How To Write A Rhetorical Analysis On A Thousand Splendid Suns

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My summative IO presentation will be focused on the global issue that discusses the effect that deceit and misinformation has on the people affected by it. I will be comparing an excerpt from the novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, written by Khaled Hosseini, with a political cartoon criticizing Trump, written by Joe Heller. To start, I will give some context and background information about both the excerpt and the cartoon. The main character in the first part of the story, Mariam, finds herself liking her father more than her mother, Nana, whom she lives with, thanks to the constant disapproval that Nana had for Mariam’s father. Mariam could not see the bad side of Jalil, who successfully lured Mariam into thinking that he cared about her, …show more content…

Mariam replicates and combines the repetition of personal pronouns with past tense verbs, as well as expressions and phrases. When discussing personal pronouns, and these past tense verbs, Hosseini is trying to show readers how Mariam felt about Jalil prior to this excerpt. Hosseini writes: ‘’I sat for hours waiting for you. I worried myself sick that you wouldn’t show up,’’ and ‘’ I thought about you all the time. I used to pray that you’d live to be a hundred years old.’’ The author uses this repetition to emphasize, and put in the reader’s heads, the admiration Mariam had for her father. Jalil successfully managed to put Mariam in an illusion where she thought she was actually loved. Mariam reiterates these types of phrases when she first manages to confront Jalil about not having a choice in marrying Rasheed. She brings up her past, consisting of positive opinions about Jalil, as well as attempting to make Jalil look back at all the positive memories they shared in order to instill a sense of guilt, making him second guess if preserving his reputation was worth more than preserving the relationship with her daughter. Additionally, Mariam repeats certain expressions and phrases, such as: ‘’I didn’t know,’’ ‘’you were ashamed of me,’’ and ‘’don’t come.’’ Hosseini writes these phrases multiple times to show the opinionated shift in Jalil’s confrontations. Mariam is open, and honest about the fact that …show more content…

These descriptions play a somewhat essential role in this excerpt, as it recreates the scene in the readers’ minds. Hosseini writes: ‘’... and though she spotted Jalil out of the corner of her eye walking parallel to her she did not look out the window,’’ and ‘’She did not turn to look when Jalil’s palms pressed on the glass, when his knuckles rapped on it.’’ Hosseini’s realistic descriptions help the reader perceive Jalil’s response to Mariam’s reaction. Jalil enters a stage of regret, where he indirectly pleads with Mariam to get off the bus, about to depart. We, as readers, through these descriptions understand that Mariam ignores Jalil’s request, willing to separate from her father, as she is shocked and offended. The author also writes: ‘’When the bus jerked forward, she did not turn to see him trotting alongside it. And when the bus pulled away, she did not look back to see him receding, to see him disappear in the cloud of exhaust and dust.’’ This quote helps to show how Mariam had the intention, and no second thought of distancing herself from her father, despite his beseeches, shown through the description of Jalil following the

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