Rhetorical Analysis Of Driven To Distraction By Dave Barry

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Can your children get you in serious trouble and even send you to prison!? Obviously, yes. One such a man, author Dave Barry, wrote “Driven to distraction,” published on December 30, 2001. Barry’s article is very effective as he explained the difficulty of satisfying children’s demands by using humor and relied on his personal experiences with his daughter along with emotional appeals and strong logos, which support his position.
Barry first sets the stage by describing a specific scenario of nice humorous introduction, when he made the reader imagine himself pulled over by the police for acting like a teapot while driving! This humorous introduction caught the reader’s attention, making him more excited to read the entire article. As for the ethos, the author’s credibility appears in being a father who tells his stories to his audience, whether new parents who still don’t have the same feeling of Barry or old parents who share the same feeling of the author. As for the pathos, he began with his 20-month-old daughter who demanded to hear her favorite song: “''Traditional Children's Songs From Hell.'' At least that's what I call it.” Mentioning the name of the song itself makes sense of how ridiculous it was. His introduction is full of emotionally-charged words and phrases that …show more content…

It is clearly noticed that he depends on humor by mentioning several examples of songs that most of people agree on their triviality. For instance, “Consider ''Old McDonald.'' It starts out fine: ''Old McDonald had a farm.'' But then it goes to ''E-I-E-I-O,''” Obviously, he began to ask some logical questions in a sarcastic style: “Couldn't he have come up with WORDS for the second line? How hard is it to think of a line that rhymes with ''farm''? For example: ''Thresher tore off his left arm.'' Or: "Slept with six goats to keep warm.''” Throughout his piece, Barry used many strong examples that strengthen his point of

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