After reading Eubanks’ chapter entitled “Poetics and Narrativity”, it becomes clear that literary figures are more complex than their common definitions lead one to believe. While it seems unlikely, figures such as narrative and metaphor can be found in even the most common texts, such as a recent article found on the New York Times website about the Democratic debate in South Carolina, titled “Obama and Clinton Tangle at Debate”. The common metaphor found throughout the entire piece is Politics is War. Several verbs such as “assailed”, “slashed”, and “sparring” give the connotation of the Democratic debate taking place in a combat zone. Not only were the two major candidates trying to impress upon the voting public their plans for if elected, but they also used the debate as a battlefield to destroy the other’s integrity. There are several similarities between war and politics that can be found in this piece. The most important one in this text is that in both war and in politics, there is only one winner, and both sides will use whatever means necessary in order to be that winner.
While this text is mainly an informative article, narrative is present in the background that is provided in an attempt to explain why the candidates were so aggressively attacking each other. One of Clinton’s attacks focused on past legal work that Obama did for a business man who was indicted of fraud. The author of the text had to explain Obama’s background in order for the claim to make sense to readers who might not know about his past. This explanation created a narrative about Obama’s past, and other explanations about Clinton’s background did the same.
Obama attempted to instill a metonymy in the public by creating the belief that Senator Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, were merged together in one unit that is inseparable; the “Clinton machine”. A metonymy is when one associates someone or something with another person or thing, but the two don’t share similar characteristics. Obama was inferring that Senator and President Clinton were synonymous, though not necessarily alike. Clinton attempted to defend herself by saying that her husband was just her spouse in this election, and in the same way that the other candidates had spouses supporting them, her husband supported her. However, by Obama bringing up the association, it’s easy to believe that some citizens were reminded of the controversy surrounding the previous Clinton administration. Without literary figures such as metaphor, narrative, and metonymy, this article would be informative but boring. With background provided through narrative, and the huge underlying metaphor of Politics is War, the text comes alive.
