How to Legitimately Dispossess Someone of His/Her Vineyard (or Anything Else You Want): A Narrative Analysis of 1 Kings 21
by David Priddy
Developed under the guidance of:
Dr. Cameron Jorgenson
Divinity
In this essay, I analyze the story of Naboth’s dispossession and death by the hands of Ahab and Jezebel in 1 Kings 21. While this narrative derives from an ancient Hebrew text, I argue that it has the potential to shape the moral imagination of the contemporary reader (or hearer). Indeed, I suggest that this story of dispossession has the ability to influence our own stories of dispossession and inclinations to dispossess. By reading this narrative closely, I demonstrate the possible function of the rhetorical devices in the text and how they affect the reader’s response. Such rhetorical devices include indirect characterization, repetition, and polarity. With these tools the storyteller(s) has crafted a narrative that juxtaposes two interpretations of reality. These rhetorical devices, then, are implemented to influence the reader toward approving one of the two interpretations, or visions, of reality within the text.
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