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The North West London Blues Analysis

Decent Essays

In Zadie Smith’s article, “The North West London Blues,” she repeatedly stresses on the vitality of public libraries, building an argument, through which, she attempts to induce her readers that public libraries are important and should remain accessible. In pursuance of her goal, Smith resorts to the use of ethos, the appeal to ethics, pathos, the appeal to emotion, and logos, the appeal to logic, in addition to her unique use of diction, rhetorical devices, and subtle word choice.
The author starts off with a rhetorical question: “What kind of problem is a library?” urging the readers to think about this question as they continue to read the article. The question grabs the readers’ attention, and intrigues them to read on to find and answer. She further utilizes this technique of rhetorical questions throughout the article for the same purpose of emphasis on the vitality of the role of public libraries. Moreover, Smith extensively employs the use of metaphors and personification. For example, she describes the internet as libraries’ “universal death knell”, which portrays the internet’s negative impact on the development of …show more content…

First off, she addresses the reader’s conscience, in attempt to to evoke them to take action, and to awaken their morality towards maintaining libraries. She also appeals to the readers’ emotions. When she repeatedly uses the word “friends”, and further assures her argument when she herself states that the matter is rather regarded by many to be emotional, and neither ethical, nor logical. She says, “Not logos or ethos but pathos.” Smith only resorts to logos in the very last paragraph when she says, “British libraries received over 300 million visits last year.” This might be the only piece of statistical evidence to be found over the course of the entire article. This proves the author’s endeavour to influence the readers’ emotions and morality, rather than their

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