"In a small New Zealand coastal village, Maori claim descent from Paikea, the Whale Rider. In every generation for more than 1000 years, a male heir born to the Chief succeeds to the title." If you're asked to describe something your first thoughts probably turn to physical characterists: how big it is, its color, its weight, and so forth. That's if the thing is something physical, of course. If you're asked to describe how you feel you may have a harder time and find yourself reaching for familiar terms, like love, hate, fear, anger, etc. These are all legitimate choices, but for the purposes of this lesson, I'd like you to think about description in the context of the four kinds of truth: personal, influential, literary and scientific. What you'll find is that your choices are easier when they are made in tis way. There are two basic features to description. It focuses on the uniqueness of the thing being described and it involves a point of view, or perspective. Uniqueness A description may begin with classification. For example, the description of a lamp might follow this sequence: It's part of the group of things that create light. It's part of a sub-group called table lamps. It's an antique table lamp. Notice how we narrow down the identifying characteristics to reduce the number of possible similar objects to a point where we can specify a unique aspect of the lamp. By "unique" we mean any special quality of the thing that makes it different from everything else. No two things are exactly alike: no two apples, no two snowflakes, no two people. And no two lamps. So we might add the fact that the p[articular lamp we're describing has a chip, about the size of a quarter, at the base. This process of using classification to narrow the field and then adding the unique characteristic (the chip at the base) might be used in a scientific description. But if your purpose were to express literary truth, the description might read this way: I remember the antique table lamp that sat in a corner of my grandmother's living room. The lamp was an antique because my grandmother swore it was, though we never had that fact verified. It certainly looked old enough and God knows it was worn. It was a long time before I noticed the chip, about the size of a quarter, in the lamp's ceramic base. I had never seen it before that day because she had always kept it facing the wall. In this version, the writer mentions the unique aspect of the lamp, but it's within the context of an emotion that's related to it. Point of View By point of view we're talking about the writer's physical location in relation to the thing being described. Wherever we stand in a room, we cannot see things exactly the same way if we stand somewhere else. Point of view also refers to the writer's biases, the writer's view of the world in general. We do not see only with our eyes, but with our hearts and minds. The cliche about the glass of water (is it half empty or half full?) holds true for descriptions too. The literary description of the vase (above) illustrates this The viewpoint becomes more critical when the purpose is to present scientific truth. The scintific writer must be objective. Describing Your Personal Truth As explained in the lecture on Personal Truth, when you write from this perspective your only concern is yourself. Whether anyone reads what you've written is irrelevant. You don't care. Your only concern is to express yourself. You have greater freedom to distort, leave things out, and use emotional terms If you choose to do this through the description method, your writing is likely to contain a lot of strong language, words that you probably wouldn't use in public. What you wind up doing is talking about your feelings. In bumper-sticker/tee-shirt language: "It's All ABout Me." Here's a page from a student journal writing about a film she just saw. "I loved that movie. It made me feel happy. I like to feel good when I leave a movie theatre and that movie did it for me. I got goosebumps at the end of the film where the girl climbs onto the whale and rides away. And when she was in the hospital, it made me cry." Notice that anyone reading this has no idea what film the writer is talking about. What we DO know is all about the writer. We know how she felt about the film. And that's just about all we know. Describing Persuasive Truth A description written with the goal of persuading the reader is nearly the opposite of the previous type. Whereas the previous focus was on the writer, this focus is on the reader. It's all about YOU. The words used to desribe something here are chosen because the writer knows what will motivate the reader to agree with her. Therefore, the description of the film might read like this: "'Whale Rider' is a movie you won't want to miss. It will make you feel happy. If you like to feel good when you leave a movie theatre, this film will do that for you. You'll get goosebumps watching Pai climbing onto the whale and ride away. And you'll cry joyful tears when her father finally accepts her as the descent from Paikea, the Whale Rider." Of course, as we've said before, in an effort to persuade the reader, a writer may not necessarily be totally honest. After all, how would he know what makes you cry? He's simply counting on your emotions being much the same as most people...and that may not be the case. In fact, what the writer is counting on even more is that you LIKE the sort of film that causes that reaction. His 'truth' lies in the underlying goal of convincing you to see the film. Describing Literary Truth Literature is aimed at a kind of knowing that goes beyond feeling. In some ways, it a lot like faith. The writer is trying to tell the truth through a story, a play, or poem that strikes a resonant chord of honesty in the reader. "There is something deep in the hearts of all people. It is an awareness of who they are and where they have come from. This knowledge shines through brilliantly in 'Whale Rider' as we see the Maori people, watching Pai climb onto the whale that she was destined to ride. These people understand, as we all do on some level, that those who are chosen, those whose spirit has been handed down to them, must fulfill their destiny. And the tears they shed as they watch the sacred whale carry her away are tears of joy and peace." [Click on the image to read more about the movie.] The description here is aimed at capturing the 'feel' of the movie and describing the emotions it stirs up. Describing Scientific Truth This is the kind of description you're most familiar with. It's objective, straighforward, and focused on the facts. Compare it with the Literary version. "Whale Rider is a film that tells the story of a young girl's struggle to be accepted by her people, the Maori, and more particularly, her father, as the true descendant of the man of myth, the whale rider who brought the Maori from Hawaii to New Zealand on the back of a whale. The film is 2 hours and 17 minutes long and stars Keisha Castle-Hughes as PAI and Rawiri Paratene as KORO. It was written and directed by NIKI CARO from the novel by WITI IHIMAERA." Questions? For answers, send an e-mail to Dr. Write.