Rhetorical Modes

“Oh, Jake, this apartment is perfect for us, just perfect,” Grace Wexler argued in a whining coo. The third bedroom was a trifle small, but it would do just fine for Turtle. “And think what it means having your office in the lobby, Jake; no more driving to and from work, no more mowing the lawn or shoveling snow.”... Grace stood before the front window where, beyond the road, beyond the trees, Lake Michigan lay calm and glistening. A lake view! ...

In this passage, she illustrates her differing perspectives of nature. “While the river’s roar gave me a certain comfort and my heart warmed when I gazed at the sun-dappled trees out of a classroom window, I didn’t want to get closer” (White 1063). From the “inside”, White feels comfort and warmth from the view of the trees and the sound of the river. Here, from a distance, she is comfortable, but then does not want to get any closer, and would rather keep the distance between her and nature. She prefers to stay away, depicting an image to the reader that she is on the inside looking out of a window of nature.

Family, friends, and possessions pressure individuals through the imposition of values that contribute to identity; we are told that we obtain our qualities simply by inheritance and association. The environment one chooses to surround themselves reflects similar learned behaviors and thought processes. Deviating from the norm is often contemptible, but natural, according to author Jon Krakauer. Realizing that he did not want to become a carbon copy of his parents and environment, Christopher McCandless wandered the American West for two years, as a nomad, to reject society as he knows it―his family, friends, and possessions. He burns his money, abandons his car, and cuts all ties with his family on an identity crisis that would lead to his death in the inhospitable Alaskan tundra. These actions, taken alone, allows critics to characterize him as bizarre, irrational, and even suicidal. Furthermore, this characterization dissociates him from his own humanity, as the consensus was that McCandless must have been out of his right mind. To combat this impression, Jon Krakauer wrote Into the Wild to humanize McCandless in order to justify McCandless’s choices in spite of the fact that they lead to his death.

In the essay, Mark Twain is saying that humans are the lowest of animals. Instead of evolving from lower species, human have descended from higher ones. “In order to determine the difference between an anaconda and an earl (if any) I caused seven young calves to be turned into the anaconda’s cage. The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, then lay back satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves, and no disposition to harm them… The fact stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isn’t….” (Twain 2). This is one example Twain uses to explain to the reader one of the reasons why he believes man is the lowest of animals. This example tells

The authors want their audiences to use these tales and examples as life lessons and hope for them to utilize these sources in their future lives. These two ideas are presented through the use of figurative language, mainly metaphors. In addition, the similar tone of these pieces allows the author to connect more deeply with the readers. Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture, folktales, and several poems illustrate how metaphors and tone are used to describe experience and caution the readers.

Kathryn Stockett, the author of The Help uses imagery to help the reader better comprehend the meaning of the passage. As the reader reads along in the passage reading about little Miss Skeeter, “Munching on peanuts, sorting through the pieces spread out on the table, a storm [raging] outside (Stockett 77). Through this imagery that the author provides the reader is instantly transformed into the world of little Miss Skeeter as she is sitting down by Constantine on a dark stormy night doing a puzzle. The reader can hear the crunch of the peanuts and smell the rain coming from outside as they read the passage. Stockett also uses diction to contribute to the imagery of the passage. Words like “ebony” and “frizzy” give life to the characters

In the novel The Other Side of The River, both towns of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph argue that their meaning behind his death is the truth. Unfortunately, by the end of the novel no one truly knows what happened to Eric McGinnis, his death will remain a mystery between the two towns of Michigan. Throughout this paper I used illustrations from the novel to support my argument of meaning and social

Sedaris gets the reader to picture what he’s telling in the story by using a lot of descriptions. The first description he uses in the story is on the pool he and his family swimmed in at the country club. Sedaris describes the pool in a perfect way where the reader can imagine and even remember in their

In the passage “Once More to the Lake,” by E.B. White, White relives his most memorable childhood memories with his son, at the lake he used to visit with his father. In the beginning, White gives his reasons for going to the lake to spend time with his son. Everything at the lake remained the same from the last time White left it, which soon after brings back memories of the time he spent with his father. Throughout the rest of the passage White shows his close observation of why his memories have been triggered and what triggered them. During Whites revisit at the lake White realizes how much his son reminds him of his younger self, and how he now impersonates his father 's

The reader gets to join McCandless in his adventure across the country as he invents a new life for himself. He embraces the ideas and morals of Thoreau and Emerson in his journey. In the book, a man by the man by the name of Westerberg discusses about how McCandless is not destroying his possessions and journey around the wild because the wild he is suicidal or unintelligent. “You could tell right away that Alex was intelligent… He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.”

Then the brown water that had puddled all over the field began to move. It began to run toward the back portables, like someone had pulled the plug out of a giant bathtub…. The boards began to come apart, and the loose mud under the walkways began to slide toward that giant bathtub drain”(Bloor 80). This passage is significant because Bloor’s use of these similes gives the reader a visual understanding about what the novel-scene looks and sounds like.

To him summer was a time for fun, and there wasn't a reason it shouldn’t be. But, through hard times and growth, Douglas had discovered a new meaning. Life is a cycle that never stops repeating. Douglas states: “‘Next year’s going to be even bigger, days will be brighter, nights longer and darker, more people dying, more babies born, and me in the middle of it all’”(Bradbury 235). To Douglas there is still a bright side of things, there’s fun, but with it comes loss and worry.

Genre Throughout the different texts we analyzed in the first half of the quarter, we looked at the various genres of the texts in order to see how they affect rhetoric. Genres are important to rhetoric because they raise and manage expectations the audience might have for a specific work. This is because people have internalized the generic conventions of a genre. We delved into these conventions by analyzing different genres of texts such as Pitbull’s music video, film, various poems, and speeches. An example of how we analyzed a genre is how we annotated Horace’s poem about carpe diem.

W.B. White goes back and forth about how time is or is not an illusion in his essay “Once More to the Lake.” White describes many similarities between the lake he remembers as a child, and the lake he is experiencing as an adult. Time has moved forward because White states that the year is 1941 not 1904, White is now an adult with a son, and the transportation methods have changed since his first time arriving at the lake. “One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine” (28) states White about the first time him and his family went to the lake.

Every day humans encounter rhetorical situations, yet hardly ever is a heated conversation or debate though of this way. Rhetoric, which is the art of conversation has been used for thousands of years across the world. Rhetorical situations constitute of four elements, the exigence, rhetor, audience, and constraints. All of these are equally the most important elements, because without each other the conversation would make no sense.