Tim Swaim AP English Mrs.

Ahmad A Victim and One Violent Crime Comparison questions # 2, 3 and 5

2) In One Violent Crime, Bruce Shapiro uses an anecdote of a violent crime that occurred to him in a Connecticut coffee shop to criticize the conservative policy on criminal justice, media coverage of violent crime and the American mindset toward violent crime in general. Shapiro recalls somewat bemusedly that at the time, a large piece of criminal justice legislature passed through congress. He remarks that upon reading it, he discovered that while the bill would impose larger penalties on convicted criminals, there were no provisions that would actually prevent crimes like the one that had happened to him (for example, better mental health care for people like his attacker). Shapiro also criticizes the media frenzy over the event, which was a statistical anomaly. He accuses the media of presenting a false view of crime in America by focusing on the unlikely rather than the commonplace using the shooting of a young black teenager in a crime-infested Connecticut neighborhood that received no media attention, despite the fact that in that incident the girl was killed, whereas in the stabbing that Shapiro was involved in no one died. Shapiro also attacks the Rambo-esque mindset towards violent crime, in which there are only heroes and victims. He rebukes this, saying that crime victims often make dynamic human connections and take actions that put them somewhere between hero and victim. 3) Bettelheim and Shapiro structure their essays around an anecdote, however the ways in which they use those anecdotes to convey the overall message of their pieces. Bettelheims essay is composed almost entirely of his anecdote, which flows chronologically following a brief introduction to explain what the audience should take away from it. Bettelheim therefore effectively draws in his reader into his experience and allows them to better connect his anecdote with a general life lesson. Since

Bettelheims thesis is generalized, this method of organization works well. Shapiro on the other hand writes to make several observations on various political and social issues. Since he organizes his essay not based solely upon his anecdote but uses it as a stepping stone to address several topics, he does not tell his story chronologically, but instead jumps back and forth, bringing up parts of the tale as they become relevant to the topic at hand. Shapiro uses fragments of his anecdote to discuss various topics rather than using all of it to discuss one overall theme, which works better for his essay than Bettelheims method might have. 5) The difference in time that has passed between the anecdote discussed in A Victim and One Violent Crime and the writing of both essays are evident when the two essays are compared. In A Victim, Bettelheim only recalls information that is relevant to the anecdote. Very few actual people are referenced, and very few specific details are mentioned. Bettelheim comments on the general state in Germany during the 1930s and a generalized problem in the concentration camp, rather than on specific information that he likely would not remember. Bettelheim becomes more specific when describing his interaction with the SS officer as that is the single most relevant part of the anecdote, but even there he lacks any sensory details, simply preferring to recount the event as it happened. In One Violent crime, Shapiro describes in meticulous detail the event that occurred less than a year before the writing of the essay. Every person mentioned in the essay is named and described in some way (particular descriptive attention is given to Shapiros attacker), every smallest action that Shapiro takes is given meticulous chronological detail, and Shapiro even incorporates the time passed during an event, at one point describing an event as taking about as long as the paragraph that describes it. This meticulous attention to detail helps Shapiro immerse his reader in the event and achieve a better mental picture of what happened on that day.