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Scott Sanders Staying Put Analysis

Decent Essays

Scott Russell Sanders’s Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World counters the

orthodoxy of a nation rooted in ideas. In response to an essay by Salman Rushdie, a migrant of

his native India, Sanders articulates the ceaseless nomadic thinking of Americans as a romantic,

heedless migration reaping no bounty. Sanders’s writing challenges the American fanaticism of

migration wherein uprooting brings intolerance and thereby not only responds to a text but

creates literary value himself.

A definitive facet of Sanders’s writing is his series, often paired with repeating

adjectives, pronouns, conjunctions, and prepositions. This combination of repetition and listing

creates a rhythm when addressing Rushdie’s opposing philosophy: …show more content…

It also introduces multiple logical

examples following Aristotle's idea of logos, establishing a claim deviating from Rushdie’s and

strengthening credibility within his audience—intellectuals like himself. Sanders employs this

technique to drive a seemingly concurring agreement with Rushdie’s beliefs; however, this

changes in the next paragraph: “Lord knows we could do with less nationalism (to say nothing of

its ugly siblings racism, religious sectarianism, or class snobbery).” With his audience in mind,

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Sanders weaves playful, respectful sarcasm together with listing to introduce a differing belief of

“geographical” homelands, further emphasized by his parentheses. Applying multiple rhetorical

techniques is something vital when counteracting a respected writer such as Rushdie; likewise,

Sanders employs similar appeal to his audience in the closing lines of the passage: “By setting in,

we have a chance of making a durable home for ourselves, our fellow creatures, and so

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