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Summary Of Eric Schlosser's Rhetoric

Decent Essays

In Rhetoric, Aristotle identifies one rhetorical appeal, the emotional appeal, as "awakening emotion in the audience so as to induce them to make the judgment desired” (Book 2.1.2–3). The appeal to emotion as described by Aristotle is used to persuade the audience by developing emotions in them that support a final argument. Emotions or emotional connections to certain ideas can serve to sway the opinion of the audience. The emotional appeals that a writer uses can take many forms from subtle word choice to straightforward comparisons. Writer Eric Schlosser uses an appeal to emotion in his essay where he describes the modern technique of marketing to children. Schlosser evaluates how pervasive advertising directed at children has become in …show more content…

Schlosser writes, “companies now plan ‘cradle to grave’ advertising strategies” (354) when describing the way advertisers’ plans for lifelong consumption. The author describes one tactic used by advertiser’s to increase consumption by using marketing campaigns which begin at a young age and continue on throughout the consumer’s lifetime. The author uses the phrase, “Cradle to Grave” to describe how the targeted advertising campaigns will be life long, as well as to include the dark connotation of the word “Grave” connecting to death in a sarcastic manner. This word choice creates a caustic tone for the audience to adopt towards the advertisers providing much of the author’s own tone. Schlosser describes how advertisers, “After largely ignoring children for years, […] began to scrutinize and pursue them” (353). Within the first paragraph of his essay the author describes the practice of marketing to children as to, “scrutinize and pursue”. The author uses the negative connotations associated with both “scrutinize” and “pursue” in order to make a connection for the audience between these practices and the practices of an animal hunting prey. The author uses word choice in order to indirectly criticize the practices of advertisers, which allows him to remain seemingly unbiased. The

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