Close Reading (10/21)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-how-romney-insults-us-all/2012/10/15/821fc5e2-16de-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_story.html

How Romney’s Extreme Policies Insult us All

                Katrina vaden Heuvel presents her article in such a way to demonstrate Romney as an undesirable candidate.  Her point or meaning of the piece is conveyed through diction, figurative language, and syntax.   

                Through diction vaden Heuvel portrays Romney in a negative light which adds to how the public perceives him.  She states that “when it comes to policy, he’s been downright promiscuous”.  The word promiscuous has a sexual connotation and following this word, vaden Heuvel begins to discuss women’s rights.  The mention of women’s rights coupled with the word promiscuous provokes thoughts of using women for sexual pleasure, thus depicting Romney in a negative light.  Again Romney’s untrustworthy behavior is highlighted when vanden Heuval uses “malarkey” to describe his speech at the last presidential debate.  Malarkey implies that his speech provided obscure or misleading information.  When one reads that a candidate is stating false facts, he is almost offended by the dishonesty, and consequently thinks less of the candidate for doing so. 

Not only does vanden Heuvel attack Romney’s addresses to the public but also his character through diction.  When vanden Heuvel writes, “This comes natural because he is, fundamentally, a cipher”, the word cipher implies that Romney is a person without influence or value. Without influence refers to someone who follows only once course of action usually their own interests.  A candidate without influence should not be elected to the presidency.  Associating Romney with words describing him as weak causes people to be less apt to vote for him.  The diction used creates a sense of fear in the public as they worry about having a president who doesn’t care for women, is weak, and dishonest, thus adding to the article’s intended purpose of Romney being a candidate who the public cannot count on nor trust.   

                VandenHeuvel also uses figurative language to show Romney as being an undesirable candidate.  When vanden Heuvel writes “...much of the media trea[s]t the presidential election like a horse race, so Romney’s whirling dervish moves on policy are just part of the contest” the figurative language of liking a horse race to the election gives insight into how one views the election.  According to the article, Romney sees the election as a game and he must say and do anything and everything to win the prize (presidency).  Romney is seen as an undesirable candidate because the election is a game to him.  He doesn’t care about the public; he only cares about the end result--winning.

                Syntax is used in portraying Romney negatively.  Vanden Heuvel states that Romney is not flip-flopping on his positions or policies that he creates, instead “He’s being dishonest”.  This sentence is separated from the previous point of how Romney isn’t flip-flopping.  Due to the sentence’s shortness and standing alone, it creates emphasis on the point of how Romney cannot be trusted.  When vanden Heuvel writes, “He was for woman’s right to choose before he was against it.  He was for tax cuts for the rich before he was against them.  He was for…” the use of an anaphora is used to emphasize how Romney at first was on one side of an issue and now he is on another.  Vanden Heuvel uses this to demonstrate how Romney isn’t definite in his positions he takes and how it deceives the American public.