Salman Rushdie Rhetorical Devices

A mind provoking essay that embodies the fear and concerns of this new entertainment era, author Salman Rushdie highlights the defects within our society, the vain and egotistical side, using personal anecdotes, logos, and pathos to further illustrate his point.

Salman Rushdie commences his essay with A personal anecdote, establishing just about how much importance this new wave of entertainment means to him. Noting that he would not be able to recognize these new celebrities, even if they were right in front of him. Doing this, the author accentuates the importance or lack there of, these people and the shows have to him. The author goes on to say that he has maintained his “purity” by not enveloping himself in those shows, insinuating that

all one does in watching those people make a fool out of themselves is damage and taint oneself. The author finally ends his intro with combining his personal anecdotes with a simile, about his remembrance of one contestant who “...fried his own hand so that the skin peeled away until his fingers looked like burnt sausages” (Rushdie 200). The
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contestant did this so that he could appear on the main evening news. Even then, the author did not have to point out how sad and outrageous that was.
In addition to his anecdotes, the author also uses logos to persuade readers. His use of logic and reason really make the reader self-reflect, and question why and how our society accepts these things. The author introduces the idea that all this reality tv has done, is show our “...tawdry narcissism...” (Rushdie 200), because why else would these pointless, mind-less, and idiotic shows generate so much money and views? Along with our “narcissism” comes just how the concept of television has changed over the years. It was once a portal to the world, a window if you must. but now it has become a dime-mirror, only letting us see see our lazy and egotistical selves in a different medium (Rushdie 200). However, it is not only the shows themselves we make famous but the people who come out of them. A lot of people are made famous without possessing any actual talent, all it takes nowadays is causing drama, sleeping, kissing, and fighting. The author does a good job to highlight how ludicrous and illogical it is to continue with this trend.
Towards the end of the essay, the author decided to use a more subtle approach and utalize pathos to connect with the audience and appeal to an emotional level with the reader.

He starts by adding that if one wants to make headlines and appear on the cover of a magazine, you cannot simply just kill one person or two, you have to execute a massacre; even genocide. Even more thought provoking ideas are brought up, like the idea that in years to come, we may well be willing to watch actual people die on our television screens. If we are so willing to watch people

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stab each other in the back week after week, who knows if we will acquire a taste for the real thing (Rushdie 200)? The finale point brought to attention was the eerie connection we all have to the brainwashed Winston Smith, noting how we love big brother just as much as he did. His use of pathos and allusion (to George Orwell’s 1984) was well executed, leaving the reader pondering many things.

This essay showed a wide variety of rhetorical devices that led the reader to fully grasp the author’s idea, and at the same time interpret it as their own. It conveyed many emotions and ideas that were best conveyed with the usage of logos, pathos, and personal anecdotes. Whether or not you agree with the author, one thing pretty evident. Things have changed, maybe not for the

better.