Rochester Dialectical Analysis

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To begin, Rochester makes a point to immediately shock his readers by expressing a marked disgust for humans. Rochester labels humans as “strange prodigious creatures” (Line 2) and mentions that he would rather be “a dog, a monkey, or a bear. Or anything but that vain animal” (Lines 3-4). His revulsion for his own kind seems to stem from the idea that humans are too self-absorbed and hints at the idea that animals may be more respectable creatures than humans are. To add to this, Rochester refers to man as being “so proud of being rational”. So, besides being self-absorbed, men also have the flaw of having too much pride in rationalism, a concept that Rochester doesn’t seem to appreciate. Rochester continues to disparage humans and their rationalism,