Close Reading # 1
Darren Wilson’s full grand jury testimony
In reading Darren Wilson’s full grand jury testimony for the shooting of Michael Brown I found that there is a recurring theme in the way Wilson describes Brown. Wilson’s allusion of Michael Brown is that of a monster. In multiple instances his description depicts an exaggeration of intense aggression. Examples of this begins when Wilson first says that Brown was staring at him in a way that was meant to “intimidate or overpower” him. He then begins to describe the struggle between them in which he “felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan.” And goes on to further explain the comparison to Hulk Hogan that “that’s just how big he felt and how small I felt just from grasping his arm.” This example makes Brown seem more aggressive and even bigger and stronger than he may have been. But Wilson did not stop there. He goes on to say that Brown “looked up at me and had the most intense aggressive face. The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.” All of Wilson’s descriptions of Brown are those of a scary monster. What’s even more interesting is that all of these recurring exaggerations of this intimidation, aggression, and description of a demonic monster so scary that made him feel like a helpless child occurred right before Wilson himself did something monstrous.
Asiye Sinmazisik
“Read Darren Wilson’s Full Grand Jury Testimony.” Washington Post. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.
This post is very good. You use the “follow the trail” method, and I think your details are sound. My only encouragement to you as you continue to do close readings for the posts and your paper are
1) You might want to be a little more precise about how you name the thing you’re following. Are you following Wilson’s comparisons of Brown to other creatures and super power? Or are you following his descriptions of Brown as physically enormous? Or are you following specifically his descriptions of Brown as wielding some unnameable force? I think in the end you’re interested in all of them, but it’s important especially if you are writing a paper to be able to distinguish between the different rhetorical devices Wilson employs here. Yes your thesis and analysis will work to show how the individual tools work together to create some larger impact, but you still need to make sure you clearly identify the different devices.
2) You should have inline citations for these quotes. Page and line number from the transcript.