Page 109 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

108 How to write critical essays
even be ‘ruthless and unrelenting’ in their ‘cruelty and
viciousness’.
In this idiom, satirists treat unjustifiable ‘pride and self-
esteem’ to ‘ridicule and mockery’; or rebuke it, in a ‘grave and
serious’ tone of ‘didacticism and moralizing’. They have to
protest ‘strongly and forcefully’ since ‘collapsing standards and
moral sickness’ are ‘increasing and expanding’. Indeed the
‘adequacy and effectiveness’ of ‘values and principles’ are being
‘challenged and questioned’. At the more ‘crucial and
significant’ moments of literary history, saying everything twice
may not be enough: after all, ‘the Romantics who favoured
imagination and fantasy’ were, according to one student’s essay,
outgunned by a three-pronged attack from ‘Augustans who
prized knowledge, information and facts’.
The emptiness of such treble-talk, and even of the more
common doublings, may look relaxingly obvious when so many
examples are removed from their original contexts and
juxtaposed. Be warned. Pairs of virtual synonyms can infiltrate
even the most vigilant first draft. When revising it, look
specifically for every phrase in which ‘and’ yokes two nouns,
adjectives, verbs or adverbs. When you find one, ask yourself:
what is the difference between the connotations of these two
terms? Has that distinction been explained? Or could both
words be suspected of saying the same thing? Of course, if they
do turn out to offer almost identical meanings, you must retain
the more apt or vigorous term and cut the other. Here is an
extract from an essay on Shakespeare’s Richard II:
Unlike Richard who is so hysterical and excessive,
Bolingbroke has the strength and ability to remove those
who endanger the state.
This could be expanded to distinguish the paired terms:
Richard’s despairing speeches in Act III sound hysterical just
as his complacent demonstration of authority in Act I looks
excessive. The less flamboyant Bolingbroke, by contrast, has
the intellectual strength to identify those who would
endanger the state and enough ability as a military strategist
to defeat them.
The alternative is simply to prune the original down to: