Anna Quindlen Rhetorical Devices

Today more than ever we are being increasingly conditioned, influenced and bombarded by a multitude of messages and experiences about who to be and how to be. Current forms of social communication processes, particularly mainstream media, advertising, television and film, along with family, friends, teachers, political agendas, religion, society’s rules, our perceptions, perspectives, interpretations and assumptions, and those of others, all play a part in creating our identity. 
We seek and create our identity through these external influences, we all wear these masks and cloaks, so that we fit in with the world around us. The degree to which we choose our identity, versus having it imposed on us via external influence, is arguably a matter of consciousness and awareness. When we are unaware of the power of external influence we are akin to pieces of clay, being unconsciously molded to fit into the accepted or preferred norms of someone else’s reality. When we are aware we can take responsibility for the creation of our identity. We can make empowered choices that best serve our selves, rather than serve people and systems outside of ourselves. In Unpolished Gem, society plays a daunting role on Alice as she tries to change her way of thinking from a Chinese-Cambodian way of thinking to a very different Australian way of thinking. As Alice starts her new

In Barbara Ehrenreich's bold and honest book she tackles the issue of poverty in America head on, by becoming a low wage worker herself. Ehrenreich delves into the often unheard of issues relating to poverty and low wage work, providing her readers with a new perspective on America's working poor and manages to give her audience a stark emotional, yet logical and factual, look into the working class' poverty epidemic. She uses her own anecdotal evidence and supports it with statistics and facts, appeals to ethos by challenging the ethics of corporate America and it costs, finally she hits an emotional chord with readers by reminding them of what low wage workers must endure so that we can live in our America.

Rhetorical strategies are a great way for an author to get their tone and what they want to share to their reader. In Barbara Jordan’s Becoming Educated she uses rhetorical strategies to do just that. Jordan uses repetition and diction to increase her effectiveness of her message. She does so that the reader can also relate to what she is going through. By using repletion and diction she weaves these rhetorical devices throughout her experience to increase its effectiveness to convey her voice and her personal sense of growth.

Individualism in today’s society is the “belief that each person is unique, special, and a ‘basic unit of nature’.” The individualism concept puts an

In the year 1990, a war between Iraq and Kuwait created numerous problems and hardships for many individuals including those who were not even affiliated with the region. An example of one of these problems is between an American mother, Mary Ewald, and her son Hart Ewald, who had been taken hostage by military forces under the leadership of the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Mrs. Ewald uses several rhetorical strategies and devices scattered throughout her letter in order to achieve a convincing and thought provoking plead. These strategies include effective and elaborate usage of logos pathos and ethos, and a very professional and intelligent tone.

Ayn Rand’s Anthem connects to daily life, society, and history through conformity. In some parts of the world, people are sheltered from the truth of the world, and of life. In society, people are expected to fulfill their roles, and impossibly high standards, therefore being pressured into a subtle conformity, and forced to an obligation in order to please society.

The rhetorical strategy Maria W. Stewart employs can be characterized as irony. Maria, an African American delivers a lecture in Boston in 1832 asserting that the "free people of color" living a supportable life have the same passion to be rich and independent but are confined to never rise above. Stewarts assertion the "free people of color" serves to accurately portray the rhetorical strategy of Irony. Stewart "[was] neither bought, nor sold, nor under the lash of the cruel driver."...

Ethos is one of the more evident rhetorical strategy that Barbara utilized on the first chapter. Barbara built her credibility by continuously mentioning her Ph.D. and that she is as she originally assumed but then later on changed her mind, “too educated” or “overqualified” for the life of a low-wage worker. Also, after working alongside, getting to know and befriending those people, Ehrenreich is able to empathize, understand and identify with the sufferings that low wage workers are experiencing.

Both Ayn Rand’s Anthem and The Soul of an Individualist display the struggles of living in a collective and oppressive society where new ideas and inventions are denied, and how the individual must break free towards an individual and creative spirit. The individual often encounters struggles along the way as they try to break free towards individualism. The struggles include guilt, a fear of punishment, and a fear of change.

Barbara Ehrenreich's passage conveys the importance of being your own self, how you don't have to be someone else. Ehrenreich seems to be reacting to the propensity for many people to adopt whole-heartedly the rights, behaviors, and beliefs of their ancestors. Some embrace

Radiolab presented a very compelling story of a lady by the name of Diane became witness to the lives of a young couple in their somewhat private domain. Diane shared her story of her intimate, but very one-sided interaction with her new neighbors across the way, whom never shut their curtains, with one Radiolab’s producers, Briana Breen. During their conversation, Diane breaks down as to what drove her to do the things that she had done and how she felt in the time of this interaction. Like many other listeners to this podcast, as well as the storyteller Diane, I will explain as to why her actions are justifiable.

My first character that I chose is Cheyenne Wilder and the song to describe her is Brave by Sara Bareilles. The reason I picked this song is explained right in the title, she is brave and showed immense imaginative intelligence ☺ (Alliteration) in thinking outside of the box for her escape. Cheyenne got kidnapped and “stared down by the enemy” (Bareilles, Line 26). She was brave and showed grit for her release and escape. As told in the book: “She wanted to act like everything was okay, to not show any weakness”

The readers gain more knowledge on such

Impugning social expectations and gender roles means that individual discoveries can have a profound effect on themselves and others. Conformity to social paradigms can be seen as antithetical to gender freedom and individualism. In The Awakening, Edna’s convictions challenge the idealisation of motherhood, since the “indescribable oppression” and “vague anguish” she experiences presents her life as aimless and unfulfilling. Her feelings of “anguish” and “oppression” are indicative of her first awakening. Slowly, she realises how confined and claustrophobic her life is.

The song Brave by Sara Bareilles is an empowering tune that encourages people to speak up. An underlying message within the song is, how can you expect anything to change or get better if you are silent. This song relates to the Free Speech movement that began on October 4th, 1963, with the attempt to gain free speech among student activists at the University of California, Berkeley. The movement was first brought up when the school’s president banned any political activity among students, after having seen them set up a table on campus asking for donations and new members for their CORE ( Congress On Racial Equality) club. The president quickly shut this down because the US was in the middle of the Cold War, meaning any political activity