Wednesday, February 17, 2010
There he goes, the leader of the pack, possessing a presence like a giant among dwarfs, and growing his legend triumph by triumph, instilling fear into any brave warrior who challenges his greatness – with a big grin on his face, every Sunday he steps onto the battlefield, battered and beaten, ready to demolish his opponents, shatter records, win games, and strengthen his legacy – a legacy respected by teammates, opponents, and fans alike; he is the gunslinger, he is Brett Favre.
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This sentence really grabbed my attention because I too am an unwavering, proud fan of the 'gunslinger', Brett Favre. When reading this sentence, I found myself smiling because I believe you have captured many of the great qualities he possesses. I agree, although it would be very hard to disagree, that he truly is a legend. I get an image in my head of him “with a big grin on his face”, stepping onto the field, ready to "demolish" and pick apart the opposing team's defense.
ReplyDeleteI would say this is a very successful periodic sentence. Right away, in the first three words, “There he goes”, you begin building up who “he” is, and as a reader I want to find out who you are talking about. As the sentence progresses, more and more details unfold until the climactic ‘final four-word reveal’. This sentence also flows really well. The placement and use of the commas and hyphens allows for a great build-up. It makes me want to keep reading; it really drew me in as a reader.
The word choice and diction of this sentence is crucial to the impact. Very strong and vivid words such as, “battered”, “demolish”, and “shatter” really helped to paint a picture in my head. This picture that was painted from your words evoked emotions in me and I think that’s what made it so great. Also, the use of the simile, “a presence like a giant among dwarfs”, in the beginning contributes to the strong description and I agree with this statement. His presence does seem to dominate all others and he always seems to become the main focus in any game.
I also really like the effect of anaphora, the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, which is used at the very end. By repeating “He is”, more drama is created, and this allows for the revealing of “Brett Favre” to be truly climactic.
You were able to accomplish a lot in 80 words. You did a really great job!
I throughly enjoyed this sentence and chose it to respond to because of all of the literary devices. You used parallelism very well by choosing the same form of verbs such as when you say "possessing," "growing," and "instilling." Your use of alliteration really jumped out at me as well, "...battlefield, battered and beaten..." especially since those three words are all very strong words that would have stood alone just fine, but you took it one step further.
ReplyDeleteYour delivery of this sentence was also very intriguing. Using "he" and not revealing who "he" is until the very end, kept me interested. Furthermore, you have excellent diction. I love the way you wrote "shatter records." Shattered is not usually an adjective one would think of to explain breaking records but I think you chose correctly as it makes for a very powerful argument.
After considering all that I have stated, it goes without saying that the memory of your sentence (as a canon of rhetoric) is great as well. You used logic and reason to get to your conclusion. Whether one agrees or not that Brett Favre is all of those things-- one cannot argue that you present good arguments. Especially the way that you put the words together makes it even more memorable. For instance, once again leaving his name out until the very end and repeating the word "legacy" which is a very, very strong word.
Overall this is an excellent sentence. I could really see the imagery and picture him (or someone like him) in my mind well before you said his name. Great job!
-- Jen Kopka