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Retreat By Leonard Pits Analysis

Decent Essays

The author, Leonard Pitts, Jr., laments over how technology is a detriment to the traditional family structure and writes an editorial regarding this issue. He powerfully achieves his purpose by using aloneness words and an oxymoron. Primarily, the connotation of loneliness is sprinkled throughout the author’s text with his diction, such as the verb “retreat”. This verb supports the author’s position by stressing the sense of a surrender of one’s life to technology. In addition, by suggesting withdrawal, the author confines the reader to a dark and silent vision of the home. Typically, the home emanates warmth and joy as the family shares laughs, empathizes, and protects one another, but, as the author has grieved over, technology destroys these invaluable tethers. Another …show more content…

By repeating the word twice, the author emphasizes the truth of separation between family members simply because of the priorities made upon technology. Furthermore, the phrase “the night away” signifies that one can easily lose track of time, and if the author had written “all night long” instead, the connotation would have changed, as well, becoming aware of the duration of time. As each family member spends their nights away, they indulge into “self-entertainment,” a product of retreating to one’s own room. It is easy to find refuge by being alone because of this, yet it sacrifices the connections of the family. Finally, the author primarily uses the pronoun “we” versus “you”. While “you” implies that the author is accusing the reader, “we” implies that everyone shares these feelings of isolation from the family. This leads to the oxymoron that defines our lives’ transformations due to technology: “alone, but together”. The author ends with this paradox to confuse the reader and induce a moment of reflection over the issue. Then, one can conclude that the paradox

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