Comparison Between Levitt And Dubner's Freakonomics

Imagine yourself shipwrecked upon an uninhabited island. The experience of being stranded will cause you to pose many questions, with the possibility of only one of those questions to being answered. One answered question is: what is the purpose of literature? Northrop Frye, within “Motive for Metaphor”, uses the analogy of being within an uninhabited island to examines the purpose of literature by connecting it to the purposes of language and their use within the different worlds and levels of the mind Frye sees present.

Lakoff and Johnson state, “[w]e have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action” (3). They are saying that metaphors are used all the time and not just when people talk, but when they think and in what they do. This is exactly true because after learning about metaphors, and getting a better understanding of them, I have realized how much I, and others, apply them to everyday life without even realizing it, or trying to. Using a metaphor to describe Haas and Flower’s reading concepts will therefore make for a better grasp of what the concepts mean.

It is often taught that to be persuasive, one must be clear and logical. In “The Wheelchair Butterfly,” James Tate takes a completely different approach; instead, he utilizes chaos to further his meaning and connect with a specific readership. Largely, it is Tate’s structure that reflects this chaos, and the meticulous arrangement of “The Wheelchair Butterfly” signifies that its setting and occurrences portray something more sinister than a bizarre and moderately grotesque town. Tate’s target readers for this elaborate, empathetically chaotic poem must be educated enough to be able to parse through his imagery, open to self-examination, and part of a society in a time of elevated social and political conflict. Thus, Tate gesticulates towards the hidden, systematic corruption common of societies with elevated social conflicts in a way that connects with the conflicted feelings his specific readership might feel towards this corruption in their own lives using elements of structure such as surreal imagery, enjambment, and simile. Using these elements, Tate attempts to relate to his readers by distracting them, creating a confusion versus clarity disparity, and transforming the nature of their concerns to make them softer and more acceptable. Because Tate’s target readers will attempt to decipher the poem’s hectic contents, these factors give readers an opportunity to examine themselves along with the poem. This highly empathetic and unconventional approach, similarly seen in Frank O’Hara’s “A Step Away From Them,” has its successes as well as its downfalls, mostly in terms of its range of readership. Though poems more explicit about their intentions, such as Lucille Clifton’s “[i am accused of tending to the past],” may be more accessible to a greater number of readers, some level of empathy is lost in their candor. The key difference between Tate and O’Hara’s poems versus Clifton’s poem, then, is a matter of being understood by a wide range of readers versus being compelling to a small group of readers. ?

Visualizing the scene of this tragedy proved to be an effect strategy Beller used to illustrate his tone. The visualizations the author provides generates the specific ideas Beller wants his readers to recognize: “The whole street paused, froze, screamed, and some people broke into tears, many people brought their hands up to their mouths, everyone was momentarily frozen, except for the ashen guy, who just kept walking¨ (Beller, 62). This perception of the crowd creates an image in readers minds. With that image accepted, readers can more fully grasp Bellerś chaotic tone.

I will prove that Dave Cullen uses specific words to help the reader visualize and specific sentence structure to convey an informative tone in order to appeal to the reader’s emotional and logic.

With the eerie season coming to an end -like a heavy fog slowly dispersing- I gathered some time to truly reflect on the teachings of Mrs. McLemore’s AP Language class. From horror movies to Halloween costumes, almost everything about this haunting season portrays a vast amount of rhetorical strategies, with pathos being one of the biggest techniques.

Rhetorical devices are used by writers to have an effect on its audience, they use words in specific ways to convey meaning. In the book “The Presence of Others” they introduce two essays that deal with identity, “Guys vs Men” and “Reptile Dreams” (Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz). In the essay by Dave Barry “Guys vs Men” he uses several rhetorical devices to describe what he believes, is the difference between guys and men (405). One rhetorical device Barry uses is tone. He creates a humorous tone to get his message across to readers; his message is that people should relax and not take things so seriously. In contrast, in Keith Bradsher’s “Reptile Dreams,” Bradsher creates a morose tone to express his opinion on what vehicles say about a person’s identity (471). While the two authors are telling very different stories, both use some of the same rhetorical devices to convey their feelings. Dave Barry’s “Guy vs. Men” and Keith Bradsher’s “Reptile Dreams” both use rhetorical devices of tone, anecdote, and hyperbole to influence the reader.

The authors of Freakonomics use rhetorical devices, namely cause and effect, to connect a study and its data to their ideas. This connection is essential in furthering their analysis and argument about a certain problem or “riddle” of everyday life, while making their explanations logical for readers. There is a pattern evident in almost every chapter of the novel that involves the authors introducing the riddle, assessing the data and what it means for their position on the subject matter, and revealing causes that may not be “conventional wisdom” as explained. In addition, the authors reach conclusions and discuss the effects of what has occurred. Though, the pattern is sometimes reversed where the effects of the situation are introduced

The article “Birth Control: Could It Be Illegal Again?” that is found on Time Magazine was written to warn the audience of the actions of birth control opponents and how the pill is at jeopardy of being banned in the United States. In an approach to convince readers that birth control is in danger, the author uses logos to appeal to logic but contradicts the point in the article by stating specific reasons pro-birth-control is succeeding.

At least every person has felt different or set apart from others before sometime in their life. Yet we all know everyone is different and no two people are the same, and the society constructed by Nancy Farmer in “The House of the Scorpion” is no different- except for the anti-hero Matt. After facing reality that he was cloned from a cow, Matt finds it incredibly difficult to live a normal life. He is consistently mistreated by everyone, especially Rosa, who is supposed to care for him but treats him like an actual animal. In “The House of the Scorpion” Nancy Farmer uses italics, em dashes, and description to stir the reader’s empathy.

In Chapter 6, “Would a Roshanda by any other name smell as sweet?,” Levitt and Dubner discuss the power of a name and whether or not they really matter. The authors go on to tell a story of the Lane family who lived in a housing project in Harlem. In 1958, Robert Lane decided to name one of his many sons Winner because he “had a special feeling about this one” (Levitt & Dubner, 2009, p. 181). Then, three years later, they had another baby boy who they named Loser. The son named Winner went on to accumulate a long list of arrests, and Loser joined the New York Police Department where he eventually made sergeant. “The father who named them is no longer alive. Clearly he had the right idea--that naming is destiny--but he must have gotten the names mixed up” (Levitt & Dubner, 2009, p. 182).

This article utilizes many facts and numbers. The editors say, “The Supreme Court on Monday struck down Texas’s harsh and dishonest anti-abortion law by a vote of 5 to 3.” This ratio shows that the young women's opinions do matter, where they can encourage their hope through being able to make their own choices. Another way the writers show this is when they use numbers of states that have banned all abortion: “23 other states, and other laws have tried to block abortion rights even more directly- for instance, by banning all abortions six weeks after conception, when many women don’t even know they are pregnant.” This shows the statistic that 23 states have made a change and this makes the readers believe that they can make a change as well, which gives them that hope. One last way the writers portray logic is when they use specific years to indicate that, as times change people's rights can change. “ The 2013 Texas law- which forced abortion clinics and their doctors to meet absurd and pointlessly strict medical standards - was prohibited in a major 1972 ruling on abortion.” This made abortion easier for many people. The writers saying this has shown that abortion is a feudal law and abortion is legal, so any law trying to make abortion illegal is unconstitutional. Logic is persuasive because it gives direct facts and numbers to prove their opinion is correct making the read believe the writers.

Throughout the entire length of the text Levitt and Dubner rely the heaviest on cause and effect to achieve their purpose for writing. Levitt and Dubner use the cause and effect approach the most often because it is a logical and easy to follow approach to supporting an argument. By using cause and effect Levitt and Dubner were able to inspire new thoughts within their readers while simultaneously exploring unusual subjects such as the perfect parenting in order to refute conventional wisdom. For example, when Levitt and Dubner write “” they demonstrate how [cause and effect explained] (Levitt and Dubner #). By relying the most on cause and effect strategies Levitt and Dubner are able to persuade their readers to take on a new perspective and look at the world through a new light.

In Superfreakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner use some writing techniques to convince readers that most problems can be solved using a cheap and simple fix no matter how serious the problems seem. The authors not only engage the audience with interesting examples, but also use some statistics, questions, and language. After the readers are interested in the story, the writers gradually point out the solutions to those problems.

Freakonomics has a tone that is very casual and humorous, almost sarcastic in a way. Levitt and Dubner make the book interesting by making wild comparisons. Then, they justify these comparisons with hard evidence and it is quite amazing.