Rhetorical Analysis: The Arctic Wildlife Refuge

Jimmy Carter is a well known Democratic president who served between 1977 to 1981 who strongly opposed opening the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. His writing on the preservation of the refuge came after his term as president while new proposals were being put forward for drilling. Carter’s argument is very effective at encouraging the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge to be protected. Carter effectively uses logos, ethos, and pathos to construct a strong argument for the refuge to be preserved.

Speaker:Jon Krakauer, An author and mountaineer. He is well known for his writings about the outdoors. As a young man his primary focus was mountaineering which eventually lead to him becoming a writer

Many people wish they can drop everything important to them and isolate themselves from society; very few people will even attempt this, but Chris McCandless breaks societal norms to accomplish this goal. In Into the Wild, John Krakauer tells the story of this young man’s life to inspire the audience to chase their dreams through the use of logos, involved sentence, and anecdotes.

A prosecutor’s job is to find evidence to support his case against an individual accused of breaking the law while a defense attorney tries to present evidence to prove the innocence of the person accused. Neither can be truly be unbiased about their evidence but each of them is motivated to confirm a particular position. Much like a defense attorney, in his biography, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer attempts to prove that McCandless’s tragedy was not due to his incompetence or lack of knowledge about the wild. He asserts emotions and rational onto McCandless’s experience as well as drawing similarities between his personal experience and McCandless’s in order to create a more sympathetic response from readers.

Ex. 1: In the third chapter of the novel, where Krakauer describes McCandless’s relationship with Wayne Westerberg, he discusses Chris McCandless’s family and education in brief. Specifically, Krakauer mentions, “In May 1990, Chris graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, … and had distinguished himself as a history and anthropology major with a 3.72 grade-point average” (Krakauer 20). This presents a side of Chris that appeals to people’s logos and makes them think. The main question that pops into mind is, “how could such a smart kid make such a dumb mistake?” This intrigue keeps the reader immersed in the book,

Award winning journalist and author, Jon Krakauer, in his book, Into the Wild, analyzes the life of Chris McCandless as well as the events that ensued his death. Krakauer’s purpose is to inform the reader about how and why Chris McCandless decided to embark on a journey into the wilderness of Alaska. He adopts an empathetic tone in order to impart to his readers that Chris McCandless was a very misunderstood young adult.

Happiness is a person who experience positive emotions, share and received love, someone who is always laughs and has a smile on his face. Not all the people has the pleasure of having those feelings. Can be hard in life finding happiness when people around, are not happy either in life. In the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer deals about Chris McCandless who had a long life to live but, dies in the wild pursuing his happiness. Christopher Johnson McCandless come from a wealthy family and a brilliant man with perfect grades. He had everything in life, but he was not happy at all so, he decides to leave everything behind and start on a journey. Even though he did not went into the right path to reach his happiness, at the end he died for consuming the wrong seeds to survive in the wild. Jon Krakauer identify a lot with Chris McCandless’s life that he decided to write a book about Chris’s life. Joh Krakauer applies into the book the rhetorical situation and rhetorical appeals.

To begin with Equality believes his eventual assessment of his sins are wrong. He is too tall and too smart. He feels so absolutely terrible about how he looks. He truly believe he is sinning by looking the way he does. He discovers electricity, he wants to tell the Council of Vocations. He is very scared that he is going to get into a lot of trouble and be banished. Equality wants to be a scholar, but he knows that the Council of Vocations will not allow that. Equality states “we know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it.”(Pg. 18) This statement proves that Equality honestly believes he is evil, terrible, and a horrible sinner.

Krakauer’s argument is, “McCandless wasn’t “stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate,” but instead paints a sympathetic picture of a young man with a profound moral compass seeking a higher truth”. His effective case justifying McCandless’s behavior, which may include potential biases, is effective for most personages. This contretemps is feasible, but there are some personages, like Peter Christian, that see the flip side of Krakauer’s assessment. Peter, who “arrived in Alaska in 1992” with McCandless, said “Alaska is populated with people who are either running away from something or seeking themselves in America’s last frontier” he came to Alaska with the same intentions. In his article he states that he was one of those young man.

To begin explaining his viewpoint, Carter relates to his audience an account of when he and his wife traveled to the Arctic. What they saw was nothing short of breathtaking. The indigenous flora and fauna inspired awe with their brilliancy. The Carters witnessed the spectacle of a myriad of caribou migrating along with their newborns. He described this experience as "unforgettable and humbling" (Carter 3). This rendition invokes a majestic view of the wildlife in the Arctic Refuge. Carter makes use of this to move his audience to adopt the perspective that the unaffected region is precious.

In the city of Las Vegas, people go through the daily trails and tribulations that the city has to offer. People constantly on the go, worried about the collection of money, pollution filling our lungs and tackled with the constant worries of reality. Being in the city, it seems as there is no escape from the madness that is being offered. Surrounded by the man made building and artificial light that illuminates the struggle of these streets. Although, there is a place that offers freedom about fifteen minutes away from the cities madness. A place where the air is fresh, a place where gargantuan rocks act as buildings, a place where the sun, moon and stars are the source of light and a place that provides freedom from the worries of the city. This center of nature providing freedom from the busy city life is Red Rock Canyon. Red Rock Canyon as a space has a rhetorical significance as a location of freedom from city life with the multitude of space it provides. Red Rock Canyon serves as an example of space and place in rhetoric and also creates ties to visual rhetoric with the unique scenery and imagery being offered. In addition aspects of memory such as cultural memory and public memory can be connected to Red Rock.

He also mentions that the Europeans subjected the locals to vexations, assaults and iniquities. This negative connotation of these words stresses Las Casas’ opinion that what the Spanish were doing to the natives was ethically wrong. The document connects to ethics and civil engagement by having Las Casas defend through argumentation a proposal for law. Here he demonstrates that not all European leaders wanted to conquer people seen as being inhuman.

In today's world, for most people, it is hard to feel safe walking down the street. Linda Hasselstrom, in an excerpt from her essay Land Circle, explains her reasons and thinking behind becoming a licensed gun holder and why she feels that this is necessary. With Hasselstroms strong personal connection to this topic, she achieves powerful ethos within her storytelling, and combines it with effective emotional word choice to create a strong argument on why she needs a gun to feel safe in today's society.

Jimmy Carter, Former US President, uses descriptive imagery to capture the audience and draw their attention to the bigger picture of how The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be saved. Carter's tone reflects the excitement that can be expreienced within the Arctic Refuge, while creating a saddened tone when mentioning what could happen if the Arctic Refuge was overthrown by an industrial economy. The Former US President conveys personification by creating life-like portrayals of his encounters with the wildlife in the Arctic Refuge.

Wart is curious about why there are sentries around, so he insistently asks Lyo-Lyok if the geese are fighting with other armies of geese. She is appalled by the questions he asks because she cannot understand how members of the same species would want to harm each other. She says that there are natural enemies of the geese, so there should be no reason for the geese to fight each other instead of fighting those enemies. In this transformation, Wart learns another type of government: socialism. Everything that is done is done for the best of the community. He learns from Lyo-Lyok that this method of government is good, too.