To further portray Christians as victims, Rowlandson embellished her encounters. “The Indians were as thick as trees,” she said. Rowlandson described the natives as wild and untamed. Natives frightened her.Rowlandson also used connotation to portray Christians as victims. Rowlandson loaded the piece with descriptions of natives as “ravenous beasts” and “barbarous creatures.” This denoted a lack of civility in natives, yet Rowlandson inadvertently noted that Natives possessed some qualities of civilization.
The Indians were skilled at healing, she observed. Rather than attribute this success to Indian intelligence and identification of particular plants, Rowlandson praised the Lord for his compassion, not the Indians, whose knowledge of indigenous plants saved her life. “I took oaken leaves and laid to my side, and with the blessing of God, it cured me also.” (Rowlandson, act II) Rowlandson attributes this success to the Lord, rather than Indians.
She wrote her narrative as a tale of good against evil, with the Indians characterized as “heathen” antagonists. She condemned many of their activities as “pagan activities.” (Rowlandson, act II) Rowlandson even condemned the convening of large masses of Indians as a terrifying experience, much how JRR Tolkien would have described an amassing of Orks near Mount Doom: “If one looked before one there was nothing but Indians, and behind one, nothing but Indians, and so on either hand, I myself in the midst, and no Christian soul near me, and yet how hath the Lord preserved me in safety?” (Rowlandson, part III)
Byron, I think you did a great job of following the Lanham Method. Your sentences are very direct and you have clearly shortened them and cut out several prepositional phrases. I would be interested in reading your original because unfortunately to me this paper is so boring to read now. But, it is also easy to read. Hopefully there is a happy medium somewhere in there. Also, the only sentence I think would need work in order to follow the Lanham Method would be:
ReplyDeleteThis denoted a lack of civility in natives, yet Rowlandson inadvertently noted that Natives possessed some qualities of civilization.
I would change that to:
This denoted a lack of native civility, yet Rowlandson inadvertently noted that Natives possessed some civilizational qualities.
Overall though, great work, I always enjoy reading your blogs.
hmmm... I think I see why Mike may have found the piece boring, at least in that first paragraph: the sentences are about the same length? Remember that the Lanham method just cleans up the baseline sentence... to which you can then add syntactic variety (aka "brush strokes").
ReplyDeleteI played with getting more rhythmic variety in that first paragraph--and then in the last one--by just adding a brush stroke, the participle phrase. I marked with italics the sentences I changed. See what you think:
REVISION:
To further portray Christians as victims, Rowlandson embellished her encounters. “The Indians were as thick as trees,” she said. Natives clearly frightened her. Artfully using word choice to portray Christians as victims and Natives as perpetrators, Rowlandson described Natives as “ravenous beasts” and “barbarous creatures,” denoting that Natives were not even human, much less civilized.
Yet Rowlandson inadvertently noted that Natives possessed some qualities of civilization. The Indians were skilled at healing, she observed. But rather than attribute this success to Indian intelligence and identification of particular plants, Rowlandson praised the Lord for his compassion, not the Indians, whose knowledge of indigenous plants saved her life. “I took oaken leaves and laid to my side, and with the blessing of God, it cured me also.” (Rowlandson, act II) Rowlandson attributes this success to the Lord, rather than to the Indians.
She wrote her narrative as a tale of good against evil, with the Indians characterized as “heathen” antagonists. She condemned many of their activities as “pagan activities.” (Rowlandson, act II), describing her one large Indian gathering as a terrifying, life-threatening experience, much how JRR Tolkien would have described the Orks amassing near Mount Doom: “If one looked before one there was nothing but Indians, and behind one, nothing but Indians, and so on either hand, I myself in the midst, and no Christian soul near me, and yet how hath the Lord preserved me in safety?” (Rowlandson, part III)