50. Concede to the counterargument (persuasive paper)

50. Concede to the Counterargument (persuasive paper):

used in each persuasive paper, concession starters allow writers to summarize the counterargument to your argument and concede a point of agreement while maintaining your own argument.

For example, in the paragraph below the “concession starters” are in bold:

Many critics believe Eve is vain and therefore was predestined to fall by God, but her obsession with her first view image is a natural fascination that is mistaken as vanity. The reader can make a parallel with Eve and Narcissus, a Greek God in love with himself. In his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton describes Eve’s reaction as she looks into a pool of water at herself. Milton writes:

A shape within the wat’ry gleam appeared

Bending to look on me, I startled back,

It startled back but please I soon returned,

Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks

Of sympathy and love; there I had fixed

Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire

(IV, 460-465)

At this point in the epic poem, the reader has encountered the powerful, persuasive, and compelling Satan for 3,000 lines, and this is our first view of our parents-Adam and Eve. In discussions of this text, whether or not God predestined Eve to fall so that He could pardon Adam and Eve after the fall and thereby maintain power over them and their progeny has been a controversial issue. (concede): It is true that Milton refers to Eve’s gaze at her self as loving, pining and desirous. While Milton’s use of the word “vain” to describe Eve’s gaze at her image leads the reader to believe Eve is self-centered and susceptible to evil., it does not necessarily follow that Eve is vain and hopeless in her defense against Satan’s flattery. It is my view that the narcissistic interpretation of Eve is false. In his criticism of Paradise Lost, “Discovery As Form in Paradise Lost,” Stanley Eugene Fish explains how the reader tends to only see the surface of the situation. He writes, “On the surface, the account of Eve’s infatuation with her reflected image…seems to deny the freedom of the unfallen will by circumscribing our first parents…Yet in each instance Milton provides evidence that makes it possible for the reader to disengage these incidents from the Fall.” (Fish 530) It is impossible that Prelapsarian Eve is conceited or vain, because God created Adam and Eve as perfect human beings. We must remember the description of Adam and Eve as “(t)he image of their glorious Maker shone, / Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure” (IV, 293-294) Eve and Adam can’t have these characteristics because God created them with perfection. Eve has never seen what she looks like, and is simply interested in the image she sees. Anyone in this situation would be curious, and somewhat complacent if they had never before seen themselves. So, Eve was capable of remaining obedient to God.

UNQUALIFIED CONCESSION STARTERS:

-It is true that ________________________________________________.

-___________________________________ supports this interpretation as well.

-While many believe in this view, the crucial point of this perspective is ___________________________.

-The opposing view rightly claims that ______________________________.

-She argues that ________________________, and it is true that _____________________.

-Admittedly, _____________________________________.

-Granted, _____________________________________.

-Of course, _____________________________________.