Moby-Dick

Early on in MB, before Queequeg's and Ishmael's homoerotic relationships, there's a good old puritanical sermon. Father Maple claims this:

"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's purse, ere he judge him openly."

So, the argument:

J implies P
S implies F
:./
(V implies P) implies ~F

J = judges openly and encapsulates the first sentence
P = pauper, poor, penniless
S = Sin
F = free
V = virtue

Do you think this works? Or do could we say for sin ~V so that we don't have this floating variable?

Nobel Prize Winner

Since the Nobel Prize for Literature is always something to scoff at and be like "Really?", I'm excerpting what seems to be a gross over-simplification of Alice Munro's prose and personality. She's the 13th woman to receive the Nobel; that's not the only reason to declare "Really, Sweden?"


"Munro is one of those writers who, no matter how popular her books are, is our writer. This may have to do with the frank intimacy of her tone, which is stripped of ornament and fuss, yet also, in its plainness, contains huge amounts of terrible, sublime, and contradictory feeling. It may have to do with the fact that she writes mostly about women who want to escape some kind of confinement, who are hungry for experience above all else, and who attain it at a dear price, so that we can read about it. They are elegant, wry, determined women. They are also subversives, and because they allow us into their lives, we’re dusted with their secret glamor" (Sasha Weiss; 10/10/13).

 Munro is our WRITER. (WR)
FRANK intimacy of her tone and PLAINNESS
Writes mostly about WOMEN (WO)
ELEGANT women.
SUBVERSIVE and DUSTED with secret glamor.

(F + P) +  WO
E
S + D
---------
WR

The argument here is all over the place. It also doesn't help that Weiss starts her sentences with "this may" and "it may" because she seems to be just throwing possible supporting facts in there. Does anyone see salvation here?

This is not because it's October

In a dialogue incorrectly labelled a short story, Edgar Allan Poe has his character Agathos say: "There are no dreams in Eden--but it is here whispered that, of this infinity of matter, the sole purpose is to afford infinite springs, at which the soul may allay the thirst to know which is for ever unquenchable within it--since to quench it, would be to extinguish the soul's self."

Oinos, the other character, stated before this:"I clearly perceive the infinity of matter is no dream" to help clarify the obscure subject.

To give this some form:


P1: not D  (tacitly: not D implies I)
P2: I (infinity of matter) & IS (infinite springs)
P3: Q (quench) implies EX (extinguish)
Conclusion: not Q (unquenchability of knowledge)

We don't want to extinguish our souls; I hope that's tacit also. I'm having a bit of difficulty with the variables. I want to prove this but I can't extract EX from Q implies EX without it elsewhere in the form. Does anyone else see how I can fix this?