Q22 - On the surface, Melville's

[lisahollchang]

Looking back at this one, I still don't understand why D is the correct answer (I answered B). The conclusion is that Billy Budd should be considered a simple tragedy, which seems to choose against viewing it allegorically as D states.

Thanks for any help with this!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

I can see why (B) was a tempting answer!

The author's conclusion is that we should read Billy Budd as a simple tragedy, and not as allegory, and the reasoning he uses is that there is no evidence Melville intended it to be read as allegory.

No evidence Melville intended it be read as allegory --> B.B. should be read as simple tragedy, not as allegory.

(D) is a principle that fills this gap nicely.

It seems like the "not as allegory" part is the part you questioned, and you ought to -- it is not directly stated, but rather implied -- among other clues, we know that the reader should be "content" with one type of read (meaning not requiring others) and we know this conclusion is a reply to a rhetorical question involving allegorical reading.

Going back to (B) -- a couple of red flags -- "only" -- (we don't need to know it's the only factor), and "stated intention" -- the only thing we are told about his intentions are that they are unclear.

Hope that helps. Please feel free to follow up if I haven't addressed any of your concerns!

[lisahollchang]

Looking back at this question, I realize I must have misread answer (D) and didn't notice the crucial word "avoid" in it. I was thinking that the intent was that one SHOULD view the work allegorically! Nevertheless, this is a tough question! Thanks!

[sumukh09]

I picked B as well and was pretty confident it would be correct. Can someone provide some more insight as to why B is wrong? The argument seems to be saying that since there is no evidence that the author intended the novel to be read allegorically then it should not be read that way.

B is a little strong in that it says "the only" but isn't that what we're looking for when doing principle questions? Something that assures that the conclusion is true?

[alex.cheng.2012]

I'd just like to chip in as to why B is incorrect.

Aside from the red flag of "only," the real keyword to eliminating B is the word "genre."

To put it bluntly, do we care about what genre Billy Bud is? We only care if it should be considered an allegory or not. I'm not an expert in literature, but I'm fairly sure that an allegory is not a genre type.

I did a quick google of allegory and from wikipedia, it's defined as a literary device. So you could have a sci-fi allegory, or a romance allegory, etc.

Quick edit:
Even if we don't know what exactly an allegory is (should have paid attention in high school!) we can tell by the context that something either is, or isn't an allegory (it's a dichotomy) - it is, or it isn't. Answer B says which genre to place the novel in. From that context, we can tell genre is probably something akin to category, something with more than 2 options. Otherwise the answer would be, is the novel a genre or is it not a genre.

[WaltGrace1983]

I'd just like to chip in as to why B is incorrect.

Aside from the red flag of "only," the real keyword to eliminating B is the word "genre."

To put it bluntly, do we care about what genre Billy Bud is? We only care if it should be considered an allegory or not. I'm not an expert in literature, but I'm fairly sure that an allegory is not a genre type.

I did a quick google of allegory and from wikipedia, it's defined as a literary device. So you could have a sci-fi allegory, or a romance allegory, etc.

Quick edit:
Even if we don't know what exactly an allegory is (should have paid attention in high school!) we can tell by the context that something either is, or isn't an allegory (it's a dichotomy) - it is, or it isn't. Answer B says which genre to place the novel in. From that context, we can tell genre is probably something akin to category, something with more than 2 options. Otherwise the answer would be, is the novel a genre or is it not a genre.

Strongly disagree with this. We don't need to attack the word "genre." In fact, "genre" and "allegory" are quite synonymous. An allegory is a type of genre.



There's an excerpt from the dictionary. Either way, let's look at these more closely. I got this question wrong too by choosing (B) instead of (D) but I see what I did wrong here.

The core:

There is no textual or historical evidence that Melville intended an allegorical reading for Billy Budd
→
We should just read Billy Budd as a simple tragedy.

So the gap here is that the argument assumes that, in the absence of evidence, we should not view the story allegorically. Let's look at some of the wrong answer choices:

(A) Kind of tempting! This conclusion is normative - saying what we "should" or "shouldn't" do - just like the conclusion of the argument. However, is the stimulus really saying this particularly? It is saying that, between allegory and nonallegory, we should always choose nonallegory. It isn't! It is saying that in this specific case we should choose nonallegory because there is no evidence of intention! This is a very important distinction. It is not telling us to blindly choose an interpretation, but rather, choose an interpretation backed by evidence!

(C) This goes against the conclusion. An allegorical reading of Billy Budd, as the stimulus says, shows a "richness" that isn't captured by a nonallegorical reading. Isn't this favorable? Probably. We don't know but it probably is. You could make that argument on the "probable" but that can also become dangerous or you could just say that it doesn't matter what is favorable or not and write this one off for scope.

(E) This goes against the premises that state "there is no textual or historical evidence..."

Now let's look at (B).

(B) states that the only relevant evidence is "stated intention." I don't have that much of a problem with "only." If someone can chime in with more detail on why this "only" matters I would love to know. My problem here is with the word "stated." Is historical evidence a "stated intention?" I don't think so. Historical evidence could be, "he intended his other books to be read a certain way."

(D) This is right. It is saying:

~Evidence for intention → Avoid reading book allegorically?

Why did I get this wrong? Well I didn't take the sufficient condition seriously enough. I imagined in my head situations in which it would be wise to read the book allegorically if someone said that it should be read that way. I did a mistaken reversal in my head. No good. Either way, I learned and now I am going to try to not make that mistake again.

Can anyone give me more explanation for my question on (B) though?

[nbayar1212]

I think the real issue with B is the point about "genre" as an earlier poster said.

B brings in a principle about what kind of genre we should place Billy Bud in while the thrust of the conclusion is about how we should read Billy Bud.

As to the previous poster's point, sure, allegory can be both an approach to a text and both a genre of text. Your definition seems to be consistent with both interpretations. However, based on the context of the argument, allegory is used in the former sense i.e. a way of reading/looking at the text.

This is why B is wrong. It doesn't help us be content with reading the novel in a non-allegorical way.

[chunsunb]

At first, I eliminated (B) due to the word "stated."

But now I tealize tgere's a bigger problen with the answer choice:

There is no relevant evidence given in the passage--

So according tp (B), there's no reaon that the book should be read as a tragedy!

I.e. (b) does not give a reason for us to pick "tragedy" over "allegory."

[smsotolongo]

B brings in a principle about what kind of genre we should place Billy Bud in while the thrust of the conclusion is about how we should read Billy Bud.

I marked off B as wrong because B talks about in what genre to place the novel. We're not trying to place it in any genre, we're trying to determine how it should be read.

[LinnZ691]

I chose B also, want to share some new thought.

Stem says which one most accurately expresses the principle, we should be on the look out for a rule that can reasonably lead to the conclusion. Same strategy with sufficient assumptions.

(Reminds me of questions in the Games asking you which new rule would have the same effect of an old rule; or more similar in this case is the question: which rule would have the same effect.)

Bearing this in mind, a good strategy would be to find a principle that once kicks in, will more or less force the conclusion out.

B in this case failed.

1 even if the only relevant evidence is the author's intention, being it stated or not stated, it doesn't guarantee that the absence of this evidence would lead to the result of the conclusion. For, the relevance of the evidence doesn't equal the content of the evidence, being relevant doesn't dictate the ACTUAL conclusion. It's a scope shifter here.

2 What's the key here is not "which evidence is relevent or not", or "which evidence is the ONLY relevant one", the point is HOW we reach the conclusion when there's no evidence provided, and that's the implicit "unproven untrue" hidden in the text.

Overall I think B is a sneaky answer tries to lure you into mental struggles when you're not in line with the real scope of the text.