Blasting Music to Drown Out Reality Critique - 1545 Words

â€Å"Blasting Music to Drown Out Reality† Critique Essay In the essay, â€Å"Blasting Music to Drown Out Reality†, by Sydney J. Harris, the author is determined that people use music as a way to, â€Å"keep reality at arms length†. â€Å"It is not in order to hear the music, but in order that the vacuum in their minds may be soothed by the sound, so that silence does not force them into thinking about themselves or experiencing the real world of perception and sensation.† This shows how music has be used as earplugs to block away peoples connection to the world around them, to silence their troubles if only for a moment. This thesis is explicit to make sure the readers can easily identify what the authors argument is going to be when they are examining†¦show more content†¦This sentence shows that, compared to drugs or booze, musics effect of dulling our reality is even stronger. Then the sentence lists some examples of where that music would typically come from - portables, automobile radios, and most hi-if s ets. Other sentences in the essay include declarative sentences. â€Å"Music began as a celebration of nature and an exploration of the human spirit.† Declarative sentences simply makes a statement, telling the reader a piece of information without them having to think about why it is used. The effect of these sentences is to give knowledge on a subject, without an answer back. The sentence before states how music started out as and why and that is it. Without these two types of syntax, the essay would have no definite structure and interesting statements. Thirdly, a powerful rhetorical device that Harris used was alliteration. â€Å"...instead, they anesthetized themselves with the junkiest of junk music throughout this God-given afternoon in a serenely sylvan setting.† Alliteration is the repetition of a vowel/constant sound, in this instance the j in junkiest, junk; the t in they, themselves, throughout; the a in anesthetized, afternoon; the g in God-given, and the s in serenely sylvan setting. The effect of alliteration here is to