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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Lewis Thomas 'On Natural Death'

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Isabella Churchill Ms. Jonte AP Language 10 December, 2015 On Natural Death The concept of death is vague and incomprehensible. On natural death begs the question of if death actually is painful or if it is only minute and diminutive. Lewis Thomas illustrates to his audience the conceptual idea of death being small. He begins with people's view of versus his own. People have a preconceived idea of how they best way to die and the ways to deal with the pain of death, that may or may not even be there. Thomas comes forward in this to say that death is not painful. He could be right, but we don't know. The question of death is vast and unknown, Thomas explores the possibilities …show more content…

For the sake of logic, people believe Thomas because of his degrees from this specific study. Through his credibility we are more vulnerable to the ideas because he seems to be a smart person, so therefore we should trust them. There are many scientists who have studied the human brain for this as a common trait found in people, and most people do. We see his order of the deaths of certain things change how he elaborates on the death of field mice to be painless but he goes into detail by saying,’At an instant of being penetrated by teeth’. He mentions his extensive research as a doctor to explain his ideas by writing, ‘if a mouse could shrug, he’d shrug’ to show the indifference of death of the mouse. Through the essay, Thomas writes about different occasions of living things come to an end on the lives. The last paragraph is dedicated to an accident that he witnessed of a car with two soldiers who were hit by another oncoming car. The soldiers waited patiently having conversation with the people who came to help. The witnesses asked how they were feeling as they worked to pry the two soldiers out of the obliterated vehicle, they replied with, “Sorry about the accident. No, we feel fine.” The other said, “no hurry now”. ‘And then they died’. This shows that it is hard not to place more emphasis on the people than the mouse, but only one paragraph was

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