Deductive and Inductive Arguments in Poetry

Deductive and Inductive Arguments in Fictional Literature

This life’s dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.
- William Blake

At three, I had the feeling of
Ambivalence towards my brothers,
And so it follows naturally
I poisoned all my lovers.
But I am happy; now I’ve learned
The lesson this has taught;
That everything I do that’s wrong -
Is someone else’s fault.
- Anna Russell

Art is one of the most powerful psychological methods of argument. Through such forms as poetry and literature arguments have made themselves manifest in the most unlikely ways. One such argumentative comes from William’s Blake’s unnamed poem on the eye. In this poem Blake uses deductive reasoning and poetic verse to state the premise that (A) only people who use reason, “through the eye,” can govern themselves with moral conduct, or see an “undistorted heaven.” However, (B) people can use sense “with the eye,” rather then reason. Although, (C) senses confuse the moral will, “dim the soul,” and (D) make an individual more accessible to wrong thinking, “lies.” Therefore, when one uses the senses rather then reason they become more acceptable of immorality.
In contrast Anne Russell uses a farcical inductive argument to move the reader towards the two-sided truth of her conclusion. In the poem she states two premises:
(1) The speaker claims ambivalence towards her brothers
(2) And it follows naturally that she poisoned all her lovers.
Thus it is through the premises that the speaker draws the probable conclusion that all wrongs committed by one are really someone else’s fault. While it seems at first that this kind of argument comes across as rather speculative, in reality the implied argument against psychology is that of a scathing critique. Anne Russell is creatively mocking the Freudian methodology of inductive reasoning by stating it in such a flippant way. However, in doing so she acutely uses the methodology of inductive argument by stating that: If (A) someone wrongs me and (B) I wrong someone else, then (C) It is A’s fault. She is hoping that her premises are so strong that, if they are true, then it is unlikely that the conclusion is false.