preview

Rhetorical Strategies In John Barry's The Great Influenza

Decent Essays

In his passage from The Great Influenza, John Barry uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to characterize scientists and their research as pioneering and heroic. The first claim that Barry makes is that scientists need to be courageous in order to be heroic. To get this point across, he uses the rhetorical strategies of antithesis and diction. He says, “Certainty creates strength. Certainty gives one something upon which to lean. Uncertainty creates weakness. Uncertainty makes one tentative if not fearful, and tentative steps, even when in the right direction, may not overcome significant obstacles.” By presenting two contrasting ideas, certainty and uncertainty, Barry starts to suggest that a scientist’s job can include a lot of uncertainty. …show more content…

He uses a very strong metaphor and rhetorical questions to prove this to the readers. Throughout the second section of his passage, Barry compares scientific research to the wilderness. This helps the readers understand more clearly what Barry means when he discusses troubles the scientists have to face. He says, “In the wilderness the scientist must create...everything. It is grunt work, tedious work that begins with figuring out what tools one needs and then making them.” This comparison of two unlike objects helps the readers understand what scientific research is like, because the reader probably knows more about the wilderness than they do scientific research. In order to be a pioneer, the scientists need to find new discoveries and places, which Barry is proving that they do. He says they must create everything in the wilderness, which helps the reader understand that there’s not always something for the scientist to base his research off of and the scientist usually has to come up with it himself. Barry also uses rhetorical questions to further his description of scientists as heroes. He says, “Would a pick be best, or would dynamite be better--or would dynamite be too indiscriminately destructive? If the rock is impenetrable, if dynamite would destroy what one is looking for, is there another way of getting information about what the rock holds? There is a stream passing over the rock. Would analyzing the

Get Access