Explore BrainMass

themes in "The Indian Basket"

Select one or more of the attached essays and provide approximately 800 words analyzing how this tension between the facts and the artistic intention of the essayist relates to its success in communicating workplace themes. Discuss how your chosen essayist uses all or some of these techniques, making sure you illustrate your claims through examples from your selected essay.

Essayists shape their work for artistic intent through the rhythm of their prose, choice of vocabulary used, humor, word play, satire, tone, inclusion of metaphor and imagery, the lengths of sentences, lengths of paragraphs, lengths of the essays themselves, which details are included and which are left out, resonance with better known works through allusion, vivid description, the balance between exposition and dialogue, appeals to ethos (character) or pathos (emotion), and judicious self-exposure of the writer's own character. In your analysis, discuss any of these features the author used.


Solution Preview

You can integrate your own introduction and conclusion, then alter some of the text (or outline) I provided and use quotes from "The Indian Basket" to support your argument.

I would also use the top of page 2 of the story to mention how the use of exposition/description appeals to the ethos of the hardworking Indians and the pathos of those who would feel compassion for the plight of the Indians. Lastly, I would use the conclusion of "The Indian Basket," particularly that the Indians are not pitiful and are dignified to explain that the Indians did what they needed to do, since "We really hadn't much left to give." This segues effectively with the author's statement that the price of Indian baskets is high, since it certainly seems that current Indian basket sellers are basically (in the author's opinion, anyway) exploitative of consumers' nostalgia for "Indian stuff" since the sellers profit from items that they cannot identify the original creator.

Hope this helps, and the crux of an answer to the question is below. Hope this ...

Solution Summary

Themes in "The Indian Basket are articulated.