Tow #10 - Geico Advertisement

Geico utilizes more characters at one time than probably any other commercial company in the history of business marketing. If one turns on the Television tonight one could see an ad starring their Gecko, Cavemen, or the pile of cash. Or maybe all three, to effectively captivate the audience into hearing them talk about their product.

The gecko first appeared in 1999 during a Screen Actors Guild strike that made the use of live actors impossible. In the gecko’s first TV add, he pleads for people confusing him, the gecko, with “GEICO” to stop phoning him. The gecko speaks with an English accent, because it would be unexpected, which draws the audience of the comercials in, and makes them interested in their product.

These modern cavemen have somehow escaped death, and avoided extinction while developing a fine taste for tennis, plasma TVs, and other modern things foods and activities. They are insulted by GEICO’s ad tagline, “So easy, a caveman can do it.” This technique adds satire to the advertisement. Reversal is used, and Geico shows a scene of cavemen doing normal things to draw attention to their adds.

Starting in 2008, GEICO has aired a series of TV ads featuring two paper-banded stacks of U.S. bills with a pair of big, buggy eyes on top. The pile of Cash, who never says anything, just sits and stares at people set to an obnoxious remix of a Rockwell/Michael Jackson song, “Somebody’s Watching Me.” This is a joke, that involves a literal stack of money watching a customer of another insurance agency. This, just like the gecko joke, is unexpected, and draws in the audience attention.

An actor asks the familiar question, “Could switching to Geico save you 15% or more on car insurance?” He then follows up with a rhetorical question: “Does Charlie Daniels play a mean fiddle?” or “Did The Waltons take way too long to say goodnight?” The use of rhetorical questions draws the audience in, while other boring ads makes their audience tune out.

IRB intro post #2 - Ten Green Bottles

Ten Green Bottles was written in 2004 by Vivian Jeanette Kaplan. The book was published in English, and translated into several different languages such as German, Hungarian, and Italian. It is the true story of a Jewish family that escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna to Shanghai under Japanese rule. The book is told from the viewpoint of the author's mother and starts in 1921. Gerda Karpel is a 5-year-old Jewish girl living in Vienna in 1921. She comes from an upper middle-class family. The book starts with the birth of Nini's brother, Willi, to the death of Gerda's father shortly after the birth. The book then discusses day to day life from the viewpoint of a Jewish girl growing up in Vienna. It talks about the political instability caused after the assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss and the suppression of democracy after it. This book seems especially interesting to me because I am from a Jewish Heritage, and many of my relative that lived in the 20th century have similar stories to this one. I hope to learn more about the European Jewish Culture that my family shares in my duration of reading this book. 

TOW #9 - Ernest Hemingway's "Camping Out"

Ernest Hemingway’s essay Camping Out starts with Hemingway describing with how going camping can be either a relaxing vacation or a terrible experience based on your knowledge on the subject.  He outlines points that can make a camping trip horrible to a novice, leading the reader to believe that he has done this many times himself and he truly is an expert. Hemingway’s protagonist in this story seems to be Wilson, the hunter who lives and breathes the great outdoors. The story to juxtaposes another character Macomber to Wilson, and obviously, Wilson is the favored in that comparison due to his outdoorsiness. However, at the end of the story Wilson breaks the code to which he lives by as he hunts down buffalo in a car, a cowardly, and indisputably illegal act. Wilson is by no means perfect.

Two literary techniques are in play throughout the story that enliven the action and embellish Hemingway’s otherwise minimal descriptive passages. The first is onomatopoeia, and is best exemplified by “whunk,” the noise Macomber’s bullet makes as it hits the lion (p. 22, 33), and “carawong,” the noise Wilson’s high-velocity “big gun” makes as it fires at game (p. 26, 34). Hemingway’s usage of these terms helps the reader imagine the noises and brutality of the hunt. The second technique Hemingway employs is simile and metaphor. The most notable example occurs in Wilson’s thoughts when Macomber asks if they should leave the wounded lion, “Robert Wilson, whose entire occupation had been with the lion and the problem he presented, and who had not been thinking about Macomber except to note that he was rather windy, suddenly felt as though he had opened the wrong door in a hotel and seen something shameful” (p. 24). This simile demonstrates Wilson’s shock at hearing Macomber voice such cowardly ideas. Macomber would rather leave the lion to suffer or risk someone else running into the lion and possibly being killed than face up to hunting it down and finishing what he started.

Tow #8 - Article - Saudi Women Rise Up, Quietly, and Slide Into the Driver’s Seat

On October 26th, women in Saudi Arabia started a demonstration. The demonstration protested the law of Saudi Arabia that it is illegal for a woman to drive. So on October 26^th, that’s exactly what a few activists did, they drove around the country. When it comes to women’s rights, Saudi Arabia remains one of the most restrictive countries in the world. Guardianship laws mean that a woman cannot marry, work or travel abroad without the consent of a male relative. This story was covered by New York Times columnist Ben Hubbard, who used biased diction to tell the story of the Saudi women drivers, and make them seem like the victims. Hubbard wrote very biasedly like for example, “On Saturday, a few dozen women insisted on violating one of the most stubborn social codes in staunchly conservative Saudi society, getting into their cars and driving, activists said.” The use of the word stubborn social codes creates a one-way viewpoint on the topic, and only sheds a light on the activists’ side of the story. This effectively helps Hubbard’s purpose of showing the bravery of the women activists and their story. Using biased diction, Hubbard also helps to appeal to pathos. It appeals to Pathos because Hubbard’s specific diction creates a rebellious mood. The mood affects the reader and immediately could make the reader feel for the women protesters. This is effect in the sense that getting the mass to agree with the protesters, then Hubbard successfully told the story to make the women drivers to look good. Hopefully, with this New York times article’s effectiveness, people will reach out to try and help the women drivers of Saudi Arabia, and maybe can overturn the guardian laws that are established there. Maybe even King Abdullah himself will read the New York Times article and be moved by Hubbard’s use of rhetoric to tell the story of the women protesters. That would be an example of the true power of rhetoric.

Tow #7 - "The Battle of the Ants" -Henry David Thoreau

Most people understand the concept of armed conflict that is war,. Upon first glance, Henry David Thoreau’s “The Battle of the Ants” seems like a basic story of a battle between two different kinds of ants, one black and one red, but if someone were to further analyse the text, they could see that Thoreau uses the ants and their battle as a symbol for human conflict..  “The Battle of the Ants” begins with Thoreau walking out to his wood logs as he discovers a battle between the black ants and the red ants. After this, he juxaposes these ants to humans, making the comparison clear from the start. “It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed… On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely” (575). Thoreau also uses hyperbole early in his essay to stregthen its anti-war theme as he describes the fighting ants to be in the middle of war. However, he infers that this war is miniscule by reminding the reader of its setting: a wood-yard. Although the battle of the ants is small, the metaphor of the ant fight to the art of war in humans is still effective. We picture a group of ants fighting over food pointless, as Thoreau wants humans to see war as, pointless. Thoreau is saying that the battle of the ants’ significance and the significance of any war is the same, and will have the same outcome, just mere violence Thoreau goes on to describe an even smaller battle he witnesses between two kinds of ants, again, amid the chips, giving more scope to the idea that war is irrelevant compared to the broader schemes of the world. “I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out… They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs” (575).