Dianoea

Dianoea (di-a-noe’-a): The use of animated questions and answers in developing an argument (sometimes simply the equivalent of anthypophora).

What is love? Unconditional affection. He says he loved his wife. Is cutting her throat with a steak knife love? No, it’s not. is it justifiable? No. She didn’t attack him. She didn’t try to poison him. She never cheated on him. She was asleep in her bed after a long day of cleaning, taking care of the five kids, making lunch, cooking dinner, and mowing the lawn, and dutifully taking the sleeping pills he gave her. Was she able to defend herself as her husband put the knife to her throat? No. She was sound asleep—possibly a drug-induced sleep. Did she have a chance? No. Did he do it? Yes. His fingerprints are on the knife and one of his children saw him do it. Why did he do it? Sadly, in his twisted mind it was cheaper and easier to murder her than to get a divorce. He had told his neighbor that he freaked out when his attorney told him what it would cost, and that he would lose nearly everything. Does this sound like a motive for choosing an alternative to divorce? Yes it does,

And what triggered the murder, what started the ball rolling? Adultery. He had fallen into the slime pit of an extramarital affair with a considerably younger woman—only two years older than his eldest daughter. He felt trapped between the old and the new. The stale and the fresh. The plodding consistent love of his wife, and the fireworks display of his young mistresses body, her endless adulation, and her cheerful, good-natured demeanor. Is the possible contrast between wife and mistress a good reason for him to contemplate murdering his wife? No. It is about the pathological desire to have his way and seeing his wife’s murder as more cost effective than divorce. It is about narcissism and the blindfold of total self-interest making him unable to gauge the consequences of his actions. He killed her in their bed where their children were conceived. And one of their children witnessed what he did. She will be traumatized for the rest of her life. If it wasn’t for the child, he would’ve escaped. He punched his little daughter in the face as he went out the bedroom door, and he told her to keep her mouth shut, or she was next.

There is no love here. There’s only deception, indecency, brutality, murder and the absolute destruction of a little girl’s life.

Where should this man go next? I vote for some kind of medieval torture chamber, but here in New York, we’ll have to settle for a conviction and a prison sentence. Life in prison without parole? Yes. This man is a murdering fiend with no redeeming qualities.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

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