In "Sticks and Stones," Tom Shillue argues that the rougher and meaner world of his youth better prepared him for adulthood compared to today's more sensitive culture. Through personal anecdotes, humor, and nostalgic references, Shillue builds a case against what he sees as an overly protective and hypersensitive modern society. This analysis will identify and explain the rhetorical techniques, tricks, and flaws Shillue employs to persuade his audience. Shillue opens with a personal anecdote, stating, "I’m always telling my daughters stories from when I was a kid. By comparison, the world of my youth was rougher and meaner than the world that kids grow up in today." This anecdotal evidence establishes his credibility and fosters an emotional connection with the audience, making his argument more relatable. By sharing personal stories, he positions himself as an experienced figure, someone who has lived through and …show more content…
He was a three and a half foot tall Mexican thief! Can you imagine pitching that to an ad agency today?" This appeal to nostalgia triggers sentimental responses, leading the audience to view the past more favorably and, by contrast, be critical of the present. By highlighting how these commercials are unacceptable today, he underscores the cultural shift towards increased sensitivity. Shillue employs humor to make his points more engaging and memorable. For instance, he describes a violent cartoon commercial: "A cartoon Hawaiian character walks up to an unsuspecting cartoon tourist and says, 'Hey -- how about a nice Hawaiian Punch?!' Sure! I will be back soon. says the tourist, which gets him punched directly in the face. We all thought that was hilarious." This use of humor serves to downplay the seriousness of violence and stereotypes in media, suggesting that such content was harmless fun rather than
In her expose, Nickel and Dime, Barbara Ehrenreich shares her experience of what it is like for unskilled women to be forced to be put into the labor market after the welfare reform that was going on in 1998. Ehrenreich wanted to capture her experience by retelling her method of “uncover journalism” in a chronological order type of presentation of events that took place during her endeavor. Her methodologies and actions were some what not orthodox in practice. This was not to be a social experiment that was to recreate a poverty social scenario, but it was to in fact see if she could maintain a lifestyle working low wage paying jobs the way 4 million women were about to experience it. Although Ehrenreich makes good use of rhetoric (ethos, pathos, logos), she is very effective at portraying pathos, trying to get us to understand why we should care about a social situation such as this through, credibility, emotion, and logic.
In “On Reading a Video Text,” Robert Scholes discusses the idea of cultural reinforcement within television commercials. Scholes claims that television commercials remind viewers of their social whereabouts and displays their association with society. Commercials are played year around and people have the chance to view and form their own values and beliefs based on what they see. For instance, Scholes blatantly describes to his audience that the Budweiser commercial from the 80s focuses on more than just advertising their product; they try selling a message. Two and a half decades later Budweiser is at it again. In a recent Super Bowl commercial they focus in on a similar aspect, the American Dream. Only this time it is a little more
However, extensive research has been conducted to test the effectiveness of nostalgic and non-nostalgic commercials. The results of one particular study revealed that advertisements with nostalgic themes are actually quite likely to produce greater recall and preference for the product being advertised (Muehling, 26). Furthermore, a separate investigation “examined individuals’ responses to nostalgic print ads, and observed a positive relationship between ad-evoked nostalgia (measured by a 10-item Likert scale) and attitudes toward the ad and purchase intentions” (Muehling,
In today’s society, people are very quick to judge others based on what they look like or how they dress. Recently we have been studying “Martin”, a narrative essay, written by Nick Vaca. This narrative has many beneficial lessons within the story, but one message stands out more than the others. Vaca learns to make assumptions about people, as a result of his childhood experience with Martin.
In the play The Crucible many characters use different rhetorical fallacies, and one of those characters being Reverend Hale. Hale comes is as an expert on witchcraft to help this small village in their new found problem. He interviewed everyone had made an allegation against people in the village and everyone who was said to be involved with witchcraft. When Reverend Parris comes to take Elizabeth Proctor into cusditoy after Abigail Williams says that Mrs. Proctors sprit was sent to stab her, Hale says, “Nonsense! Minister, I have myself examined Tituba, Sarah Good and numerous other that have confessed to dealing with the Devil. They have confessed it” (Miller 68). He is using the hasty generalization by drawing up a conclusion with insufficient
However The great majority of parents are often cryptic in these necessary lessons while still others try to build a protective shield around their children. Do they really believe this is to the benefit of our youth? It is understandable to want to protect children from unnecessary evils, but sometimes in constructing walls around their worldly vision they are in all actuality cutting their children off from reality. It is so much healthier and helpful to confront these issues head-on, rather than trying to skirt around them. & Juliet" by the students, such avoidance of the matter at hand will often prove more harmful in the development of young minds. Through the various misconceptions of the children in her short story, "The Brother in Vietnam," Maxine Hong Kingston allows her readers to see just how necessary truth is to the vulnerable minds of our youth.
Wilbur shows a good effort made to protect a child from fears because the fears are irrational. On the contrary, Collins juxtaposes a history teacher’s efforts to protect his students from historical truths and their ensuing behavior to show that the time he spends misguiding his students could be better spent teaching children to mature. Wilbur and Collins both demonstrate approaches to calming children; however the approaches differ in terms of protecting the children verses outright lying to them. Theses passages attempt to answer the controversial question of whether it is better to shelter children or expose them to the harsh realities of the world.
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, he utilizes various literary devices to emphasize his many thematic topics. He demonstrates sin through the unholy nature of Abigail’s history with John Proctor with Abigail’s words, "I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I came near!" (Miller 21). He reveals the wrongness of the situation, and shows the desperation Abigail has for John to return her feelings. due to his marital status and her age through his simile describing John’s actions and reactions near Abigail as animalistic and dirty. Miller’s similes also demonstrates the idea of good vs. evil through his description of the Devil’s effect on several girls. “...
Prevailing Purposes in “The Crucible” Playwright and essayist, Arthur Miller, in his play, “The Crucible”, utilizes pathos, symbolism, and irony to convey his purpose of how the events of the Salem Witch Trials had detrimental effects on the society and how far the elites went to protect their reputation . Miller’s reasoning is to expand Parris’ and Danforth purpose for their side of the argument during the witch trials. He adapts a contrasting tone in order to appeal to similar feelings with reasoning in his american readers.
“Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is about a couple, the American and Jig, who contemplate whether or not to have an abortion. The premise of the story seems simple enough, but the outcome is highly debated. Critics argue that the baby was kept by the couple ( Renner ) and others claim the baby was aborted.( Fletcher ) Others have even simplified the story, claiming that the issue was not resolved because the couple was drunk by the end of the story. ( Sipiora ) Although the conclusion is in questions many have agreed with the idea that the couples relationship would be changed and would end prematurely. ( Wyche ) Dialogue is the main technique in conveying this argument but we can only understand the complexity of Hemingway’s work by looking at the story as a whole. By looking at the many symbols, intrinsically and
In both the Pride and Prejudice excerpt written by Jane Austen and Dickens’ Our Mutual Friends passage, several rhetorical strategies, including assumption, tone, diction, and arguments, are strategically used in order to affect the women that the speakers are addressing in positive ways. However, the probable effects on the receiving end of these statements are not quite the same as the intended effects.
Photographs capture the essence of a moment because the truth shown in an image cannot be questioned. In her novel, The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold uses the language of rhetoric to liberate Abigail from the façade of being a mother and spouse in a picture taken by her daughter, Susie. On the morning of her eleventh birthday, Susie, awake before the rest of the family, discovers her unwrapped birthday present, an instamatic camera, and finds her mother alone in the backyard. The significance of this scene is that it starts the author’s challenge of the false utopia of suburbia in the novel, particularly, the role of women in it.
Rhetoric is the art of effective speaking or writing, and persuasion. Most people use rhetoric numerous of times in their everyday life without their concern or knowing.
Advertising in the 50s was primarily focused on the return of traditional family values, and portraying the consumer’s role in society’s prestige. But, during the recession of 1959 to 1961, the time was ripe for some innovation in the advertising industry. Surly enough, a single ad appeared that changed the course of advertising history. The Volkswagen Beetle, a seemingly ugly car with all odds against it in the American market of huge, tail-finned vehicles of the 1950s, surprisingly prospered. The advertisement campaign broke all previous rules of using wide-angle photography, and beautiful women. These advertisements stole the American hearts with their wit and honesty.
“The average family is bombarded with 1,100 advertisements per day … people only remembered three or four of them”. Fiske’s uses an example of kids singing Razzmatazz a jingle for brand of tights at a woman in a mini skirt. This displayed to the reader that people are not mindless consumers; they modify the commodity for their use. He rejects that the audiences are helpless subjects of unconscious consumerism. In contrast to McDonald’s, Fiske’s quoted “they were using the ads for their own cheeky resistive subculture” he added. He believed that instead of being submissive they twisted the ad into their own take on popular culture (Fiske, 1989, p. 31)