Language, belief, domestication: constructing paradise in Charlotte’s Web and The Animal Family AND Electronic kairos: creating the opportune moment in contemporary advertising

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Kristin J. Yates (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Karen Kilcup

Abstract: “Language, Belief, Domestication: Constructing Paradise in Charlotte’s Web and The Animal Family” reads both E. B. White’s and Randall Jarrell’s novels as creation stories to better understand how language constructs Edenic realities. I specifically examine how human characters define White’s Wilbur as meat and object, and Jarrell’s bear and lynx as children or pets, to domesticate and dominate them into their inferior roles in paradise. However, the animals reject their domestication and attain agency either by appropriating human language and disseminating new narratives, as in Charlotte’s Web, or by preserving their animality and bringing home a human boy to halt their domestication, as in The Animal Family. AND In “Electronic Kairos: Creating the Opportune Moment in Contemporary Advertising,” I study how rhetors seize the classical concept of kairos, the opportune or right moment, in electronic mediums. An examination of fast food commercials from Burger King, Chick-Fil-A, and McDonald’s demonstrates how advertisers utilize multimodality to their advantage. By blurring the line between entertainment and persuasion, advertisers use primary (i.e., entertainment and narrative transportation) and secondary (i.e., intersections of ethos, logos, and pathos that “prove” a product’s value) appeals to produce kairotic conditions and mentalities that then allow viewers to seize advertisers’ intended opportune moment.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 2017
Keywords
Advertising, Charlotte's Web, Creating kairos, Kairos, Speciesism, The Animal Family
Subjects
White, E. B. $q (Elwyn Brooks), $d 1899-1985. $t Charlotte's web.
Jarrell, Randall, $d 1914-1965
White, E. B. $q (Elwyn Brooks), $d 1899-1985. $x Criticism and interpretation
Speciesism
Anthropomorphism in literature
Kairos (The Greek word)
Advertising

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