Rhetoric and Civil Life

Within the novel “The Circle” the main character Mae begins a new job at the Circle.  Along with her new position, she is introduced to the culture of the company, which is vastly different than anything that she has really ever experienced.  She goes through a major culture shock in a variety of different ways.  There are many comparisons that can be drawn between those that work in The Circle and a Penn State student.

The most prevalent similarities that can be drawn between both communities is how the people of both communities really care about each other.  In “The Circle”, Mae is constantly being checked on by her supervisors, helping her with whatever problem she has at her job.  She is consistently being asked how she is doing, how she is adjusting, or even if she is having any problems.  But the most significant example of this loving atmosphere is how she is welcomed by her old college friend and then introduced to her “new” desk which does not quite live up to her expectations.  After a small amount of time the woman that introduced her comes back and apologizes sincerely for the prank.  She is truly upset by what happened and practically begs for Mae’s forgiveness.

At Penn State the community is very similar.  The professors truly do care about how the students are doing, either through their office hours, guided study sessions, or even just their genuine nature.  The other students do care as well, mostly because they are all sharing common experiences, such as studying for finals, or pulling all nighters in order to finish term papers.  Another way that penn state is such  caring community is all of the different clubs, and organizations.  All of these groups are just collections of other Penn Staters that are looking for other people to come and join in their micro community that all add into the larger Penn State community.

In the end, being a Penn Stater is very similar to being a employee of “The Circle” due to their open and caring community.

 

As soon as I learned that we were going to have to create a blog concerning something that we were passionate about, I was sure that I knew what I was going to write about.  Throughout my entire life, stories have always enthralled me.  The fact that people could make up such fantastic or unbelievable worlds and characters was completely mind boggling.  But the more I began to read, the more i understood certain things within those novels and sagas.

As I began to reread old favorites of mine, its not that I understood their deeper meaning, or I could identify more rhetoical devices, but I was able to relate to the characters and I was able to either agree or disagree with the decisions they were making within their respective scenarios.  I was able to think of myself in that characters position and question whether or not I would do the same thing or something else entirely.

For me, my favorite stories became less of a entertaining plot or a gripping narrative, these stories had become all about the characters actions, reactions, and progression in their novels.  If a character was killed off, I wouldnt become sad that he or she had died, I would get upset because now there would be no redemption arc for that character or they would leave a important personal goal uncompleted or I would think about how it would devasate the other characters and what their reactions to it would be.

I used to think of novels as a railroad, a linear story where the story is all about point A and point B and whatever happens to the characters in between was set in stone with no other possible course of action available.  But the more that I read, I discovered that novels are more like a river.  A story that flows or has a natural progression to it, where the actions and decisions made within it seem logical or at least could be understandable.  This even flow to novels is not possible without these believable characters.  That is why I am going to do on my passion blog on characters within different stories and the different decisions and choices that they make and how that relates to the overall story.