Diamonds in the Rough: Evidence Built Through Detail in “On Compassion”

      In Barbara Lazear Aschler’s  “On Compassion,” Aschler allows readers to imagine the perspectives of two sides of modern society – the poor and the average working man or woman. Through specific detail of city life, Aschler demands the empathy of her reader by recreating common moments of experience, engaging her reader through her evocative writing style.  Aschler’s genius lies in her careful building of evidence through eloquently detailed examples, yet she falls short as a writer in her failure to drive her argument home by connecting these examples to her conclusions concerning compassion. 

            In “On Compassion,” flowing prose create specific, intimate examples that add dimension to the evidence Aschler uses to support her argument. She captures the attention and emotions of her audience in details like the homeless man’s dreadlocks that are “carefully plaited…(and) speak of a time long ago,” contending that he is “held in place by gravity rather than plans” (46). The undertones of Aschler’s writing – the complexities of poverty, the stories of the individual – are explicated in these specific details, making it easier for the audience to understand the nuances Aschler is trying to portray throughout the essay.  

           Over and over throughout the essay, specific detail is also used as a valuable asset that creates a specific environment that requires an answer, namely Aschler’s thesis. For example, a mother with an infant standing on a street corner sees a homeless man approaching and “her hands close tighter on the stroller’s handles” (47). This specific hint that the mother might be afraid of the homeless man rather than actually compassionate towards him stands at the root of Aschler’s argument that humanity is actually more terrified by the consequences of not giving then concerned with the act of giving itself.  

            Occasionally, Aschler uses the meaning of individual words to contribute to the meaning of the essay as a whole – words no longer simply stand as tools to help construct ideas, but the ideas themselves lie in the words. At one point, Aschler describes a mother “bearing the dollar like a cross” (47). Although multiple comparisons would have effectively relayed this image, Aschler specifically chooses a religious contrast to draw faith and its attitude toward compassion to the reader’s mind.  Additionally, instead of “money” or “a homeless man” Aschler uses the words “green” and “black hand,” (47) purposefully displaying to her audience the impersonal nature of compassion in modern society, just as these adjectives are also impersonal.

            The weak point within the essay is the confusing jump in style from expressive, detailed prose to broad, generalizing statements concerning huge ideas such as human nature and the source of all compassion. While Aschler’s potential evidence for these claims is established well earlier in the essay through her evocative detail, Aschler fails to perfectly line up and connect these examples with her thesis, and thus fails to truly argue her proposals on the nature of compassion.