Rhetorical Analysis Of Ellen Goodman's The Family That Stretch

Appearances can be everything. In today’s society, especially, appearances are a major factor in how society views and values individuals. However, while one can appear to be high-principled and faithful, he or she can easily be deceiving the public in order to maintain his or her reputation. In The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne, through a collection of oxymoron, syntax, tone, rhetorical question, connotation, details, metaphor, and direct characterization, reveals the corrupt nature of Judge Pyncheon.

In this excerpt of a lecture given by Maria W. Stewart in the year 1832, she has a strong point: Although the African Americans in the northern colonies were free, they were not treated equal as the white people were. Stewart uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to bring her point in the situation, such as argument, compare and contrast, and appeal to ethos. Along with the persistent and serious tone, it is clear that she sees the unfair treatment of African Americans a major problem.

    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.

There are many different types of cultures in society around the world, all with their own individual accepted ways of behaviour, some cultures might be familiar and others might seem strange to us. Cultures have their own set of norms to control acceptable behaviour. If we as fellow human beings all took the initiative to understand each other’s cultures, it might not seem that strange to us anymore and it is possible that we could help others in a way that is acceptable to the society in which we live in. The aim of this essay is to discuss, using a view based on the sociological imagination, whether a unique personal family issue can be related to an issue in society.

To begin, the idea of a “family” was present in early cultures in North America known as aboriginals. Aboriginals believed the concept of family was a sacred and significant function within their culture. However, the understanding of what constitutes a family differed from our understanding today. Unlike the nuclear family, aboriginals placed more emphasis on an extended family (Gendered society, 142). In other words, a family unit consisted of the entire community helpful and protecting one another. In addition, the division of labour in this particular family structure did not contain any superiority; male privilege primarily existed in the nuclear family. As years went on, society began to adopt the ways of Europeans. These ways led society to industrialization and urbanization. During this period the thought of the

Family is the fundamental building block of all societies. It is all inclusive across generations and cultures. Based on the epic poem The Odyssey and current families today, we see that family is where we learn to love ourselves and each other, to bear one another’s burdens, to find meaning in our life and to give purpose to other’s lives, and to feel the value of being part of something greater than ourselves. Family is where we experience our biggest triumphs, deepest vulnerabilities, and where we have the greatest potential to do good.

Families are said to constitute realities in which most of one’s attributes are constructed, based on the family interactions, beliefs, values as well as the behaviours that are seen in the specific families one is brought up into (Archer & McCarthy, 2007).

When you think of family you might think of adults and their children, or kids who lost their parents but are still related to each other. The Outsiders by S.E Hinton tells otherwise. It shows that even if you are not related, you can still be family; you can still have love and affection for each other. In the book, there is a contradiction between the gang’s biological family and their “family”. There is connection shown between the greasers from the Socs in the blue Mustang to Johnny dying in the hospital not wanting to see his mother. Johnny is a member of the gang that is not wanted and cared for by his parents but musters to find a strong bond with the gang and him. The family that cares about you is the most important type of family because they are always there for you and love you. The Outsiders, a realistic fiction book by S.E Hinton, shows the notion that the most important family is the one that appreciates you even though many people say that your biological family can connect more with you.

The family does not mean pure affection or love, it becomes a way to manipulate in order to gain more money or a better social status: “Honor thy parents; that is all/ From whom promotion may befall”

Families in America have increasingly become more diverse, and more complex, compared to the “Leave it to the Beaver” ideal, where the perfect family

I define my family more like Robert Hayden than Linda Hogan; I define my family as my mother, my sister, my grandparents, and house where I grew up. Linda Hogan’s family was a nomadic tribe that moves from place to place, and she wrote about problem of perception of herself as a part of one race; Robert Hayden in his poem describe don’t understanding of parents’ love in a family; while I can describe my family issue as a misunderstanding the role of the father in the family because I grew up without the father. My mother got divorce when I was a child, and couple years late my father was killed. Like Hayden I can say about my house that I felt “fearing the chronic angers of that house” because my dad was alcoholic, and I saw a lot family violence

Gail Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board. In 2001 she was appointed editorial page editor – the first woman to hold that post at The Times. She is a liberal/progressive American journalist, op-ed columnist, and author, a graduate of Marquette University, and has a master’s degree in government from the University of Massachusetts. Since 2013, Ms. Collins has been a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board. The general focus of her columns is American politics and culture and her most used rhetorical strategies are rhetorical questions, appeals to logos, pathos and ethos, and ad hominem.

In the essay “What Is This Thing Called Family”, Lee Herrick reflects his life as a Korean adoptee raised by a Caucasian couple in America. He suffered a difficult life when he was a child because of the differences of his physical attributes from his sister and parents. Through the essay, Herrick has a chance to express his ideas about family and what family means to him. Everyone has something called a family but whether the definition of the family of each person is the same or not is debatable. I also have my own idea about family which I think is similar to Herrick’s opinions in the essay. This will be reflected in the following paragraphs.

A twelve year old boy a world away from his parents once wrote in a letter to his parents: “And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death.” This child was Richard Frethorne, and in “Letter to Father and Mother,” he communicates his desperation caused by the new world’s merciless environment to his parents to persuade them to send food and pay off his accumulated debts from the journey. He accomplishes this with deliberate word choice and allusions to the bible to appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos.

Family members may or may not be biologically related, share the same household, or be legally recognized” (Raney, 2015:6). In the series Modern family, it shows the dynamics of a 21st century family and how traditions and culture has evolved over the years.