Down At The Dump By Patrick White Essays - Adaminaby, Patrick White

Down At The Dump By Patrick White 'Down at the Dump' Patrick White, most noted for his longer works of fiction, exemplifies his craft of storytelling in his short story 'Down at the Dump'. White has dramatized an event in life, such as a funeral, and given us a very believable insight into our own culture. Some readers will take offence to such a raw and truthful portrait, while others will find humor and hope in the same story. White is a writer who crafts a story with such intensity, that at times it slaps you in the face with the truthful, dirty, honest depiction of his characters. All of whom we can see something, if not the smallest little detail of our selves in them. 'Down at the Dump' counterpoints two families, and their journeys on an afternoon. One of the families is off to the funeral of Mrs. Hogben's sister Daise. The other family the Whalley's, off to the Sarsaparilla dump, for busness and pleasure 'I thought the beer was an excuse for comin'.' (Isba pg.8) 'Down at the Dump' is also a modern day Australian Romeo & Juliet, the forbidden love between Lummy Whalley and Meg Hogben. Both it seems are destined for more then what is expected of them. The story is also a comment on the staid middle-class lifestyle, the petty bourgeois existence of the suburbs. The story is also a comment on the sexually non-conformist such as daise's character represents, more about this later. The story is also a comment on standards, principals, morality, values and judgmental and discriminatory behavior. White pays attention to the dirty, honest characteristics of human beings, "Her eyes were that blazing blue, her skin that of a brown peach. But whenever she smiled, something would happen, her mouth opening on watery sockets and the jags of brown, rotting stumps." (pg.1) This serves to give the readers a deeper understanding of the characters right down to the bone. This typical descriptive passage is common in white's writing. It cuts to the core of the character, shedding light on a side rarely taken by an author. A gritty and honest sense of reality is achieved. "Down at the Dump" is a story revolving around binary oppositions, a set of contrasts. The two main families, 'The Hogben's and Whalley's' are the two main constructs of White's direct opposition. This opposition is nowhere more visible then in white's use of language when giving his characters a voice. Whites characters speak from the heart. Their own use of language reflects directly their class and education. For example - the Whalley's speak from the heart, with a distinctly working-class accent. "Ere!...waddaya make me out ter be? A lump of wood." (Isba pg.1) We get a sense very early in the story, by the way the Whalley's speak, a direct reflection of their socio-economic background. White's use of language when describing the Whalley's is derogatory and intentionly off putting. This is contrasted in direct opposition to the Hogben's. Who are described through their slightly more capable use of the English language. This helps enforce them as being worth more in a snobby middle-class way. This direct opposition is again contrasted to another level. For although White uses harsh, dirty, honest language when describing the Whalley's, we cannot help but feel empathy with them for their honesty. The Whalley's seem truthfully real and direct people, yet crass and crude on the outside. This is the opposite for the Hogben's. The Hogben's use of speech is much more educated. Although they are described with nice, fluffy, sensitive language, I am filled with contempt for them. Meg being the exception she is one of white's poetic seers; someone who is destined for more. The domestic abodes of the two families are also a symbolic representative of their different socio-economic position and different way of life. Our story takes its journey to the funeral and the dump respectively where towards the end of the funeral serves daise rises from the grave to relinquish her thoughts and feelings. It is about here in the story that the passage I will be discussing indepth occurs. It is through Daise Morrow that Patrick white chooses to make social commentry through his authorial voice. The ideological concerns of the story are quite clear in this passage. The passage I will be referring to starts midway down page 16 'Even if their rage grief, contempt, boredom, apathy, and sense of injustice had not occupied the mourners...to...as she got in side the car, and waited

Definitions and Examples of Tapinosis

Definitions and Examples of Tapinosis Tapinosis is a  rhetorical term for name-calling: undignified language that debases a person or thing. Tapinosis is a kind of meiosis. Also called  abbaser, humiliatio, and depreciation. In The Arte of English Poesie (1589), George Puttenham observed that the  vice of tapinosis might be an unintentional figure of speech: If you abase your thing or matter by ignorance or error in your choice of your word, then is it by vicious manner of speech called ​tapinosis. More commonly, however,  tapinosis is  regarded as a deliberate use of a base word to diminish the dignity of a person or thing (Sister Miriam Joseph in  Shakespeares Use of the Arts of Language, 1947).In a broader sense, tapinosis has been likened to understatement and humiliation: the low presentation of something great, contrary to its dignity, as  Catherine M. Chin defines the term in  Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World  (2008).  Ã‚   See Examples and Observations below. Also see: CursingFlytingHow to Rant: Bernard Levins All-Purpose InvectiveInvectivePejorative LanguageSnarkSwear Word EtymologyFrom the Greek, reduction, humiliation Examples and Observations Phillips: We play on a real diamond, Porter. You ain’t good enough to lick the dirt off our cleats.Porter: Watch it, jerk!Phillips: Shut up, idiot!Porter: Moron!Phillips: Scab eater!Porter: Butt sniffer!Phillips: Pus licker!Porter: Fart smeller!Phillips: You eat dog crap for breakfast, geek!Porter: You mix your Wheaties with your mama’s toe jam!Phillips: You bob for apples in the toilet and you like it!Porter: YOU PLAY BALL LIKE A GIRL!(from the movie The Sandlot, 1993)Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. Youre the same decaying organic matter as everything else.(Brad Pitt as  Tyler Durden in the film Fight Club, 1999)Yes, you squashed cabbage-leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language! I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!(Henry Higgins addressing Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion, 1912)Draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger, dra w.(Kent addressing Oswald in William Shakespeares King Lear, II.2) - I was going to have a few comments about John Edwards, but you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot.(Ann Coulter speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 5, 2007)- Ann Coulter, maniacal, money hungry, far right-wing nut burger, has called John Edwards a faggot.(abillingss journal, March 6, 2007)Charlie Kaufman. Oy vay. I have hated every incomprehensible bucket of pretentious, idiot swill ever written by this cinematic drawbridge troll.(Rex Reed, Could Synecdoche, New York Be the Worst Movie Ever? Yes! The New York Observer, October 27, 2008)Hope not for mind in women; at their bestSweetest and wit, they are but Mummy, posessed.(John Donne, Loves Alchemy)Patient: Dr. Chase said my calcium is normal.Dr. House: We call him Dr. Idiot.(Informed Consent, House, M.D.)There are cretins, there are cowards, there are rats who walk like men. And then there is Larry Patterson Jr.(Leonard Pitts, The Lowest of the Low, February  22, 2008) John Synges CurseIrish poet and playwright John Synge addressed this poem to a sister of an enemy of the author’s who disapproved of [his play] The Playboy [of the Western World].Lord, confound this surly sister,Blight her brow with blotch and blister,Cramp her larynx, lung, and liver,In her guts a galling give her.Let her live to earn her dinnersIn Mountjoy with seedy sinners:Lord, this judgment quickly bring,And Im your servant, J. M. Synge.(John Synge, The Curse, 1907) Pronunciation: tap-ah-NO-sis