Ellen Goodman's Rhetorical Analysis: The Company Man

Callahan McArthur 1 Ms. Armstrong
AP English 11
23 Sep 2016
Rhetorical Analysis Ellen Goodman’s “The Company Man is about a workaholic named Phil who would spend his free time working himself into his own demise. She uses a few different rhetorical terms to convey her point of view. The author uses irony, sarcastic tone, and symbolism to show that she thinks that that some Americans only focus on work and should be focusing on more important things such as family. Goodman uses irony to show that Phil’s beliefs were insignificant and wrong. The first example, “He was, of course, overweight, by 20 or 25 pounds. He thought it was okay,

Phil symbolizes what foreign people think of Americans. The first example is how he is overweight and his only “extracurricular activity” was an occasional round of golf. It is an extremely common stereotype that American people are overweight and don’t do much for activities. The next stereotype is when it talks about his eldest son and how he turned out the most successful out of all the kids. Most people think that is the case with most families of how the eldest always turns out the best, and the next children turn out to be troublemakers, which leads to the last stereotype. The youngest 3 son turned out to be the most troublesome especially when he said, “My father and I only board here,” but he tried to love his father more than the other children. He lives on the road and does drugs, but still tried to get close to his father. This is stereotypical because the youngest child is usually accused of being the most mischievous. Goodman uses irony, a sarcastic tone, and symbolism through stereotypes to show her point of view towards Phil. In the end, it boiled down to Phil’s hard work equalling nothing to benefit him, but losing connections to his family, which is what truly should have been