and as a result we allocate these images to people we barely know. Overall, Morrison employs a variety of rhetorical strategies which strengthen and make her argument so meaningful: we all are guilty of blaming some stranger for “turning a personal world into a public hell” (77).
Morrison elaborately uses a metaphor of a stranger to communicate to readers a larger message- one that speaks of the unavoidable judgment that people initially lay on others. Morrison initially describes herself as approaching the other woman and immediately noticing “men’s shoes, a man’s hat, a well-worn colorless sweater over a long black dress (Morrison, 75).” Many individuals might negatively judge such an appearance of a woman, but Morrison writes that she approached her as a “feeling of welcome (Morrison, 75)” washed over her. After spending time with the woman for just a short period, they must leave each other, but not until promising to meet again. With time, Morrison realizes that her encounter was not all that she had thought it was. While the encounter might not have been legitimate, Morrison gains an understanding that proves to be even more legitimate: initial perceptions can cloud realities. Later in Morrison’s essay, she extends her stranger metaphor and ties it to contemporary examples of clouded realities, such as media. “Routine media presentations deploy images and language that narrow our view of what humans look like (or ought to look like) (Morrison, 78),” meaning that media sources skew the images of celebrities in such a way that they become part of a practically distorted reality. They are not portrayed in a legitimate way, and unfortunately, individuals begin to perceive such false realities with the truth. Morrison’s use of an extended metaphor of a stranger shows the essential difference between perception and reality, and helps her address contemporary issues of distorted realities.
In the article “Strangers”, author Toni Morrison sought to persuade and inform her audience, the whole human race, that we tend to assume a “specific individuality (78)” for our own emotional sustenance upon encountering strangers. The structure of the text is guided by the emotional appeal from a personal anecdote that function as an allegory: delighted, bewildered, annoyance, bitterness, and finally, rejection. Using a narrative voice, Morrison incorporated diction, allusion, repetition, and other rhetorical devices to establish the purpose. In the beginning, the narrator claimed that the setting is “newly [hers](75)”, which elicits a sense of curiosity to explore the place just like how she is drawn to communicate with the stranger. She then “noticed with pleasure (75)” about the unique style of the stranger’s clothing, which might be amusing for her to see, but arguably not a pleasure for the stranger to wear. The narrator also accuses the stranger of stepping into “[her] space (77)”, for which she followed with a parenthetical explanation that the woman is at the “fence, where the most interesting things always happen (77)” because it is the barrier between an individual and others that suggest the narrator’s affection for the stranger. Later, the narrator alluded to both the prophets in the Bible and Jean-Paul Sartre, a French existentialist philosopher not only to establish authority, but also to make connections with the audience with archetypes such as “hell (77)”. By using the word “public hell (77)”, Morrison effectively implied the significance of “other people (77)” to us because they can in fact “unveil us (79)” from the reflection of parts of us that we see within them. Another important idea to note is that repetition of words such as “instant (78)”, “immediately (78)” as well as the asyndeton used to describe the stranger’s clothing; they all give a sense of haste, suggesting that the conclusion made by the narrator and by others when they first encounter strangers is influenced by the initial perception, which is often different from the reality. Finally, the anecdote also introduces the idea of identity. The stranger told the narrator that her name is “Mother Something (76)” , a very ambiguous identity that “reminds [the narrator] of someone, something (76)” because this ambiguity allowed the narrator to attribute an identity or a “specific individuality (78)” to her.
In Toni Morrison’s “Strangers,” Morrison chooses to describe her personal experience of judging a women she sees fishing near her property to prove her point that when one sees a stranger, he or she will automatically make assumptions and prejudices about who the stranger is and what they are like based on what the person looks like and is doing at the time. Morrison implies that the root of our making assumptions comes from a feeling of fear. She states that “the randomness of an encounter with our already known…selves summons a ripple of alarm”(78), meaning that because people are uncomfortable with things they are unsure about, they make assumptions to fill to fill a void that they feel must be filled in order to feel at ease. Her statement is something that her audience can easily relate to and understand, which is why her own story about the fishing women can be easily understood by her readers. To prove her point, Morrison alludes to Jean-Paul Sartre and the Bible by describing both Sartre and the Bible’s claim that “strangers…are understood to tempt our gaze, to slide away or to stake claims”(77). By making the allusion, she supports her previous claim about fear being the cause of our actions. Furthermore, Morrison’s condescending tone when criticizing social media for “deploy[ing] images and language that narrow our views of what humans look like... and what in fact we are like”(78) helps explains what happened in her story and what we do on a regular basis. Lastly, one of the most powerful choices that Morrison makes as the author is challenging the credibility of the word truth. Her mentioning of the value of the word truth, may be a further religious allusion talking about the difference between truth, which is basic fact that can be proven, and Truth, which is a worldwide accepted concept or idea. People have trouble distinguishing between the two and also the Truth has been majorly affected by the plurality of world views, which is why Morrison states that the word’s "absence is stronger than its presence”(78). By Morrison’s usage of personal experiences, condescending tone, allusions, and word diction, she establishes her credibility to her audience and allows her readers to validate her claim that because of fear, all humans make assumptions based on prior experiences before they know the actual facts.
Toni Morrison starts off her “Strangers” not only by introducing the fisherwoman as a stranger, but buy using the present and progressive tenses—not talking to the reader, but more to herself, saying “I am in this river” and “I see a woman sitting on the seawall” (75) creating the atmosphere that reader, himself or herself, is a stranger. Additionally, in the first paragraph, the meeting is not so much a “meeting” as a one-sided witness of the woman in the river. She observes her “men’s shoes” and “man’s hat” and “well-worn colorless sweater” (75). This is the imprinting “imagery” Morrison talks about later in the essay—one of the “godlings,” next to language (78). The tone of the essay begins light-heartedly, softly. When Morrison meets the woman in the river she describes a “feeling of welcome” wash over her (75), and that feeling translates in her writing with her simple sentences, which allow the reader to easily follow the simple, light, friendly encounter she describes. She says that their parting is “with an understanding that she will be there the next day” (76). She daydreams of conversing with the woman again and hopes that she can invite the fisherwoman, whom she calls “Mother Something,” to her house “for, coffee, for tales, for laughter,” (76) using the repetition of the word “for” to give extra emphasis and attention to those actions; obviously this woman has left a positive, hopeful impression on Morrison—but it changes once the woman does not show up at the river again.
The tone changes slightly from hope and anticipation to disappointment, puzzlement, and betrayal (76). The author begins to use rhetorical questions to begin her paragraphs, such as “Isn’t that the kind of thing we fear strangers will do?” following such a question with one-word, separate-sentence answers: “Disturb. Betray” (77). These are blunt words placed in a blunt fashion meant to not only stick out to the reader, but also stick the reader in the side. The simple sentence structure is continued, but the purpose is not for soft comprehension but for frankness, which displays the change of tone into this betrayed attitude. She stops calling the woman “Mother Something,” a honeyed title for a stranger, instead calling her just “fisherwoman.”
Morrison carefully chose diction that was meant to contradict, even confuse. She used antonyms to describe things or ideas; repeats similar letters: “form from formula” (78); similar sounds and words: “rules the realm,” “feeds the form,” “to remain human and to block dehumanization” (78); similar suffixes: “humanity from commodity” (78)—all to intrigue the reader and get him or her to question. She questions the need for quotations around the word “truth,” so “its absence (its elusiveness) is stronger than its presence). She also uses unclear pronoun references when referring to the “different selves” and the “Other” in paragraphs nine. Morrison uses manipulation of language to somewhat confuse the reader (only to the point in which they must reanalyze either her words or his or her own thoughts). She displays in her writing the very “power of embedded images and stylish language to seduce, reveal and control” that she makes mention of on page 78 with her connotative descriptions of language, image, and experience. Her “definitions” of these devices does not denote the styles, but are instead a list of meaningful verbs, even using personification, saying that language “can encourage,” “mandate,” and “surrender” (78). The very last paragraph of the essay, Morrison speaks hypothetically about an important event “of artistic endeavor” only to revel that the gallery by Bergman is said important event. This is done to extenuate the uniqueness and significance behind the artwork in the gallery. She finishes her essay with a statement that his work could capture the “singularity, the community” of the human race, conflicting ideas that express the complexity of people that Morrison
Morrison makes frequent use of varying sentence structure, and asyndeton to create a sense of finality in her essay. In addition she uses rhetorical questioning and allusions to evoke emotional response and personal connotative meaning to her points in the reader. She talks about how she forgot language and image's ability to “seduce, reveal, control. Forgot, too, their capacity to help us pursue the human project” (Morrison, 78). By structuring her sentence without conjunctions, she adds a certain finality to her assertion that language can seduce, reveal, and control. It adds a building tension and emphasizes the words she uses. Followed immediately by a fragment, her previous sentiment about language’s ability is emphasized in an added capacity to reveal humanity. She uses a similar approach on page 77 when she describes what strangers do: “Disturb. Betray. Prove they are not like us.” The stand-alone words/sentences leave the words lingering, imprinted in the readers’ mind. By using short, choppy sentences, the meanings are emphasized and easier to digest than long-winded sentences. Throughout the work, Morrison also evokes the readers’ personal connotations with the topic through rhetorical questioning and in allusion. She asks “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do?” (Morrison, 77) and “why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another?” (Morrison, 78), and by doing so invokes the reader to associate their own personal feelings and experiences with the topic she is addressing. It allows the points to become more relatable, more understandable, more memorable, and thus more impactful. Similarly, she invokes the readers’ own experiences when alluding to the “religious prophets” (Morrison, 77) in reference to how we treat strangers. The religious prophets are figures most people are somewhat familiar with and have certain connotations with. These connotations color the way we view strangers, and thus the points Morrison discusses in this work.
Toni Morrison plays around with the relationship between diction and tone to establish and change the mood in her essay Strangers. The essay starts out very warmly as exemplified by “a feeling of welcome washed over me” (75). Morrison uses very familiar and homey words to create a familiar atmosphere for the reader . Morrison uses words and phrases like “homemade,” “feeling of welcome,” "easy smile,” “ pleasure,” “well-worn,” “reminds me of someone,” “understanding,” “causal,” and “effortless” to create a very wholesome, friendly, safe environment that is not normally present when meeting and talking to strangers. Her word choices create a familiar atmosphere and that atmosphere creates the tone of the first paragraph— very light, loving, easy going, nurtured, and safe. Then there is an abrupt change in diction seen through Morrison’s word choices including “no value,” “annoyance,” “bitterness,” “deceit,” “disappointment,” “awful,” and “unforgivable.” This change can be seen through Morrison’s use of ethos as well as diction when she says “I feel cheated, puzzled, but also amused, and wonder off and on if I have dreamed her” (76). The abrupt change in the diction of the essay immediately changes the mood as well as the tone from warm, fuzzy and friendly to angry, discontent, and irritated. Morrison makes the essay personal, to the point where the reader feels as if they are witnessing and they are apart of the events described in the story. Not only by making the essay personal and anecdotal, Morrison is using both ethos and logos to get her point across to her readers— we are often too quick to judge someone/thing based off of our perception and what we already know and that can be dangerous. Morrison truthfully admits that with a hint of ethos when she says “my instant embrace of an outrageously dressed fisherwoman was due in part to an image on which my representation of her was based” (78). Morrison demonstrates logos when she says “it took some time of me to understand my unreasonable claims on that fisherwoman” (78). Morrison realizes and acknowledges that she judged the fisherwomen based off of her appearance and she set preconceived notions and that is not something that should be done when dealing with strangers because "there are no strangers,” rather there “are only versions of ourselves, many of which we have not embraced, most of which we wish to protect ourselves from” (78). Morrison’s use of contrasting words to change the essay ultimately in its tracks and change it completely catches the reader off guard, but it manipulates the reader into empathizing with Morrison, and then agreeing with her epiphany and ultimately, the reader can get a new perspective on strangers from this.
Morrison provides the anecdote of the woman in the river to reveal the broader meanings within one snapshot of Robert Bergman’s photographs. Evidently she reveals that we are drawn to the mystery and the unknown that strangers uphold and often we fill the “unknown” with qualities reflecting ourselves. From the start, Morrison is drawn not merely to the woman but rather to her “men’s shoes, a man’s hat, a well-worn colorless sweater over a long black dress”(75), thus she uses description to prominently depict the differences that this woman obtains. These differences elicit the mystery that draws Morrison in. As a result, Morrison than fills in particular unanswered qualities with that of her own as she subconsciously forgets the woman’s name but remembers that it is “Mother something”(76). Morrison, being a mother herself, would obviously see this as a very positive quality leading her to assume that the stranger is “full of wisdom”(76). The author makes assumptions that she believes to be logically correct proving the point that we automatically fill unknown qualities with reflections of ourselves. Subtly, Morrison claims, “she reminds me of someone, something. I imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful”(76). Unknowingly, Morrison is reminded of herself as most of what she thought she knew of the stranger was made up in her mind. Morrison’s ability to subtly portray this reflects the subtleness in which we depict strangers. That is, being drawn to the mystery of strangers and subconsciously filling in the blanks with reflections of ourselves.
Organization is a key rhetorical strategy in Strangers Toni Morrison. The essay begins as a narrative, progresses into an analysis of her behavior in the narrative, shifts into a more general analysis of strangers and their role in our lives, and finally connects it all to Bergman’s photographs, which the essay introduces. Beginning the essay with a personal narrative brings the reader in. It is somewhat of an en medias res narrative; the reader is dropped into the story without context. This device confuses the reader just enough to intrigue them and make them want to keep reading to understand what they’ve just been thrown into. The reader is further pulled into the essay by the uniqueness of the narrative. The themes of false hope, being let down, and expectations not being lived up to that is played out in the narrative triggers an emotional response in the reader. Morrison then gets into the more analytical portion of her essay, which is much more effective because of the intrigue attained from the reader through the set up of and emotions triggered by the narrative. If the essay had instead started out with the analysis/explanation of strangers and their role in our lives or if the personal narrative had been omitted, it would have been much less effective.
In this essay, Morrison writes on the effects that complete strangers can have on us for the purpose of introducing and explaining the significance of Robert Bergman’s photography. Morrison succeeds in having such a strong effect on readers by using rhetorical strategies, such as strong diction and various literary devices, but the most important rhetorical strategies that she uses are organization and the use of emotion. The organization of this essay definitely contributes to its success. Morrison begins by describing a mysterious event that involves a stranger. This immediately captures her reader’s attention and makes them ponder why the stranger had such a big effect on Morrison. Morrison then briefly abandons her story about the mysterious fisherwoman and talks generally about the role strangers play in our lives and what they really represent. Next, Morrison connects her story with her explanation of the significance of strangers by explaining why she was so affected by this woman; she concluded that she was actually “missing some aspect of [herself].” The order in which she wrote the essay allowed me to think for myself why a stranger was so important to her and why one might be important in my life. Then, it made me think even more deeply about the role of strangers once she connected her story with her analysis. In this way, Morrison uses emotion in the essay to have a greater impact on her readers. While reading it, readers are forced to think about their own encounters with strangers, and once Morrison connects her story with her analysis, it forces readers to think about the deeper meaning of their experiences with strangers and what they really represent or reveal about themselves. After reading this essay, it is impossible to deny the importance of strangers in our lives, which is why it is so successful in introducing the ingenuity of Bergman’s portraits.
Toni Morrison provides “Strangers” as an introduction to a book of photographs by Robert Bergman. The purpose of Morrison’s “Strangers” is to show the impact strangers can have on you. This is fittingly the introduction to a book of photographs because with each person in a photograph, you encounter a stranger. One way she explains the purpose of the photographs is by bringing the reader into her story. In her first words, she pulls you right in with her. She doesn’t provide context or background information; she just starts telling you a story. She says, “I am in this river place,” and immediately you’re there too (75). This is similar to a photograph. You’re attention is immediately captured by the image, and it pulls you in with whomever is in the picture. You can only start to figure it out if you continue looking because there is no explanation—just a picture of a person. You don’t know that person’s name, similarly to how the narrator only remembered the woman’s name to be “Mother Something,” (76). You don’t know that person’s backstory. You don’t know anything. Another way Morrison pulls the reader in is by directly asking the reader questions. “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do?” (77). By asking the reader questions, Morrison makes her explanation more personal and relatable in allowing the reader to actually apply it to him or herself. The questions provide a connection between the author and the reader. Morrison parallels her story about Mother Something and the reader with a photograph of a stranger and its observer. After her explanation of the impact of a stranger on someone in her engaging story by pulling the reader in, Morrison then draws a connection to the reader with her direct questions to him or her. After this, she relates the story and explanation to strangers in photographs, providing an engaging and logical explanation to the impact strangers and effectively introducing a book of photographs of strangers.
In Toni Morrison’s Stranger, Morrison uses descriptive language such as “a feeling of welcome” and “pleasure of clothes” along with “an easy smile” in order to distinguish pathos or appeal to the senses with the reader. The reader feels the emotions and experiences Morrison’s story with her through these descriptive words. Morrison emphasizes her excitement to have a relationship with the stranger she meets by the use of asyndeton, as seen in the quote “I imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful.” Again, Morrison uses pathos in the quote “every morning of her deceit and my disappointment” to express her upset with no longer knowing where her new friend has gone. Then, Morrison switches tones and brings in ethos or authority to prove her point about strangers. She quotes Jean-Paul Sartre and his opinion on love as possession. Morrison lastly establishes logos by explaining that “language, image, and experience” are people’s only resources to determine which experiences are real and which ones are from people’s imagination. Morrison effectively conveys to her readers that she was happy to meet this stranger while also being very upset when she could no longer find her. Morrison then establishes logos and ethos in order to prove that someone’s perception of strangers is up to their emotions and that someone’s senses are what they rely on to decided what is a reality and what is false.
Morrison begins by telling the story of a stranger she saw fishing at her neighbor’s house. She experiences “a feeling of welcome” as she approaches her. She goes on to to say that the stranger never comes back like she had hoped. When I was reading this, I thought it was just going to be a story when in actuality she only used the story to add a picture to her main point and as most stories do, it also established pathos because it gave the audience something to connect to, a feeling of emotion to draw them into the essay. The story is a personal experience of something that everyone finds themselves guilty of–judgment, which Morrison goes on to use her unique language to make the reader think and realize how they view strangers in their lives. The organization of this essay is brilliant because it starts off with a simple story that turns into something so much deeper and more complex.
Morrison uses very descriptive, clear language to get her point across. In the first paragraph on page 78, she uses many lists of 3 carefully chosen words like “encourage, mandate, and surrender” when talking about how languages can breech the distances around us or when she says image often shapes, becomes, and contaminates knowledge. Each of these lists force the audience to think and analyze each list and individual word in order to help them understand how language, image, and experience affect the relationships we have with other people.
While Morrison informs us about her claim, she also uses questioning to force the reader to evaluate his or her own life. She asks, “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another?” and “Why would we want to close the distance when we can close the gates?” She asks these questions to get the reader thinking about what they believe, too. I mean why would we want to know strangers if it is easier to be around the people we are already comfortable with? It is a valid question and probably one that no one has ever seriously considered before.
In Toni Morrison's Strangers, Morrison utilizes rhetorical strategies to express the idea that strangers are in fact not strangers, but instead “only versions of ourselves” (78). The first part of the essay describes an anecdote that depicts a spontaneous encounter between the narrator and another women—whose very existence is left unclear to the narrator. The narrator uses the anecdote as a rhetorical device to demonstrate the effect that this “stranger” had on her life. In her anecdote, Morrison employs many rhetorical devices in order to appeal to the reader’s emotions, such as listing. As an attempt to explain the reasoning behind the strange encounter, she uses this device by noting that the encounter gave her feelings, “…of female camaraderie, of opportunities for [her] to be generous, of protection and protecting” (77). Another way that she appeals to the emotions is through diction. Multiple times throughout the text Morrison mentions religion and art, two institutions that elicit both a higher sense of spirituality and controversy. The author believes that “in the admonition of a prophet and the sly warning of an artists strangers as well as the beloved are understood to temp our gaze” (77). Morrison also uses questions as a rhetorical strategy. In order to maintain the reader’s attention and keep the reader engaged, the narrator asks questions that she does not necessarily answer. She uses this by asking multiple questions succession such as, “What was she doing in that neighborhood anyway?... How could she be missed on the road in that hat, those awful shoes?” (77).
Morrison starts off the essay with a story that automatically draws the attention of the reader, and causes the reader to reflect on his/her own life, to try and see if they have ever experienced a similar situation. The story she tells has to do with her meeting a stranger and feeling drawn to her, "notic[ing] with pleasure the clothes she wears: men's shoes, a man's hat, a well-worn colorless sweater over a long black dress" (75). Describing her immediate reaction to this woman draws a parallel to the judgement that one places on another during the first meeting, and it also appeals to the emotions of each reader because it offers a circumstance every reader can reflect upon. Morrison then explains how the stranger disappeared by giving a list of emotions she went through, "cheated, puzzled, but also amused... annoyance, then bitterness" (76). Morrison employs her rhetorical strategies to hint to the reader that strangers aren't really all that different or strange, but instead "only versions of ourselves" (78) that can be found through meeting strangers. She poses an interesting question to the reader, regarding why there is a sort of universal fear of strangers. She states that people are afraid that strangers will "disturb. Betray. Prove they are not like us" (76). By asking this question, the reader questions why, in fact, he or she has grown up knowing that strangers could be dangerous, not to talk to them, etc. She then brings up the topic of religion, a rhetorical strategy that seems to be very useful, since almost everyone has had some sort of experience with religion. She says "the love that the prophets have urged us to offer the stranger is the same love that Jean-Paul Sartre could reveal as the very mendacity of Hell," (77). She then goes on to explain how everyone is responsible for the world being the way it is by saying ""other people" are responsible for turning a personal world into a public hell," (77) which explains how the actions of others affects everyone else, a topic that every reader can be familiar with.
Morrison begins the essay with choppy, definitive sentences to emulate the thought process one has when meeting a stranger for the purpose of bringing the reader into what they're about to experience in the book. Her descriptions of the first woman she talks about are all things you could notice from observing a picture: "men's shoes, a man's hat..." (75). She then proceeds to "imagine a friendship" (76) with the woman. This word choice is also evokes one feels when looking at a picture of someone. This strategy is indicative of the book Morrison wrote this essay for. On page 77, Morrison begins to write long-winded sentences that reflect her personal feeling about strangers. By establishing pathos with the reader, Morrison brings him or her to view the subjects in the photograph in a new way for the purpose of connecting with it. Morrison then establishes credibility by commenting that the photographs in the book are what made her come upon her reflection. Her praise for the book continues on page 79 where she uses words like "burnished majesty" and "rapture" to describe the work for the purpose of intriguing the reader.
Toni Morrison begins her essay “Strangers” with an anecdote, about meeting a woman, a “stranger”, fishing in her neighbor’s back yard. She immediately begins the anecdote with “I am in this river place” (75). Right off the bat she pulls the audience in and allows the reader to catch a glimpse of what she is experiencing. She further pulls the reader in with her use of asyndeton, causing him or her to become attune to Morrison’s thoughts and feelings when she is with the woman, for example, when she says “I will invite her into my house for coffee, for tales, for laughter…I imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful” (76). In addition, Morrison uses words like “we” and “us” for the purpose of making the audience take a look into and evaluate their own lives to see if they are guilty of treating strangers in such a way that Morrison does. When she uses “we” and “us” she includes the reader into her claims such as, “We deny her personhood, the specific individuality we insist upon for ourselves” and “That makes us reject the figure…It is also what makes us own, govern, administrate the Other. This creates an uneasy feeling in the reader for it makes known actions that he or she may not have been aware they adhered to. She effectively categorizes as not only her but also us collectively who fall short in seeing strangers as people and not just foreign.
As soon as you start reading Toni Morrison's "Strangers," you notice a rhetorical strategy: descriptive story telling. Morrison writes, with great detail, about the first time she met a woman. Morrison uses such detail because she wants to express how much of an impression this woman made on her. But the thing is, Morrison doesn't know her name; she calls her "Mother Something." Morrison chooses to call her "Mother Something" to emphasize the point that the first time you meet a stranger, you don't really know the person. You have to spend a lot of time with him or her to truly understand him or her. She writes that she forgot the stranger's name to really drive home that point.
Another device that I found interesting was in the line "(next to it, anyway—at the property line, at the edge, just at the fence, where the most interesting things always happen)." Morrison described the edge of her property three different ways. She did this because she wanted to stress how different views on something can cause an interesting outcome. She thought that the stranger was allowed to sit on her neighbor's wall, while her neighbor has never heard of this stranger. The interesting outcome of this situation is that Morrison now has to find out who this stranger is, and why she was sitting there.
Toni Morrison writes Strangers in order to convey the idea that strangers are “only versions of ourselves”(78). She achieves this through many rhetorical decisions including her use of parallel sentence structures which connect a more personal, specific example to one on larger terms that encapsulates our society as a whole. For example, she explains that language breaches the gap between individuals, whether it be “continental or on the same pillow”(78). Morrison uses repeated parallelisms like this in her sentences to throw out the distinction between the relationships of those in societies versus the relationship of friends, reinforcing the idea that strangers are simply a concept we have made up to avoid aspects of ourselves. In the beginning of the essay, Morrison takes her readers on the roller coaster of emotions that come with establishing a friendship then having it be ripped away. She begins her essay with a personal narration of this experience in order to institute a connection between her emotions in the scenario and each reader’s emotions while reading the story, resulting in pathos. Morrison starts the essay with the establishment of pathos to hook the readers- kindling their interest in the rest of what the author has to say and allowing her to construct a foundation to her claim that strangers are “only versions of ourselves".
Morrison’s “Stranger” claims people initially judge “strangers” through her usage of a metaphor, repetition, and rhetorical questions. Morrison describers her encounter with another woman—a fisherwoman referred to as “Mother Something”. They only spoke for a short period of time and promised to meet again. Morrison later realizes that her encounter was not real—it was simply a metaphor to represent the process of how individuals judge strangers. Morrison insults the metaphorical woman’s hat and “awful shoes”(Morrison 77) after their meeting, which provides a credible example of an individual judging another person. In addition to creating a metaphor to exemplify the judgment, Morrison repeats objectifying sentiments, including “I am, I see, and I feel” observations in the start of her essay. She does so to emphasize how humans are solely focused on what they see and feel, which makes people jump to forming opinions of a stranger rather than understand him or her. To speak to the reader’s emotions and own understanding of judging strangers, Morrison presents rhetorical questions. “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do?” (Morrison 77) Morrison asks the reader after analyzing her fake encounter with the woman. She is presenting her statement as a question, which gives it complexity. Morrison’s illegitimate fisherwoman story, repetition of opinion-based statements, and rhetorical questions all serve to support her statement that people judge strangers with their own opinionated perception, rather than acknowledging the reality.
Toni Morrison uses rhetorical devices such as logos, word choice, and diction to explain to the reader the influence of strangers on our lives. In the beginning of her essay, Morrison gives an anecdote of an experience she had with a stranger, whether this stranger was real or fake, she still influenced Morrison. After not seeing the woman she knew as “Mother Something”, she felt “cheated, puzzle, but also amused” (76). This stranger has caused Morison to miss someone she only talked to for fifteen minutes. Toni Morrison uses this as an example to prove that “There are no strangers. There are only versions of ourselves” (78). Morison primarily remembers the distinct images about “Mother Something”, which she later connects with the idea that we develop emotion towards these images and strangers just as she did with the fisherwoman. Also, at the very end of the essay, Morrison connects the idea that strangers are in images to the idea of Photography for the purpose of introducing Robert Bergman’s book of photography. She involves the reader in the text by using such words as “us” and “we” to develop a relationship between not only herself and the readers but also between the readers and the images. Morison varies the length of sentences to develop emotion because Morrison expresses her emotion toward her encounter with the fisherwoman. She writes, “I tell myself it was an encounter of no value other than Anecdotal. Still. Little by little, annoyance and bitterness takes the place of my original bewilderment.” (76). Morison adds still into the essay as it’s own sentence to create a pause and a distinct separation between the two surrounding sentences.
Toni Morrison’s “Strangers” exemplifies its purpose with the descriptive introduction leading to an alternative organizational structure, the incorporation and lists, and the continued use of first person pronouns. Morrison opens up the essay with an anecdote, using clear, precise, descriptive language. This descriptive language flows into a more scattered, yet organized thought process as Morrison blends the story into a more philosophical assessment of strangers. This organizational structure may be a little confusing but it encourages the reader to keep reading as this short story turns into a self evaluation on strangers. This organizational structure works because it supplies the reader with a story to compare to his or her daily life as Morrison allows for an examination with a deeper philosophical idea. Throughout the essay, Morrison uses lists to describe both the personal experiences and her philosophical thinking. She writes “I feel cheated, puzzled, but also amused” (76) and “encourage, even mandate, surrender” (78). These two specific examples provide clear, precise verbs to describe a specific feeling or idea. By incorporating these lists, Morrison provides a non definite answer to the feelings and thoughts she experiences. Thus, reminding the reader that we often feel more emotion at once, helping the reader to understand the different ways experience, language, and image affect how we view relationships with one another. Morrison utilizes first person pronouns such as “I” “me” “we” and “us” to make the essay more personal. By incorporating these pronouns, the essay speaks to the reader and allows the reader to compare what Morrison has to say about everyday life. Morrison’s purpose is to reveal the idea that strangers “are only versions of ourselves” (78). In other words, strangers bring out different parts of ourselves that when people meet, recognize as part of themselves. By adding these pronouns, Morrison builds on this idea of applying this to everyday life. All in all, this essay works because Morrison utilizes these rhetorical devices to accomplish her purpose.
In Strangers, Toni Morrison employs a narrative, anecdotal tone that soon switches to an analytical, reflective one to impart the reality of interacting with strangers and the resources in which human beings use to evaluate the said stranger. In addition to the different tones that eventually merge together to bring about the core of the piece, Morrison also employs varying sentence lengths and artistic allusions to convey how the perception of a stranger in an encounter reflects deeper aspects of ourselves that might or might not be desired to know. Morrison opens up the piece with an experience with a stranger, establishing her credibility and drawing the reader in at the same time. The anecdote of the fisherwoman draws in readers because it is relatable in the sense that they might have been in a similar situation, and are curious to see how Morrison responds, as her response might be the same or different, or a mixture of both. The anecdotal tone lasts through Morrison’s disappointment and anger as the fisherwoman does not return to the neighbor’s garden. Morrison’s use of short, choppy sentences, “She is not there the next day. She is not there the following days, either. And I look for her every morning.” (76) reflects her disappointment, imparting the effect strangers can have on a human being’s conscience. Morrison then goes on rhetorically question “why I am missing a woman I spoke to for 15 minutes” (77) revealing that the encounter with the stranger fisherwoman has brought up thoughts about aspects in her life that she may have thought she acquired but in fact lack like, “female camaraderie, of opportunities for me to be generous” (77). Morrison then distances herself from the reader by employing artistic allusions, implying that encounters with strangers are like Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, “as the very mendacity of Hell” (77), which is a reflection upon her own conscience. She also introduces the resources in which humans evaluate other humans which are “language, image, and experience” (78) in a very systematic manner, explaining the causes of human judgement based on language and image. Morrison then employs a reflective, analytical tone in regards to her experience with the fisherwoman and the resources of language and image she used to not only show how her original perception of the stranger revealed what is already embedded in her conscience, but also how her reflection and analysis of that moment revealed what she desires in life, and what she wants to change. The introduction of Robert Bergman’s portraits ties up the essay, revealing that the portraits don’t provide us comfort, but in fact discomfort because they uncover desires that are conjured by the appearance, or image, of the stranger.
In the short story, Strangers, Toni Morrison employs techniques of first person tense, rhetorical questioning, and asyndeton in sentence structure to illustrate how portraits reveal more about the observer than the person photographed. Morrison’s use of first person tense allows her to descriptively reveal the emotions she experienced in her interaction with the stranger. Noting feelings of “annoyance then bitterness…deceit and…disappointment,” Morrison develops an immediate relationship between herself and the reader over universal sentiments that everyone encounters. The author’s rhetorical questioning further personalizes the author’s connection with the reader by inducing “meditation” on his or her emotional reactions. By inquiring, “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do?” she encourages the reader to connect with the passage on an intimate level, interpret his or her inner responses, and so grasp her view more completely. The solitary and fragmented ideas in describing how strangers induce fear: “Disturb. Betray. Prove that they are not like us,” provide a more palpable definition in which the author highlights certain words for emphasis. Morrison’s asyndeton impresses upon the reader exactly how strangers evoke certain emotions. More negative than positive, the isolated words assist Morrison in reasoning how human nature is generally inclined to presume, often jumping to conclusions, certain opinions on strangers.
The organization of the text and the way Morrison choses her words in her essay entitled Stranger, contributes to the idea of perception versus reality in a profound way, intending to anecdotally teach a lesson of how misguided hope can be “unveiled” through the said photographs in the book. She starts off by establishing a homey tone with her diction and description by saying that there was a “feeling of welcome” in her “neighbor’s garden” with “homemade” (75) home decor to instill a sense of hospitality and security before she launches into her story about the stranger. Her conversation with the stranger seems incessant and filled with substance as they talked “about fish recipes and weather and children” (76). Morrison employed the tactic of polysyndeton in that sentence as if to frame out that within that short time, many topics were explored, and many connections were made. She then moves on to empathize about her situation and the most important thing in the middle paragraphs is that Morrison poses question after question about this stranger, which furthers the idea that the stranger was just “an image on which [her] representation was based” (78). The essay continues at a brisk pace, reflecting her rising emotions, when she starts to use the word “whether” (78) as an anaphora, drilling in her opinions without so much as a pause. Morrison wants to set the tone for the readers of the book to see the other perspectives of the photography in the book, and so she jumps from the small anecdote, to an expression of her feelings, to an analysis of her claims of an unreasonable stranger, then to circle it all back to human behavior in such a structured way, is the way Morrison sees life; in that there should be some struggle before a revelation and new perspective can be seen. Her tone throughout the text goes from narrative, to ponderous, to conclusive, and is all around conversational, which is shown evidently through the parenthetical statements scattered throughout the text. Morrison would state one thing and then in parentheses further elaborate it, for example when she says “it narrows our view of what humans look like” (78) and then in parentheses goes to say “or ought to look like” (78) inevitably shows the underlying theme of reality and perception that Morrison tried to convey throughout the essay. The emotion given in writing about such a uncommon topic such of a stranger makes the essay a perfect leeway into Robert Bergman’s book, as it unconventionally taught of looking in a different perspective.
Toni Morrison’s essay, “Strangers”, serves to comment on the day-to-day human encounter of individuals we are unfamiliar with. The author claims that strangers are only strangers because we ourselves make them so. She begins her demonstration of this through the use of an anecdote. By beginning with a short narrative, Toni Morrison immediately pulls the reader in. Her encounter—whether a true occurrence or one she imagined—serves as an example and evidence for the claim that she will make. Thus, she establishes her credibility as someone who has personally experienced what she argues. Her assertion is that strangers are strangers because we do not see the real them. Instead, we project our own wants and desires onto who we wish to see them as or how we wish to feel, thus ourselves creating the stranger. Morrison at first describes “Mother Something” in a flowery and optimistic way, “She is witty and full of wisdom…I will invite her into my house for coffee, for tales, for laughter. She reminds me of someone…I imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful” (76). The repeated positive illustration of Mother Something and her fictional relationship with the author serves as a false reality that Toni Morrison creates and imposes on the unfamiliar person. Thereby, she herself created a stranger who she never really got to know because she was too busy assigning her own characteristics and predictions about who she wanted Mother Something to be, and how she wanted their relationship to play out. However when things do not turn out as the author expected in the narrative, she feels “annoyance” (76), “bitterness” (76), and “chagrin” (77). Yet Toni Morrison was disappointed by no fault other than her own.
Toni Morrison sets up a comparison between her own fantasy encounter with Mother Something and the media and its “truth” to prove to the reader through a real life example that what she and others experienced is valid. Morrison writes that, “media presentations deploy images and language that narrow our view of what humans look like and what in fact we are like…media can blur vision” (78). Likewise, humans implement images and language that simplify, compartmentalize, and idealize others—a skewed vision of the reality that others truly are. The author says, “the stranger is not foreign, she is random, not alien but remembered…we deny her personhood, the specific individually we insist upon for ourselves” (78). Here the author appeals directly to human emotion through the use of the word “we” and “she”. By including the readers in her analysis, she forces them to reflect on themselves and people they know—not just her and her narrative. If anyone has experienced something like this, it thus only further helps her to prove her point.
Toni Morrison essentially argues that strangers are created to an even greater extent by the human fault of imposing our own perceptions upon them—even if it does not match up with the reality of who they are. She uses an anecdote to give herself credibility, and afterwards analyzes it through real life examples that readers can relate to and understand, and furthermore appeal to their emotions. Through these strategies, she elucidates her argument.
Toni Morrison’s essay, Strangers, is an allegory - a narrative that serves as an extended metaphor. The intention of Morrison’s allegory is to communicate the disguised moral message that we, as humans, continuously use generalizations so that we may distinguish ourselves with a “specific individuality” (78). By choosing to write this essay as a personal narrative, as seen throughout the essay when she speaks in first person about her experiences, Morrison is able to illustrate to the readers the importance and influence the experience described has on her. What makes the essay an allegory is Morrison’s storytelling of a time when she met a “witty” (76) woman who sat “on the seawall at the edge of a neighbor’s garden” using a “homemade fishing pole” to fish (75). This woman, who is merely a figment of her imagination, serves as the extended metaphor to convey Morrison’s beliefs. Morrison specifically states that the woman’s name is “Mother Something” (76). “Something” is a vague word. Morrison names the woman with a generalization term in order to show how people label others as unclear and uncertain to them. The denotation of the word “something” suggests that a “thing is unknown”. This is where the title of her essay is derived, Strangers. The denotation of the word “stranger” directly means “a person whom one does not know”. Morrison uses vague, open-ended language in order to allow the reader to interpret her intended message in the way he or she can best possibly do so. With the use of Mother Something as a metaphor, Morrison is able to communicate her idea that people categorize other people into large generalizations in order to make themselves feel more individualized and special.
Toni Morrison gives the audience an image of the setting and atmosphere from the very beginning of the essay. The essay is told with the intention of introducing the photography of Robert Bergman Morris. The author expresses the importance of one specific stranger that she encountered in her voice. Morris’s word choice captivates the audience as well as supports the purpose of the essay. Morrison encourages the audience to connect with the literary piece. The author notes that there are preconceived notions about strangers. She asks, “Isn’t that the kind of thing that way we fear strangers will do?” (77). The author then goes own to answer herself saying that strangers typically disturb and betray like all of the other ones. Morrison uses the diction to change the mood of the essay. The beginning of the essay is written in a lighter tone. The author plays with words such as “delightful” and “welcome”, which then turn into words like “unforgivable” and “disappointment”. (76)(77). The ending of the story is a bit darker than the beginning and it is also honest. Morris says, “… the word truth needs quotation marks around it so that its absence is stronger than its presence.” She never articulates or definite opinions without changing the tone. The tone and diction shaped the entire atmosphere. Strangers bring out different parts of us, and the general public is under the impression that it is insisted upon to “specific individuality.” The predicament of the essay is that annoyance and bitterness took the place of the original bewilderment. The tone completely shifts in this scene because Morris changed moods in a very short period of time.
The purpose of Toni Morrison’s introduction is to make the audience, the people who will view Bergman’s portraits, question the conventional way to view strangers as completely random people through her personal narrative, inquisitive tone, and definitions. When Morrison writes her personal narrative about the woman who is fishing and who suddenly disappears, she connects with the audience by creating pathos through a common situation. Morrison states that the woman “reminds [her] of someone, something. [She] imagines a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful” (Morrison, 76). She appeals to common hope that meeting a seemingly nice stranger could lead into a new, fun, and hopefully lasting friendship. Her personal narrative stereotypically ends with the stranger disappearing and her feeling the ache of “disappointment” (Morrison, 77). Morrison shows that her personal narrative is a relatable and a stereotypical encounter with a stranger through her inquisitive tone. She asks, “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do? Disturb. Betray. Prove they are not like us” (Morrison, 77). Morrison questions the common fear the audience has with interacting with strangers—the possibility of a stranger not reciprocating kindness or acknowledgement. Her rhetorical question fits in with the conventional way to view strangers as people that should be avoided. Her next few rhetorical questions further this view: “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another? Why would we want to close the distance when we can close the gate?” (Morrison, 78). The audience does not feel comfortable with strangers, and Morrison makes this idea clear through her personal narrative relating to what the audience typically experiences and explains their reasoning for avoiding strangers through her inquisitive tone. In contrast to the audience’s beliefs, Morrison exposes her purpose of making strangers “versions of ourselves” (Morrison, 78) through the definitions she establishes while analyzing strangers. She redefines “language, image, and experience” (Morrison, 78). According to Morrison, language “can encourage…the breach of distances among us” (Morrison, 78), “image increasingly rules the realm of shaping…knowledge” (Morrison, 78), and both of these together “feed and form experience” (Morrison, 78). By redefining these powerful words, Morrison shows how the audience can help to redefine how they view strangers and see them as “our own mirrors” (Morrison, 78). In conclusion, Morrison changes the view of the audience that she portrays through personal narrative and her inquisitive tone by using definitions to show “that there are no strangers” (Morrison, 78).
Toni Morrison uses the strategy of story telling to help the reader further understand and visualize his point, and answer the question: “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another?”(78). The use of adjectives in the beginning of Morrison’s story elicits a positive tone, but as the story advances, more of a negative tone develops. Morrison describes his stranger with characteristics such as “easy smile”(75) and “witty and full of wisdom” (76). As the man is talking to this stranger, a feeling of “welcome washes” (75) over him and he can “imagine a friendship, casual, effortless, delightful”(76). Through the use of story-telling and positive adjectives used within that story, Morrison draws a picture in which a man becomes friends with a stranger leading the reader to believe that it is easier and better to become friends with a stranger because positive reactions come from it. However, Morrison changes the tone of the story, with the use of adjectives, to further demonstrate that befriending strangers is more hurtful than anything. Adjectives such as “awful”(77), “deceit” (77), and “disappointment”(77) are used to describe the stranger and describe how the stranger makes the man feel, which is the opposite of how he felt in the beginning of the story. Morrison used the rhetorical device of tone changing to show that it is easier to estrange a stranger than become friends with one because the feeling of disappointment will be avoided. Morrison uses Robert Bergman’s portraits of strangers to help answer his question: “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another?”(78). Through Morrison’s analysis of the portraits, he comes to the idea that it was not the stranger that evoked these negative feelings within him, but himself. Strangers “are only versions of ourselves that we have not embraced” (78) and that is why the tone changes in the story, because a new side of the man is being brought out, a side he has never seen before and a side that he is unfamiliar with. Toni Morrison uses the rhetorical device of tone change in his story and explanation of the portraits to demonstrate his point that its not befriending strangers that is hard, but befriending a side of oneself that has never been unveiled.
In Toni Morrison’s “Strangers” essay, the structure of the essay ultimately leads up to Robert Bergman’s photographs. To start, Morrison starts the essay as a narrative and then switches to a very general description of strangers and who they are in our lives. By starting her essay with a narrative about herself and saying “I see a woman sitting on the seawall” (75), she confuses the reader and makes them feel as if they are the strangers. When she then goes into generally describing the woman, a stranger, she uses very simple sentences and language. These simple ideas in it give the reader a general perception of who the woman is. Also, since her essay is titled “Strangers” and she just met a stranger, she uses this simple writing style to illustrate how we only tend to know the basics about someone we first meet. Also, Toni Morrison’s language in the essay is very important to the underlying message that she is trying to get the reader to think about. Her diction includes a lot of contradiction and alliteration. When she says things like “feeds the form” or “rules the realm” and “humanity from commodity” (78), she makes the reader curious about what she is trying to say, making them rethink what they are reading or their own views on the issue. Similarly, Morrison places questions in the essay to continue to confuse the reader and question their ideas. However, to counteract the uncertainty of the reader, Morrison then inserts blunt words like “Disturb. Betray” to add a sense of certainty to the story. At this point, the reader can be confused about what is being said and this is when Morrison connects strangers to the photographs of Robert Bergman. This is where she states the importance of strangers and their impacts on a community as she also introduces a book of the photography of strangers.
Toni Morrison employs the use of story telling in her piece entitled "Strangers." She talks about a woman she met in her neighbor's yard, whom she looked for but never found again. Her tone throughout the story portion of the text is casual, as if she is in conversation with the reader. Her sentences are straightforward and easy to understand. Her casual tone in telling the story allows the reader to view the situation as Morrison does. Once her story ends, her tone shifts to a more complex one. She references outside sources, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Robert Bergman, to establish pathos. She uses phrases that are more difficult to understand and require more than solely reading, such as "succumbing to the perversions of media" (Morrison 78). She also uses rhetorical questions: "Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another? Why would we want to close the distance when we can close the gate?" (Morrison 78). These questions indicate to the reader Morrison's train of thought, which, once again, allows the reader to view the situation from Morrison's point of view. She ends her essay by telling the reader the reason for her reflection, which were Robert Bergman's "radiant portraits of strangers" (Morrison 78). She praises his gallery, stating that his "photographs unveil us, asserting a beauty, a kind of rapture..." (Morrison 79). Her final reference to Robert Bergman, while establishing pathos as I stated before, also shows the importance of art in society, which is an underlying message of her essay. Morrison's use of story telling, a shift in tone from casual to complex, and rhetorical questions allow the reader to step into her shoes and see the situation as she does. Morrison does so in order to illustrate her point that strangers are "not foreign," but "random" (Morrison 78), and that they represent a "version of ourselves" that "we have not embraced" (Morrison 78).
Toni Morrison uses the construction of her essay as a major rhetorical device in portraying the complex relationship between strangers. She begins with a friendly tone, describing the stranger with “pleasure [of] clothes” although she’s in “men’s shoes [and] a man’s hat.” However she quickly changes tone when stating “awful shoes.” This change in tone describes the conflicting beliefs between strangers. Following the simple, personal narrative, Morrison shifts into using wordy language, providing a philosophical-like tone. She melds together many complex thoughts about strangers in order to force her readers to do a close, thoughtful reading—taking into account every single word. Additionally, it is key to notice Morrison’s abrupt change in language: she describes the strange woman at first glance of having “an easy smile” and a “feeling of welcome”, but when she discovers that no one else knows of this stranger she speaks of, the woman becomes of “no value” and “awful.” Because Morrison feels “cheated, puzzled, but also amused” this change in tone is done to display how as humans, we blame others for our confusion and frustration in order to protect ourselves.
Toni Morrison exhibits a sense of equality with the reader as she, step by step, exemplifies the flaw in entrusting hope into a stranger through her methods of paragraph organization, word choice, and sentence structure. Morrison seeks to show her audience, someone with whom she speaks to as her equal—not to instruct or educate but, rather, to explain her thought process to as she experiences it herself. She displays the regression of her hopefulness in mankind through the tone of each of her paragraphs. The first paragraph shows clarity, her thoughts are concise and sentences include one or two clauses which do not stray from the point, describing the woman with clear observations, “easy smile”, “the clothes she wears:…” (75). This attitude slowly transforms to that of the second, giving the reader a bitter taste in their mouth of doubt, regret, and betrayal. What once began as methodical lists of the Mother Something’s characteristics, transformed into transparent, illusionary descriptions, using words such as “dream”, “deceit”, “space”, and “opinion” (76-77). This shift in tone exemplifies to the reader that the author is, in that moment of transition, experiencing a drastic shift in moral perception—coming to a deeper understanding of the stranger’s importance. Morrison purposefully separated the two attitudes of the passage through word choice and the content of ideas is done in order to parallel the real life feeling of betrayal and doubt. She takes the reader along for the ride as if they are experiencing this deceit first hand right along side her.
The author of “Strangers”, Toni Morrison, uses her influential power of tone to establish a warm, welcoming, and secure mood at the beginning of the essay. This setting, which is achieved by short sentences and familiar, sensational diction, eases readers into her thought process and experience of meeting a fisherwoman, a stranger to her. This occurrence however is simply for the purpose of exemplifying her broadening of the logic behind Robert Bergman’s portraits. The established feeling of comfort is suddenly changed as Morrison felt “cheated, puzzled, but also amused” (76). This moment, intensified by the contradictory word choice, sets the new tone for the rest of the essay, in which Morrison addressed human perception of the concept of strangers. Rhetorical questioning plays an important role in inviting the reader to reflect upon their own experiences and evaluate the feeling encountered when interacting with a stranger. Additionally, it allows readers to form their own opinions on Morrison’s claims. She asks “Isn’t that the kind of thing that we fear strangers will do? Disturb. Betray” (77). While she goes on to claim that the purpose of strangers is to prove they are not like us, the original question proposed asks the readers to simply think of their own view. Morrison’s expert use of these rhetorical devices allows her purpose to come through fully.
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