Distinguished by the quality of writing and the variety of selections, this thematic reader identifies and collects some of the most important insights, discoveries, and reflections of the past millennia as produced by its most noteworthy writers and through a variety of genres. In addition, it introduces students to major traditions in essay writing and other genres and provides guidance in developing critical reading and writing skills.

Table of Contents:
Rhetorical Contents xi Preface xvii Introduction: Reading in the Various Genres 1 Reading Essays 1 Reading Fiction 20 Reading Poetry 22 Reading Drama 23 Literary Works in Context 25 Reading and Analyzing Visual Texts 26 Elements of Design 27 Reading Images as Cultural Signs 30 1 REFLECTIONS ON EXPERIENCE 33 Nonfiction George Orwell Shooting an Elephant 34 Ruth Reichl Betty 40 Jill Nelson Number One! 50 Fritz Peters Boyhood with Gurdjieff 54 Beryl Markham West with the Night 58 Dave Barry Just Say No to Rugs 68 Douchan Gersi Initiated into an Iban Tribe of Headhunters 70 James Herriot Rumenotomy on a Cow 75 Fiction William Maxwell The Pilgrimage 77 Andre Dubus The Fat Girl 85 Poetry Elizabeth Barrett Browning How Do I Love Thee? 97 Sara Teasdale The Solitary 98 Nikki Giovanni Nikki-Rosa 99 Connections for Chapter 1: Reflections on Experience 100 2 MEMORABLE PEOPLE AND PLACES 102 Nonfiction Maya Angelou Liked for Myself 103 Gayle Pemberton Antidisestablishmentarianism 107 Mikhal Gilmore My Brother, Gary Gilmore 114 Fatima Mernissi Moonlit Nights of Laughter 125 Richard Rhodes A Hole in the World 130 Rudolph Chelminski Turning Point 134 Rick Bass A Fitting Desire 141 Aldo Leopold Thinking Like a Mountain 143 Fiction Raymond Carver Neighbors 146 John Cheever Reunion151 Poetry Robert Hayden Those Winter Sundays 154 Marianne Moore A Grave 155 William Carlos Williams At the Ball Game 157 Connections for Chapter 2: Memorable People and Places 160 3 THE VALUE OF EDUCATION 162 Nonfiction Frederick Douglass Learning to Read and Write 163 Jonathan Kozol The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society 168 Mike Adams The Dead Grandmother/Exam Syndrome 175 Richard Rodriguez On Becoming a Chicano 181 Sabine Reichel Learning What Was Never Taught 188 Nat Hentoff “Speech Codes” on the Campus 197 Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes Civilize Them with a Stick 204 Judy Blume Is Harry Potter Evil? 211 Mark Salzman Lessons 213 Fiction Edward P. Jones The First Day 219 Poetry Linda Hogan Workday 223 Tom Wayman Did I Miss Anything? 225 Connections for Chapter 3: The Value of Education 227 4 PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE 228 Nonfiction Helen Keller The Day Language Came into My Life 229 Temple Grandin Thinking in Pictures 231 Deborah Tannen Sex, Lies, and Conversation 236 George Lakoff Anger 241 Alison Lurie The Language of Clothes 250 Amy Tan Mother Tongue 256 Aldous Huxley Propaganda under a Dictatorship 261 Stuart Hirschberg The Rhetoric of Advertising 267 Fiction Gish Jen Who’s Irish? 276 Poetry Kenneth Koch Permanently 285 Connections for Chapter 4: Perspectives on Language 288 5 EVERYDAY MATTERS 289 Nonfiction Juliet B. Schor The Culture of Consumerism 290 Philip Slater Want-Creation Fuels Americans’ Addictiveness 300 Jan Harold Brunvand Urban Legends: “The Boyfriend’s Death” 304 Rosalind Coward The Body Beautiful 313 Bill Bryson What’s Cooking? Eating in America 320 Jessica Mitford Mortuary Solaces 330 Judith Ortiz Cofer The Myth of the Latin Woman 335 Mark Twain The Lowest Animal 339 Fiction Kate Chopin Désirée’s Baby 345 Gloria Anzaldúa Cervicide 349 Poetry Marge Piercy Barbie Doll 351 Grace C. Kuhns Lisa’s Ritual, Age 10 353 Bruce Springsteen Streets of Philadelphia 354 Gregory Corso Marriage 356 Drama David Ives Sure Thing 361 Connections for Chapter 5: Everyday Matters 369 6 OUR PLACE IN NATURE 371 Nonfiction Charles Darwin From the Origin of Species 372 Gunjan Sinha You Dirty Vole 382 Joseph K. Skinner Big Mac and the Tropical Forests 387 Alice Walker Am I Blue? 393 Konrad Lorenz The Dove and the Wolf 397 Robert W. Felix Fatal Flaw 408 Elizabeth Kolbert Shishmaref, Alaska415 Robert Sapolsky Bugs in the Brain 422 Fiction Doris Lessing A Sunrise on the Veld 425 Poetry Mary Oliver Sleeping in the Forest 432 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Sound of the Sea 433 Xu Gang Red Azalea on the Cliff 434 Sharon Chmielarz New Water 436 Connections for Chapter 6: Our Place in Nature 437 7 PAST TO PRESENT 439 Nonfiction Herodotus Concerning Egypt 440 Thomas Paine Rights of Man 451 Gilbert Highet The Gettysburg Address 454 Jack London The San Francisco Earthquake 461 Hanson W. Baldwin R. M. S. Titanic 466 Haunani-Kay Trask From a Native Daughter 477 Maurizio Chierici The Man from Hiroshima 486 Don DeLillo In the Ruins of the Future 492 Fiction Ambrose Bierce An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 502 Irene Zabytko Home Soil 510 Poetry Bertolt Brecht A Worker Reads History 515 Wilfred Owen Strange Meeting 517 W. B. Yeats The Second Coming 519 Connections for Chapter 7: Past to Present 521 8 POWER AND POLITICS 523 Nonfiction Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 524 Kenneth M. Stampp To Make Them Stand in Fear 529 Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream 532 Barbara Ehrenreich Nickel-and-Dimed 537 Luis Sepúlveda Daisy 557 Tim O’Brien If I Die in a Combat Zone 562 Stephen Chapman The Prisoner’s Dilemma 568 Michael Levin The Case for Torture 574 Fiction Jonathan Swift A Modest Proposal 577 Panos Ioannides Gregory 585 Poetry W. H. Auden The Unknown Citizen 590 Carolyn Forché The Colonel 591 Drama Susan Glaspell Trifles 593 Connections for Chapter 8: Power and Politics 605 9 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 607 Nonfiction David Ewing Duncan DNA as Destiny 608 Bill McKibben It’s Easy Being Green 617 Henry Petroski The Pencil 622 Anwar F. Accawi The Telephone 626 Charles H. Townes Harnessing Light 632 Donald A. Norman Emotional Robots 638 Fiction Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Harrison Bergeron 644 Poetry Walt Whitman When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer 649 Connections for Chapter 9: Science and Technology 651 10 THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE 652 Nonfiction Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. How to Write with Style 653 Stephen King On Writing 656 Ross King Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling 661 Agnes De Mille Pavlova 671 Aaron Copland Film Music 673 Lance Morrow Imprisoning Time in a Rectangle 679 Germaine Greer One Man’s Mutilation Is Another Man’s Beautification 682 Valerie Steele and John S. Major China Chic: East Meets West 691 Fiction Carson McCullers Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland 698 Poetry Emily Dickinson Tell All the Truth but Tell it Slant 705 Charles Bukowski So You Want to be a Writer 706 Connections for Chapter 10: The Artistic Impulse 708 11 THE ETHICAL DIMENSION 710 Nonfiction Philip Wheelwright The Meaning of Ethics 711 Marya Mannes The Unwilled 717 Hans Ruesch Slaughter of the Innocent 719 Garrett Hardin Lifeboat Ethics 732 Stanley Milgram The Perils of Obedience 742 Dalai Lama The Role of Religion in Modern Society 755 Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialism 762 John M. Darley and Bibb Latané Why People Don’t Help in a Crisis 767 Fiction Joyce Carol Oates Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 772 Parables Plato The Allegory of the Cave 786 Matthew Parables in the New Testament 791 Buddha Parables of Buddha 794 Nasreddin Hodja Islamic Folk Stories 796 Poetry Linda Pastan Ethics 798 Robert Frost The Road Not Taken 800 Connections for Chapter 11: The Ethical Dimension 801 Appendix: The MLA Style of Documentation 803 Tara Miles Prelude to the Internet 804 Glossary 811 Credits 817 Index of First Lines of Poems 823 Index of Authors and Titles 825