“The 11th Hour” uses tropes as an appeal.
The first chapter sets up a metaphor. The ratio is that humans are to the earth as an infection is to the body. This relates to the “tendency of all metaphors to connect the world to the body, to relate unfamiliar things to the familiar experience of physical existence” (Killingsworth 124). Therefore, this trope draws the reader closer to the importance and danger that humans have in their relationship to the earth.
A similar appeal occurs when pollution is blamed for the increase in asthma. This appeal forms a causal relationship between human activity and human illness. This once again makes “an appeal to the body that ultimately supports the key theme” (Killingsworth 124).Humans are hastening their own demise.
These appeals emphasize our responsibility for our own physical existence in order to make the viewer feel like part of the problem. This sets us up to be empowered as part of the solution.
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Adrienne brings up a useful way in which we can view "The 11th Hour". Using Jimmie Killingsworth's article on tropes, the audience can associate the ailing earth with personal illness. Adrienne mentions the "danger" that is present in the human-earth relationship. The ecology of this relationship is what the danger stems from, the ability of the relationship to effect (positively or negatively, but negatively in this case). As Adrienne notes, Killingsworth mentions the importance of this idea to the 'key theme' of the trope.
ReplyDeleteMuch in the same way that a person may have an unsavory realization about sweets after getting a cavity, humans must recognize their actions that lead to the decay of the earth, taxonically and cosmically.