Lessons of Life:
A Rhetoric Analysis of Willie Neilson’s The Redheaded Stranger Willie First signed with Columbia records in 1973. Bruce Lundvall president of Columbia records says, “… this is willies labor of love. He’s always wanted to do this record. It’s going to be a collector’s item. It’s not going to sell, but it’s special.” (Citation Dan Ouellette Bruce Lundvall playing by ear) Despite the expectations of Lundvall the album went multiplatinum and is also number one-hundred eighty four in the rolling stone’s 500 greatest albums. The Redheaded Stranger reflects the story of love, betrayal, revenge, and redemption. The album begins with “Time of the Preacher” the story of a reverend marrying a woman who loved another. The reverend was in eternal love with the woman; he loved her more than life itself. The next song in the album “I couldn’t believe it’s true” explains that the preacher hears about his wife’s love with another man and goes home to find that she has left. So the preacher saddles up his horse and rides off. At this point the man is in a manic state although to what extent we don’t find out until the third song of the album. The third song “Blue Rock Montana” tells us the man rides into town and books a room and is having a lot of thoughts and temptations. The preacher finds his wife sitting and smiling in a bar with her new lover and overwhelmed with rage he blows their heads off. At this point in the album the man takes the horse his newly late wife was
has taken total control over the community; no one makes there own decisions. She creates a
Throughout In Cold Blood Capote goes through the lives of the killers, Dick and Perry. Both convicts released from jail and at first glance seem to have a lot in common, but as the book continues the reader can see that the two characters are in fact very different. To characterize the killers Capote frequently uses flashbacks into their pasts, giving the reader a sense of what their lives were like and why they became who they are. Capote also utilizes detailed descriptions of the men’s appearances, quirks, and habits to characterize the murderers.
After evaluating the essay written by Ed White, it was evident that he was very confident about the popular method used by many writers universally. The five-paragraph theme is highly common and effective in many cases. White believes that teachers have taken advantage of the five-paragraph theme and backs up his opinion with reasoning. He effectively uses rhetorical devices throughout his essay to help support his argument.
In Truman Capote’s captivating nonfiction, In Cold Blood, Capote ventures through the journey and lives of both the killed and the killers all while analyzing the point in which they crossed paths. From the days before the four Clutters were murdered to the last moments of the two killers’ lives, Capote takes into account each and every aspect that creates the ‘famous’ Clutter Case with an in depth look of just how and why these strange and unforeseeable events occurred. What was originally supposed to only be an article in a newspaper turned into an entire book with Capote analyzing both how and why a murder comes to be through the use of pathos, juxtaposition, and foreshadowing.
Additionally, King builds his credibility with the utilization of ethos in his text in order to convince them of his argument. By appealing to the readers’ ethics, they can see how trustworthy King’s words are and then can let themselves be persuaded by his matter-of fact tone and professionalism in writing. King is a realist, which means that he almost always represents things as they really are, which profoundly helps establish his honest persona. Most of Stephen King’s writing represents more than one tenet, as his stories that he tells about his childhood and road to recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism can be seen as not only pathos, but and etho as well, as these stories help the readers to understand what kind of person he is, and how he accomplished all of his success despite a couple of major roadblocks. This is why it can be seen that King uses pathos most heavily in his writing, by telling vivid stories, etc. in order to touch upon human emotion towards human experiences/traits, while also creating a strong voice in his writing as well. The overlapping of these appeals help support the ethics and sensibility of King’s work. There are scores of times where it can be clearly identified where ethos have been used in his writing. For example, King says “I’m a slow reader, but i usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, mostly fiction. I don't read in order to study the craft; i read because i like to read.- Similarly, I don't read to study the art of fiction, but simply because I like stories-Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (King, pg 145) This helps to support the idea that writing is learned through reading, and also is learned through the mistakes of other writers. There is no better way to learn than to look at a piece of writing that has some minor or even major flaws and to analyze the piece to see what the issue is, and learn from their mistake to better your own writing in the future. Another one of King’s main arguments is that no writer is perfect. There are always things that you can do to make your writing even better, no matter how small the adjustment may be. It’s a learning process
In 1800’s following the American Revolution, the new American Government and the indigenous Native American people had to learn how to coexist. In order to successful work with together, there was a need for translators and mediators. One of these mediators was named Red Jacket, a chief and orator for the Seneca Tribe in New York. For his leadership and efforts in maintaining peace, Red Jacket was recognized by President George Washington. In 1805, the U.S government sought to proselytize, convert the Native Americans to Christianity, the Seneca tribe which was met by opposition from Red Jacket and his people. In the speech, Red Jacket Defends Native American Religion, 1805, Red Jacket builds an argument to persuade his
College is an opportunity to truly discover who you are. Often enough, you hear people saying “You should really major in this field, I think you would really enjoy this career.” or, “Do you think you really want to study that? Have you thought about what you will be doing ten years from now?” filling your mind with self doubt, uncertainty, and the anxiousness of not knowing what you want to do with the rest of your life. Mark Edmundson wrote an article titled, Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?, published in Oxford American addressing college students and their families how the most important thing college students should focus on is personal growth. When students take their courses seriously their engagement can help finding out who they really are and which future career will lead not necessarily to great financial success, but to a career and life that is very satisfying. Edmundson wants to inspire his audience and have them take what he is saying seriously. Edmundson uses satirical informal language and hypothetical situations to effectively persuade college students to focus on their personal growth in order to create a life and career that is deeply fulfilling.
In Holly Wren Spaulding’s essay, “In Defense of Darkness,” her main claim is that we have fallen away from darkness and immersed ourselves in a society of lightness. Furthermore, she claims this has lead humans to lose touch with basic human emotion as well as the sensual and spiritual experience true darkness has to offer. Spaulding makes this claim evident through exceptional use of personal testimony and copious appeals to value.
The purpose for Truman Capote's writing of his book, In Cold Blood was to take literary definitions to a whole new level. He used them in ways that people were able to relate to them personally. He did this by using several different types of literary devices. Nancy's diary for instance, is used to symbolize the impossible future that will never happen for her. The purpose of Nancy's diary is for her to collect all of the things that she had gone through each day, so that someday, when things were looking up for her, she would be able to go back and read all of the hard times that she had once gone through. This never happens, as we know, due to her death. But coincidentally, the last entry that Nancy ever makes, sadly, is about how she had yet another boring, uneventful day, but she also involuntarily wrote about how when you have no life, and no hope, that even the last night of your life, no future is boring. Capote's clever thought out analogy for Nancy's consisted of something that many adults are able to
The President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, presented his speech “What Is An American” while attending an I Am an American Day gathering in Central Park, New York City. At that time Germany completed multiple invasions throughout the European countries and was furiously attacking Britain. The American people were overall branched with the involvement of the U.S. in the war. One side believed in passivity, though others presumed even if Great Britain was conquered by Germany, the United States would remain in desolation. Harold’s Speech was directed to the Americans doubting involving the U.S. with the war against the Germans. His goal was to show that Americans are fighters and have always helped their
The book In Cold Blood is a nonfiction book about the murder of the Clutter family. Taking place back in the 1959s, Truman Capote writes about the events leading up to the murders, when the murders took place, and the aftermath. He tells the story in such a descriptive manner, that it feels like we were there when it happened. The purpose of writing like that is so we can know everyone’s side of the story, even people you wouldn’t ordinarily think of. He helps us feel like we were there when it happened by effectively and efficiently using the rhetorical strategies. The rhetorical strategies I feel were most important to the story were pathos, logos, and the tone. The way Capote uses these rhetorical strategies and literary devices is
“I’d set out to tell her I was sorry about dinner. But I know that my apology runs much deeper. That I’m ashamed I never tried to help her in the woods. That I let the Capitol kill the boy and mutilate her without lifting a finger.”(Hunger Games, p85)
In the short play A Raisin in the sun conflict’s both internal and external occure for in three of the main characters regarding their dreams. When the opportunity came for them to accomplish their dreams through using the insurance money they’ve come across from the loss of a family member, one of the main characters, Walter, wishes to be successful in life; but he needs the insurance money to do so. He wants to use the insurance money to open up a liquor store because he believes this would change his life. A exceptional quote that shows his determination to be successful in life is when he speaks to Ruth “You tired, ain’t you? Tired of everything. Me, the boy. The way we live-this beat up hole-everything”(
Brent Staples uses vivid language and rhetorical devices to express and convey the elements of fear, anger, and violence. We all make many decisions based on past experiences. That’s how we learn to avoid touching a hot stove burner for example. It’s also about how we learn to do things that bring us pleasure. So we all develop discriminating behavior, but when that discrimination is based purely on the color on that person’s skin, or his ethnicity, without knowing anything else about that person, it becomes racism. Being a malicious looking black man, walking the streets at night may give someone the idea that you’re a rapist, killer, robber, or even a stalker. Nearly everyone has experienced these same emotions before and each has
Avarice A single tear rolled down his cheek, splashing down into the clay cup, silently, without a word and mingled amidst the remains of his afternoon tea. To the poor man’s surprise, a white, shimmering pearl appeared before his eyes. This cannot be a pearl? How can this be?