Rhetorical Analysis Of Happiness Is A Glass Half Empty

Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking and column writer for The Guardian, explores the human need to seek for happiness and its connection to the Museum of Failures in his article Happiness is a Glass Half Empty. Burkeman’s purpose to writing this essay is to give readers a new view on how to seek happiness – embrace negativity and expect the worst. Burkeman’s use of a friendly, almost informal tone to help relate to his readers is a brilliant attempt to catch his reader’s attention and hold it, therefore enabling the delivery of logic seem almost effortless.

Burkeman, like many great writers, used rhetorical strategies in his article to not only make it more appealing, but it also

made the essay more interesting to read. It is without a doubt that the most effective and prominent technique in his article is irony. There is an idea, a revelation, presented by Burkeman in Happiness is a Glass Half Empty that can only be described as ironic. We as people (at least those who are not under the influence of debilitating mental illnesses) often look at ours futures optimistically; we picture success and happiness rather than failure and sorrow. Burkeman, however, proposes that if people started doing the opposite – embracing our mistakes and “examining them closely” – then the likelihood of success becomes greater (Burkeman 2012). In addition, Burkeman maintains a casual tone in his article. This in itself is ironic, simply due to the fact that the serious nature of the article contrasts with his indifferent tone. Burkeman’s tone may not seem to fit, yet he used it for the specific purpose of drawing in the reader. Furthermore, Burkeman also draws the reader in by weaving the Museum of Failed Products into his article, as well as upholding the running theme of irony he maintains throughout his article. The Museum of Failed Products is the quintessential definition of irony, in that it is a profitable institution that showcases products that failed to make a profit (Burkeman 2012). The museum is also used to further the idea that we should learn from our mistakes, analyze them closely, so that we can be more successful in the future.
Yet why does Burkeman believe that being negative produces a positive outcome? A reader would know, of course, simply because he takes the effort to back up his claims with fact. Burkeman claims that psychologically, if you continue to reassure anxieties, all you do is prolong those anxieties (Burkeman 2012). Burkeman goes on to further explain that “there is a greater correlation between perfectionism and suicide” and that “spending time and energy focusing on how well things could go… reduces most people's motivation to achieve them” (Burkeman 2012). When presented so bluntly (and ironically), one can’t help but think how much sense it makes. Moreover, he steps even further in his musings to mention the Stoics, a philosophy school in ancient Athens, and how they believe that it would be a better if everyone visualized the negatives rather than the positives (Burkeman 2012). Using a potpourri of differing sources like this makes the article rich with logical reasoning.
But why does it matter how well the author uses irony, or how well they prove their claim?

Burkeman is an author who is incredibly well educated on the subject of seeking happiness, has wrote multiple works (such as The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking) on the subject, and his stylistic approach of “present the goods, make them stay” in this particular article is both clever and monumentally effective. The use of the casual tone catches the reader’s attention better, simply because it’s ironic and is in a sense, odd to read. Every paper should accommodate a certain tone to fit the subject matter. If a research paper took on a casual tone, readers wouldn’t take the author seriously, however, Burkeman utilizes an indifferent tone not only to stay true to a theme of irony, but to make the reader stay and want more. This is further proven by his use of the Museum of Failed Products as his hook and his leading example as to why everybody should stop shunning their failures. Climatically, when he has the reader’s unfaltering attention, he presents the ‘why’ behind his seemingly crazy theory behind finding happiness. Burkeman provides multiple credible sources from several different studies to prove that he not only took the time to research this subject, but he is effectively proving that he knows what he’s talking

about.
There are many ways one could successfully and effectively use rhetorical strategies to boost their writing. Burkeman maintains irony and contradiction throughout his essay as well as efficiently providing factual evidence behind a seemingly crazy idea. It was as if his article had been a Museum of Failed Products copycat; a brilliant, flourishing idea filled with failures. Look on the downside, Burkeman would probably say, improvement of his article couldn’t have been achieved (simply because it had been written so well).