Friday, October 28, 2011

Superiority of Synecdoche

M. Jimmie Killingsworth works in Appeal Through Tropes to make the claim that tropes function beyond the typical "figure of speech" sense. He writes, "They always involve swerves, indirections, substitutions, twists, and turns of meaning"(121). This fluid and poetic view of a typically concrete subject emphasizes the function of the text and its relationship to the reader. Killingsworth makes the connection between tropes and the connections they make back to individuals. Reader response is much more accurate and emotive with the use of tropes because they relate on a more personal level and demand a closer look at the text.

In terms of effectiveness, synecdoche stood out to me as the best trope. Its function is very similar to the icon that McCloud writes about in his text concerning comics. By reducing a concept down to its core symbol, the message becomes amplified. Killingsworth refers to a poem by Emily Dickinson that utilizes synecdoche of the symbolized eye. He writes, "By referring to people as "eyes," using a part to stand for the whole, she focuses on the part of the body that we look into to determine how others feel. The poet's wordplay hints at the old saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul"(130). The eye takes on then a very loaded meaning with cultural values that readers can cling on to. The narrowing of words packs a big punch, especially in poetry, as the icon does in comics. Because it connects most with the characteristic of mutability that Killingsworth states as the main quality of tropes, I found it to be superior to the metaphor that merely restates, metonymy that pulls an external example to stand for a whole, or irony that often complicates more than it solves.

2 comments:

  1. I like the connection you made between the synecdoche's simplification to McCloud's irony. I think your points are strong; simplification is, in this sense, amplification when you simply a whole to its most outstanding part. Placing emphasis in language is vital to being persuasive, and focusing on "the most active part" of a thing can help really better meaning, but I don't think the use of synecdoches isn't always completely effective (130).

    Synecdoches, as being a more specific form of metonyms, can also create stereotypes, "reducing a whole person to an object" as in the "eye" example (128). I agree that simplification can amplify, but there are also negative aspects to "representation", namely reduction. Whenever you use a part to stand for a whole, you are choosing which part to emphasize, and in this choosing, you are simultaneously disregarding many other parts. Killinsworth's "eye" example is effective, but consider something like the synecdoche of Colonel Sanders to represent the entirety of southern culture (sorry, this is the first example I could come up with). Using Colonel Sanders to represent Kentucky (as the restaurant is, or I guess was, called Kentucky Fried Chicken) reduces the whole culture to the icon of a fat bearded man. Synecdoches can stereotype and create negative effects, which is why I wouldn't personally consider them the "best", although your argument is sound.

    What I thought to be most effective was the metaphor, and I will, too, draw from McCloud. McCloud's "simplification" was so effective, because it allowed for human self-imposition, something he thought very necessary in comics. Metaphors, like synecdoches, have simplifying qualities but also go further in connecting those similarities to "the" common understanding, the body. Metaphors "connect the world to the body", compare worldly things to that which we comprehend most, ourselves (126). And because "we see ourselves in everything", metaphors work just as our minds do through self-representation (McCloud, 33). In this way, metaphors are the most natural of figurative speech and the most effective. Their appeals are "foundational to human thought" (126). Through metaphors, all roads or comparison lead back to the body; and what do we understand better than our own selves and functions?

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  2. Annie, good point about synecdoches. While I really like the idea of using synecdoches to get a point across, I was reading your post all the while thinking, Good lord, Locke would be pitching a fit. It seems like everything Killingsworth says about tropes is exactly what Locke was complaining about in "An Essay On Human Understanding." McCloud points out that this simplification, so to speak, really helps to make a visual statement or clarification, but Locke really thinks that making those kinds of reductions in language is what confuses people.

    What you mention here might be a bit of what Locke was overlooking, especially in poetry. Poetry lives and breathes for this kind of stuff. Metaphors (and synecdoches in particular) are a way for an author to express his or her interpretations of significant objects or concepts. They move the significance around, and in some cases strengthen significance.

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