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Chaucer's Intuitions

Decent Essays

“I could end this with a moral, as if this were a fable about animals, though no fables are really about animals”, spoken by Margaret Atwood. A fable is a short story with a moral and non-human characters personified to do human actions.

Chaucer uses his exigence of intuition to create a moral, through rhetoric. Chanticleer dreams of the fox, “Of arrows or of fire...of red beasts...of strife…” (2930-2932). The negative connotations of “fire” and “beasts” create suspense. The polysyndeton demonstrates how Chanticleer trusts his intuition, because of his dream. Chanticleer uses ethos to explain his intuition, “Not dream sitting in a tree, /Which signified that hanged he was to be?” (3139-3140). Chaucer foreshadow Chanticleer would be up a tree, by using his intuition to avoid the fox’s trickery, establishing Chaucer’s exigence (Loose Syntax).

Orwell uses his exigence to exemplify his moral, supported by rhetoric. Orwell’s exigence of Totalitarianism relates to the moral of power will corrupt. The animals complain …show more content…

In the essays about Transcendentalism, the diction is more sophisticated, “Personal fulfillment, and subsequently personal health and happiness, are attained by transcending the custom of one’s society” (Paragraph 2). The author uses the high-caliber diction of “subsequently”, which may be substituted with “as a result.” More importantly, the essays don’t take the reader on as much of a journey, while the fables have characters, making them easier to follow (Loose Syntax). For example, in Animal Farm,the pigs are personified through their ability to walk on two legs, and break the Seven Commandments. These abilities result in the pigs becoming more like their human farmer. In Animal Farm and The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Orwell and Chaucer use personified animals, which simplifies complex political problems, enabling the reader to better understand the text and the

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