Poe Response

How does that make you feel? What do you think about that? What’s the point? It’ questions like these that we face everyday. Especially authors, if they fail to answer these questions then their piece may be considered incomplete. They would be missing a piece of information. But we must remember that we are all human and therefore are not perfect so we all make mistakes. In this case we read from Jeanne M. Malloy. She writes about her views on the Edgar Allen Poe piece, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” She must formulate her views about the story by picking an argument, defending it with proof. But there will always be flaws in a paper, the question is: what can be added?
To have a valid argument you must have a reason, a main point, something that you are trying to persuade. The main point is essential. If the author was just writing random sentences to fill words on the pages then, they should include. Everyone who writes, has a specific reason why they wrote what it is that they wrote. So they must make a point. Ever heard the phrase “the moral of the story is…” Well that was their main idea. Malloy’s main goal in her argument about “The Pit and the Pendulum” was to show how the story was related to religion. She supported her thoughts by providing support and details. She accomplished this by comparing the apocalyptic imagery. Apocalyptic meaning that of ultimate doom or affording a revelation or prophecy. She states her main point “Poe’s allusions to Revelation and several apocryphal books of the Bible have, of course, been recognized by commentators” (Malloy 83). As well as using the point that Poe was “using apocalyptic imagery as part of a psychological reconception” (Malloy86). Malloy gets her point across by supporting her views with the use of a point of the infamous rhetorical triangle, logos. She uses other opinions and biblical stories to prove this. “Hirsch suggests, moreover, that the “outstretched arm of General Lasalle” represents a “submerged allusion” to Isaiah 59 “where the Lord is portrayed as a warrior clothed in the armor of righteousness who stretched forth his arm to bring salvation” (Malloy 83). She uses logos and examples of apocalyptic imagery to argue its relation to religion.
Malloy provided a lot of evidence to support her view on the Edgar Allen Poe story of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” But like all other literary works her work is not perfect. Every one has flaws, and so they can’t write a perfect paper. So the flaw that might catch someone’s attention is the fact that she provides great support but then adds something different or doesn’t fully explain what she feels about it. She brings you in and then switches. Her quotes were very long so that was most of the paragraph. She would provide you with a quote and briefly explain what it had to do with what it was that she was talking about and then connect it to another quote or just switch altogether. She had details but they weren’t enough. She tends to derail and start on an entire different subject. This can really confuse readers and cause them to get upset because maybe they really did want to read what she had to say but were rejected because it was confusing and it was just a lot of quotes and less actual interpretation. For example page eighty-five towards the bottom after all of her long quotes she goes on to writing about Abrams, images. Although she is trying to defend the fact that it is related to religion they were just a little out of the blue. Therefore Malloy should add more of her own interpretation, more detail. Something to relate to the audience. Maybe the audience felt the way she did but she does not establish any type of connection or pathos, just quotes.