The Great Influenza Rhetorical Analysis

Along with prompting mass hysteria amongst people, the flu epidemic of 1918 also revealed the arduous aspects of scientific research. In order to efficaciously perform their jobs, scientists are required to possess specific attributes. In a passage from The Great Influenza, John M. Barry uses vivid imagery, figurative language and exemplification to depict the challenges and uncertainty a scientist must overcome, along with the traits they must bear in order to succeed in forming a “path” for future growth.

In order to illustrate the advancement and benefits that are created by continuous scientific research, Barry uses imagery. The use of imagery allows the reader to further understand and process the message the writer is trying to convey. Barry emphasizes the idea that once a discovery is made others will follow suit, “if the researcher succeeds, a flood of colleagues will pave roads over the path laid, and

those roads will be orderly and straight” (Barry 49-51). Barry is able to show how each miniscule advancement will not only be valuable to the current generation, but will also provide a structure for future scientists, who will be able to construct an even more viable improvement.
By using figurative language, Barry creates a sense of interest for the audience, which keeps the reader occupied and intentative to the situations and ideas he discusses. The interpretation of the concept that a single act can lead humankind into a “world that seems entirely different”, and discovery of a scientific breakthrough the knowledge that one holds of the world can be greatly changed. Barry uses a simile to fundamentally compare how any victory caused by a researcher’s curiosity and persistence is similar to a a perfect and complex crystalline structure, “if they are at least partially correct their probing acts like a crystal to precipitate an order out of chaos, create form, structure, and direction” (Barry 32-34). Figurative language gives the reader the ability to imagine and understand the point the writer wishes to get across.
Providing specific scenarios of a scientist’s needed approach to a situation, using exemplification gives justification to the claims Barry makes.

Barry depicts the work of a researcher to be complex and challenging, and that each synopsis of a situation has obstacles that can only be surpassed by the necessary characteristics of a scientist. Barry uses the examination of a rock to show the mindset a scientist must have in order to obtain the wanted information. Including how researchers use the traits of not only curiosity and creativity, but also patience and forethought strengthens Barry’s claim of the predicaments a scientist may encounter and how he would overcome them, “Would a pick be best, or would dynamite be better - or would dynamite be too indiscriminately destructive?” (Barry 40-42). Throughout the passage Barry uses several rhetorical strategies to characterize his claims and to allow his audience to grasp an understanding of how scientific research, although difficult and riddled with obstacles, encompasses humankind’s need for

betterment.