The Paris Review

In Defense of Passive Voice

Someone’s raising money, a sweet sickfriend from a former life in present need.You follow the link from Facebookto PayPal,friends of friends are posting at the hive.Lead in the water, a new celebrity screamsif you click on her video clip.You click and click on the streaming, screaming clip.Someone posts a rant on the perils of passive voice.Someone else replies, in defense of passive voice—snidely, shyly. What does it mean, of the text?you type, chatting in a box on the side.You probe your metaphor from two angles:From one, the body is active and contained.From the other, the body is passive and contained.

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