Chance At Escaping

Their Only Chance at Escaping

Journalist Nicholas D. Kristof in his article, " Where Sweatshops Are a Dream" portrays worse conditions then working in a sweatshop. This article was published in the New York Times on January 15, 2009, with the purpose to inform the reader about other ways to aid poor countries instead of focusing on removing sweatshops. Kristof assumes his readers are those who are willing to listen and make a change to developing countries. He adopts an understanding of the idea of sweatshops, but implements his own ideas that seem plausible to the reader.

Kristof begins his essay by mocking Obama and his team and eventually introduces the idea of how sweatshops are a dream to families that work in worse circumstances.

This approach allows the author to use pathos again and emotionally feed the readers empathy and try to persuade them to see his point of view. In the article, it states, "Her boy has never been to the doctor or a dentist and last bathed since he was 2 [He was 10 at the time the article was written], so a sweatshop job by comparison would be far more pleasant and less dangerous." (120). To get his message across, Kristof uses families with children as his examples. Children are typically used to reach into the hearts of society, therefore it was wise of him to use a type of pathos involving kids.

To back up his argument, he briefly inserts his creditability or ethos. Living in Asia and being married to a woman from Asia shaped his views on sweatshops. He reveals in the article, "My views on sweatshops are shaped by years of living in East Asia, watching as living standards soar- including those in my wife 's ancestral village in southern China- because of sweatshop jobs." (121). Kristof validates his view because he has experienced and viewed how sweatshops increased living conditions. He credits himself as a credible source to express the knowledge he possesses is