Mencken vs. Kroll
... other witnesses were disrespectful and even laughed; they could care less if Harris suffered. Kroll’s stance as Harris’s friend makes him feel bad for the family and hate the witnesses. He wants to show how much Harris suffered and how immoral the death penalty is. By presenting his argument in the form of a personal account, Kroll is able to incorporate emotions into the essay and therefore jerk certain feelings out of his audience to sway their opinions. Mencken’s essay, on the other hand, takes a humorous approach to the subject of the death penalty. His humor plays off of the suffering of others, and is lighthearted and a bit sarcastic. I find the humor funny even in the light of the grim subject because the essay would be too depressing without it. His humor is thus appropriate. For example, he compares a hangman’s work to a priest’s, plumber’s, and garbage man’s. He compares the joy a boy gets from playing a prank on his teacher to the relief one feels after a criminal is punished. These are humorous because Mencken is making ridiculous exaggerates. They are false analogies because the differences outweigh the similarities, and Mencken would probably agree; he uses the false analogies on purpose. Like exaggerations, his analogies are humorous. Mencken divides his argument into two distinctive categories, and he makes generalizations and assumptions. His second argument about the time the executed must wait after being sentenced, however, weakens the e...