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Figure Out the Primary Rhetorical Function of the Quote 261 Views


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Description:

He or she that answereth this question shall...answereth it. And hopefully feel kind of accomplished. Hit play and figure out the primary rhetorical function of the quote.


Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by argumentation.

00:07

Because sometimes, conflict resolution is for chumps.

00:10

We've seen it. That's what happens.

00:12

All right.

00:13

Check out the passage. We've read this how many times now?

00:15

[ mumbles ]

00:21

[ mumbling continues ]

00:30

All right, we're done.

00:31

The primary rhetorical function of the quotes in lines

00:35

23 through 24 - right here -

00:38

is to what?

00:39

All right, and here are the potential answers. Hmm.

00:41

[ mumbles ]

00:46

All right, well, "he that loveth his life shall lose it."

00:50

This lovely yet very depressing quote supports the speaker's argument

00:55

which is that it's dangerous to think that we have control over our lives.

00:59

This idea supports the larger argument,

01:01

the one that says that humans are wrong to think that we can totally understand the world.

01:05

All of this then ties into the thesis, or main argument, about

01:09

how we oughta separate ethical beliefs from philosophy.

01:13

Is it us or is this guy doing a lot of arguing?

01:16

All right, well, we can see why option A might make sense.

01:19

However, the quote doesn't go as far as actually reiterating, or restating,

01:23

the speaker's thesis.

01:24

The quote's simply lending a helping hand, not hitting us

01:27

over the head with the thesis one more time.

01:29

It's always welcome to try, though. We brought a helmet.

01:32

Option E is sort of right.

01:34

It's the only quote in the passage, so it does change up the structure a bit.

01:38

We're all for changing up structures.

01:41

Yeah, kind of like that.

01:42

Option C is a definite no.

01:44

We already said that the speaker is using the quote to support

01:47

his views, not to contradict them.

01:49

This might make option B look like a good answer,

01:52

but it's not.

01:53

Including a quote that sounds a hundred years old can be impressive,

01:56

but this quote has bigger fish to fry.

01:58

The correct answer is D. It's the only answer that gets

02:02

how the quote supports an argument...

02:04

that supports a bigger argument... that supports an even bigger argument.

02:07

It's like one building block

02:09

in the massive Lego masterpiece we spent our entire

02:12

adolescence working on.

02:13

[ singing ] Cause everything is awesome...

02:16

[ umm... ]

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