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Analysis Of Ray Bradbury And Ursula Le Guin

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A Convenient Society One can unknowingly suffer for the sake of society’s convenience. Both authors, Ray Bradbury and Ursula Le Guin, demonstrate the suffering that the protagonist endures in order to serve their society. A variety of rhetorical strategies and modes contribute to the overall role of the protagonists. Ray Bradbury uses personification and the rhetorical mode of pathos to convey the oblivious suffering that the protagonist, the “smart house”, undergoes. Ursula Le Guin utilizes diction and the rhetorical mode of pathos to demonstrate the society’s dependency on the life of a young, hopeless boy. Through the authors’ use of diction, personification, and the rhetorical mode of pathos, readers can view both short stories in …show more content…

In Ray Bradbury’s “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains”, The McClellan family home seems equipped with every imaginable technological innovation, but it fails to provide more human qualities like love (Devers). This excerpt is an example of how the author expresses personification in this short story. The house has each and every technical tool that it needs to function, yet, it does not have the love of its owners any longer. Along with personification, Bradbury uses the rhetorical mode of pathos to demonstrate how the house continues to carry out its daily functions even though the surrounding society has suffered. An example of how Bradbury attempts to capture the reader's emotional psyche is, “In the nursery the jungle burned. Blue lions roared, purple giraffes bounded off….Ten more voices died…”. This allows readers to feel sorry for the perishing animals that are dying in the burning house. As Bradbury uses personification and pathos to engage readers into the short story, readers can emotionally relate and visualize a house that continues to function without a society. In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” written by Ursula Le Guin, a society is depicted as a care-free utopia. In this society lies the protagonist. In the beginning of the short story, Le Guin asks the reader question such as, “ How describe the citizens of Omelas”.

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