Lauren Fisher
Dr. Adam Johns
ENGCMP 0200 – Seminar in Composition
September 16, 2008
The Use of Personal Anecdotes in “Challenging Nature”
In his novel “Challenging Nature,” Lee M. Silver uses several personal anecdotes from his life to stress his views and opinions on religion versus science. Silver interviews a variety of people ranging from religious leaders to many different types of scientists, such as molecular biologists. His anecdotes are very diverse because he gathered his information from all over the world. By including these anecdotes into the body of his story, Silver is able to strengthen his arguments by providing the reader with examples of real life experiences instead of just data and statistics.
In the first chapter of the novel, Silver shares the information he has learned about the soul and spirit from numerous cultures. An anecdote that I found particularly compelling is titled “Starbucks.” The author retells his encounter with Rabbi Eitan Webb and their discussion of the Jewish faith. Silver provides background information about Webb and describes Rabbi Webb’s full time job as “tracking down Jewish students at Princeton University and encouraging them to take their religion and rituals seriously” (9). The reader also learns that Webb does not believe in conversion. The two men discuss human souls and Webb quotes two biblical verses in both Hebrew and English to prove his points. Additionally, Webb says that the passage: “God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” should be interpreted literally (10). According to Rabbi Webb, Jews believe in abortion because embryos and fetuses are just human tissue. This personal anecdote may only describe the situation briefly, but it is long enough to convey the importance of the anecdote in relation to the book.
Personal anecdotes are appropriate for this kind of writing because they are used to introduce a new topic or idea to the reader before the author starts to lecture about it. Anecdotes are also used to give the reader a frame of reference. In this instance, readers, whether they are Jewish or not, are able to see how the Rabbi’s views are used to summarize the religion to which he belongs. This is a good technique because anecdotes supply the reader with colorful mini interviews from a variety of sources. However, this might also be bad because the viewpoints of that particular person may not completely agree with those of the individual’s religion. The ideas might be generalized just so they can prove the author’s point. Concerning Judaism, I was taught by my rabbi in Hebrew High School that Jews do not believe in abortion except for specific situations, such as the mother’s life is threatened. After reading this passage, I was surprised that this rabbi had the opposite opinion on this subject. So by reading this anecdote, I was able to gain more information on my own religion and see that not all religious leaders from the same faith will think in the same exact way.
Another positive aspect of using anecdotes is that they can give the reader a glimpse into a person’s life that might be very different from the reader. For example in the passage “The Christian Science Reading Room,” Silver interviews a religious leader from the opposite side of the spectrum: a Christian Scientist named Sam. Although Christian Scientists use the same Old Testament text as Rabbi Webb, they also use the New Testament text and can interpret passages very differently. Sam states that there is only one soul in the entire universe. Likewise, Sam says that material objects do not really exist and that “the only reality is spirit” (11). Both Sam and Rabbi Webb express their answers without hesitation because they are both very confident of their respective religions. Silver does note that it is curious how fundamentalist American Christians can interpret the same scriptural phrase that Webb used in metaphorical terms only. According to them, “abortion – at any stage of development – is equated with murder” (10). By juxtaposing these two anecdotes, Silver enables the reader to compare and contrast the two viewpoints and see how these religions (Judaism and Christianity) can have completely opposite views and still believe that theirs is right. Anecdotes such as these one can be used to broaden one’s horizons and knowledge about other cultures and religions.
By incorporating many personal anecdotes into his book, Silver is able to drive his points home and entertain the reader at the same time. Anecdotes add flavor to writing and will resonate more strongly with the reader base. Anecdotes also break up the narrative so the book doesn’t just contain fact after fact about religion and science. Without anecdotes, a reader not interested in the field of biotechnology and/or spirituality would easily become bored with the subject matter and might not understand the more complex ideas. Silver’s use of anecdotes provides breaks in between the textual information. Also, if a reader is able to make a connection or relate to one of the author’s personal anecdotes, then he or she will take an interest in the subject matter and remember it better. In my opinion, Silver’s anecdotes are very suitable for his novel and help to better explain the points and arguments that he is trying to make.
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3 comments:
You say anecdotes strengthen Silver's argument, but to strengthen your argument, you should clearly mention and talk about what his argument actually is. Your arguments seem like a generalization of why anecdotes are good, try relating it more to Silver's argument.
I feel like the majority of the middle paragraphs of your paper are re-telling the anecdotes. You should write more about the points you make in your conclusion in your body paragraphs.
Other than that, good essay!
Lauren Fisher
Dr. Adam Johns
ENGCMP 0200 – Seminar in Composition
September 20, 2008
The Use of Personal Anecdotes in “Challenging Nature”
In his novel “Challenging Nature,” Lee M. Silver uses several personal anecdotes from his life to stress his views and opinions on religion versus science. Silver interviews a variety of people ranging from religious leaders to many different types of scientists, such as molecular biologists. His anecdotes are very diverse because he gathered his information from all over the world. By including these anecdotes into the body of his story, Silver is able to strengthen his arguments by providing the reader with examples of real life experiences instead of just data and statistics.
In the first chapter of the novel, Silver shares the information he has learned about the soul and spirit from numerous cultures. An anecdote that I found particularly compelling is titled “Starbucks.” The author retells his encounter with Rabbi Eitan Webb and their discussion of the Jewish faith. Silver provides background information about Webb and describes Rabbi Webb’s full time job as “tracking down Jewish students at Princeton University and encouraging them to take their religion and rituals seriously” (9). The two men discuss human souls and Webb quotes two biblical verses in both Hebrew and English to prove his points. Additionally, Webb says that the passage: “God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” should be interpreted literally (10). According to Rabbi Webb, Jews believe in abortion because embryos and fetuses are just human tissue. This personal anecdote may only describe the situation briefly, but it is long enough to convey the importance of the anecdote in relation to the book.
Personal anecdotes are appropriate for this kind of writing because they are used to introduce a new topic or idea to the reader before the author starts to lecture about it. Anecdotes are also used to give the reader a frame of reference. In this instance, readers, whether they are Jewish or not, are able to see how the Rabbi’s views are used to summarize the religion to which he belongs. This is a good technique because anecdotes supply the reader with colorful mini interviews from a variety of sources. However, this might also be bad because the viewpoints of that particular person may not completely agree with those of the individual’s religion. The ideas might be generalized just so they can prove the author’s point. Concerning Judaism, I was taught by my rabbi in Hebrew High School that Jews do not believe in abortion except for specific situations, such as the mother’s life is threatened. After reading this passage, I was surprised that this rabbi had the opposite opinion on this subject. So by reading this anecdote, I was able to gain more information on my own religion and see that not all religious leaders from the same faith will think in the same exact way.
Another positive aspect of using anecdotes is that they can give the reader a glimpse into a person’s life that might be very different from the reader. For example in the passage “The Christian Science Reading Room,” Silver interviews a religious leader from the opposite side of the spectrum: a Christian Scientist named Sam. Although Christian Scientists use the same Old Testament text as Rabbi Webb, they also use the New Testament text and can interpret passages very differently. Sam states that there is only one soul in the entire universe. Likewise, Sam says that material objects do not really exist and that “the only reality is spirit” (11). Both Sam and Rabbi Webb express their answers without hesitation because they are both very confident of their respective religions. Silver does note that it is curious how fundamentalist American Christians can interpret the same scriptural phrase that Webb used in metaphorical terms only. According to them, “abortion – at any stage of development – is equated with murder” (10). By juxtaposing these two anecdotes, Silver enables the reader to compare and contrast the two viewpoints and see how these religions (Judaism and Christianity) can have completely opposite views and still believe that theirs is right. Anecdotes such as these can be used to broaden one’s horizons and knowledge about other cultures and religions.
In these two anecdotes and others, Silver argues that religious Americans are driven by a fundamental fear of violating a higher spiritual authority, such as the creator God who rules from above, or a Mother Nature goddess here on earth. Silver believes that people’s fear of disobeying their religious creators is what’s standing in the way of modern inventions that could improve human suffering and feed the world. He also hopes that a truly open and rational public discussion will expose the foolishness of continuing to allow religious fundamentalists to enforce unnecessary restrictions on scientific research. Thus by using his own anecdotes, he is able to publicly share his discussions with his readers.
By incorporating many personal anecdotes into his book, Silver is able to drive his points home and entertain the reader at the same time. Anecdotes add flavor to writing and will resonate more strongly with the reader base. Anecdotes also break up the narrative so the book doesn’t just contain fact after fact about religion and science. Without anecdotes, a reader not interested in the field of biotechnology and/or spirituality would easily become bored with the subject matter and might not understand the more complex ideas. Silver’s use of anecdotes provides breaks in between the textual information. Also, if a reader is able to make a connection or relate to one of the author’s personal anecdotes, then he or she will take an interest in the subject matter and remember it better. In my opinion, Silver’s anecdotes are very suitable for his novel and help to better explain the points and arguments that he is trying to make.
Kate - I think your comments are good as far as they go, but maybe they're a little bare-bone. Some concrete examples of how you might have done things differently would have been nice. Too minimalistic.
Lauren-
Nitpick: it's not a novel.
You give a long, unnecessarily detailed description of the content of your given anecdote. Your response to it is more nuanced and interesting. The paper would have been much more focused (and probably ultimately better) if you'd *started* with the idea of anecdote-as-frame of reference.
Bringing up the way in which this anecdote contradicts with your own experience was interesting, but I wasn't sure what to take away from it. Was it the information that surprised you? Or did the fact that it was presented as an anecdote have a particular effect on you? My impression is that it was the information that had an impact - in which case you've wandered off topic.
I had the same issue with your discussion of Christian Science. Are you really talking about the pertinence of the information, or about the particular impact of it *as* an anecdote? He could present the different perspectives less personally, after all...
You end with some rather generic, but lengthy, praise of anecdotes in general.
Overall: You had a moment when the paper started to take off - where you had the opportunity (starting with your personal experience in relationship/contrast to Silver's) to really think about the value of anecdotes vs. mere information. You never quite focused on that, though - you repeatedly ended up summarizing and discussing the information conveyed through the anecdote, more than the anecdotes as such.
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