TOW #15

Young the Giant’s newest album, Home of the Strange, has a very interesting cover which employs vibrant color and unique imagery to accompany the songs in conveying an immigrants journey to America. The first single they released off the album, Amerika, tells the story of how Sameer, the bands lead singer, struggles to fit in to American society as an immigrant. Amerika, as a word, describes the worst aspects of America, for example its corruption, fascism, and racism. The song Titus Was Born explains his journey as a baby coming to America on a ship during an intense storm, which reflects the tumultuous environment he found himself in. The album cover is a valid expression of the theme of the music in the album itself. It shows groups of people of unique shapes and vibrant colors, which symbolize the diversity of people, holding distinguishable flags and entering a dark mountain in the middle of the cover. The dark, gloomy mountain has narrowed eyes and opens its mouth to allow the immigrants to enter. The image of the mountain shows how condescending the nation is when it invites people in but then puts up countless obstacles to prevent them from feeling completely at home in a foreign land. This conveys a message about how many people from different cultures and ethnicities excitedly come to America where they are promised freedom, when in reality, they are greeted with hostility and face many difficulties when trying to fit in and be accepted as Americans. I believe that the cover art of this magnificent collection of songs successfully achieves its purpose of helping the reader understand the harsh reality of immigrating to America. I think that the album as a whole, including the image and the music, has really helped me understand what people have to deal with when coming to this country. 

TOW #13

Elizabeth Wurtzel employed anaphora as a strategy to show how she thought that perhaps her life was turning around and thus how people and small things can significantly improve one’s mood just for it to fall back down again. She did so in her creative nonfiction book, Prozac Nation, which became a national bestseller and a major motion picture due to its profound truths about life with depression and trying to recover from it. In trying to make sense of the different aspects of depression, she mentions an anecdotal story of her short romance with a boy named Zachary; how that relationship elevated her mood just to deplete it shortly after when he broke up with her. She used anaphora by writing, “I start to think, Maybe Zachary and I will be together forever and it all really will work out okay. Maybe I will marry him. Maybe I am Cinderella at the ball. Maybe fourteen isn’t too young to know who’s right for you, especially since nothing ever seemed right before Zachary.” (Wurtzel 101). Through repeating ‘Maybe I will’ and ‘Maybe’, Elizabeth Wurtzel expresses how hopeful she was for the prospect of a better future, likely spent with Zachary. A few paragraphs later though, she breaks the unfortunate news that he broke up with her not long after their relationship significantly impacted how she was feeling. This instance, and this use of anaphora, was used by Wurtzel to show the reader how someone with depression has a fragile mental state that can easily be swayed by a simple interaction. It shows the reader how someone can transition from being a hopeful, loving character to an emotional wreck due to the actions of another person. I believe that her rhetoric helped her prove this idea and supported her purpose by showing how happy and hopeful she felt and how that great mood can be diminished so quickly. 

TOW #12

In a letter to the editor of the New York Times regarding an editorial article about the controversy in connection to Muslim women wearing traditional Hijabs and Burqas, Anne Rosselot strategically lists her credibility to support her point. The New York Times published the letter on its website due to its interesting points about people who disapprove of the custom of wearing the concealing articles of clothing. Rosselot’s purpose in writing and subsequently sending the message was to express her dismay and show the impracticality of how she is labelled as a bigot for wishing that people refrained from hiding their faces. In order to show her ethos as someone who is, in any other sense, not at all bigoted, Anne Rosselot listed her ethos as a liberal. She said, “I am a woman, a feminist, a Democrat, an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter, the proud mother of a lesbian, a progressive Christian, a supporter of civil rights, a believer that Black Lives Matter, and a welcomer of refugees and other immigrants.” (Rosselot 1). These descriptors of Rosselot show the reader how she is not a bigot, because these are all feelings and actions opposite to those felt and taken by dictionary definition bigots. By listing all of the many reasons why Anne Rosselot believes she is not a bigot, she shows how insane it is that just because she worries about the security risks that emanate from women wearing the headscarves. She thus builds credibility of her statement about how she is personally not a bigot in order to support her claim that people who disagree with one liberal ideal should not immediately be cast out as conservatives or rudely called bigots. I believe that this use of rhetoric was incredibly supportive of the author’s thesis and effectively helped her convince the reader of her point. 

TOW #11

In his second inaugural address on March 4^th, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln employed the appeal to logos in order to strengthen his argument that though there was a lot to celebrate in America, there was even more to work on in order to create a better nation. Lincoln’s speech was very positive because he was glad to have been elected president again although it had and underlying tone that gave the speech an unhappier mood. Lincoln discussed how there were many things which the nation had to improve on before there could be cause for celebration. As an example of something that the country need to change, Lincoln stated, “One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it.” (Lincoln). In this quote, the president employed an appeal to logos in his specific fact about how many people in America were slaves prior to the Civil War. The shocking reality of 1/8^th of the country being slaves was an appeal to logic, or logos. Lincoln included this appeal to surprise the listener and convince them that slavery was a real problem that they were lucky to have changed, but also that there are still other issues which need to be addressed and fixed by the citizens. By appealing to logos in this way and by sharing a shocking statistic about the nation’s past in order to show how much work is still left to be done in the future, Lincoln further achieved his purpose which was to convince the listeners that the nation should be proud of where it has come from but also not neglect the progress it has yet to make. I believe that through this use of rhetoric amongst others throughout the piece, Lincoln proved the argument he was trying to make. 

TOW #10

In his political cartoon depicting the 2017 presidential inaugural address during which president elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office next January, author Mike Luckovich uses humorous irony to make a powerful statement about the man which American has decided to run this country. Mike Luckovich created this image for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, which he has been creating similar political cartons for since 1989. He has won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning and the Reuben Award for Most Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. The image shows the United States Presidential Inauguration, set to take place on Friday, January 20^th 2017 in which Donald Trump, who was elected president this year, is drawn swearing on the bible. In the image, Donald Trump is drawn saying, “For a limited time, you too can own one of these fabulous Trump Bibles.” (Luckovich). There is irony in how Donald Trump is using the most esteemed honor in American history as a ploy to make more money by selling the Holy Book for profit. By using this rhetorical strategy, Luckovich is making a powerful statement about how Donald Trump is more a business man than political figure, and that he will treat this high-ranking position as such. He is also making a statement about how Donald Trump plans to use his position in office to benefit himself and his business and that he does not respect the honor that has been placed upon him. It is clear that this image was created in spite of Trump, to undermine his political agenda and reason for running for office. Mike Luckovich used his skills as a political cartoonist to convey such thoughts of his and to show his audience the real man which they have voted for and placed in office. I believe that his use of rhetoric, specifically irony, convey a strong and pronounced message about this year’s president elect. Luckovich strategically employed the irony in his cartoon and it helped him effectively achieve his purpose. 

TOW #9

      Jesse Wegman employed subtle symbolism in his editorial piece, ‘The Doll in the Blue Pantsuit’ to convey how Hillary Clinton supporters showed such interest and commitment soon after she announced she would be running for her chance to become the 45^th president of the United States, although not long after that her supports lost interested which ultimately cost her the election. This piece was thoughtfully composed by Jesse Wegman, editorial writer on law and the Supreme Court for the New York Times and previously the managing editor of The New York Observer, days after Donald Trump was announced the president elect in the 2016 presidential election. In his article, Wegman talks about how his daughter once idolized a doll depicting Hillary Clinton, then discarded it until the day of the election. The doll was used by the author as a symbol of Hillary Clinton and his daughter’s ephemeral amusement was used to depict that of Hillary’s supporters. Wegman writes about his young daughter’s time spent playing with the doll, stating, “For a while, Sami loved the doll; she called it Blue Baby, and when her language got better, Hilly Kinton. Then she lost interest” (Wegman 3). Many people, mostly democratic voters in support of Clinton, blamed poor voter turnout on the account of liberal youth as the reason she lost to her seemingly incompetent opponent. In this text, Wegman uses the symbolism of his daughter’s doll to express to his readers how many people supported Hillary in the beginning of her campaign, then forgot about the ongoing election for a few months in between, only to regain interest in the last minute. Wegman later reveals in the article that he and his wife were devastated by the result of the election thus Wegman used his writing and employed various rhetorical devices to subtly intertwine his thoughts into his work. I found this symbolism to be powerful, although very hidden. If it was more pronounced, I feel like it would be much more effective in achieving the author’s purpose.

TOW #8

In Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author employs the rhetorical strategies of allusion and metaphor to convey how sad and hopeless she felt in order to make her audience understand what it is like to have chronic depression. In this book, Wurtzel reminisced on the true story of how she came to realize that she was depressed and bipolar at a young age. She was a published author prior to the release of Prozac Nation and this book made her a national bestselling author. The rhetoric is evident when Wurtzel writes, “Just like Gregor Samsa waking up to find he’d become a six-foot-long roach, only in my case, I had invented the monster and now it was overtaking me.” (Wurtzel 46). By alluding to The Metamorphosis, a 1915 novel about a man who transforms into a giant cockroach, Elizabeth Wurtzel is able to support her metaphor that follows. She does so by relating a possibly confusing statement to something that is more commonly known and understood. Wurtzel’s mention of creating and becoming a monster is a metaphor for how she created and became a victim to her own sadness. By comparing the depression to a monster, Wurtzel is able to show her audience how terrifying and violent the illness is for most people and that it is often inescapable. She also states that she created the monster or the depression as a way of saying that she felt as though the depression was her own fault, which is a common and often misunderstood feeling for depressed people. Overall, Elizabeth Wurtzel strategically employs various rhetorical devices to further support her purpose of the book. I believe that she is very successful in doing so since I found that, as someone who has suffered from both bipolar and depression, what she said was very relatable and true. I can imagine that for people who have never experienced either disorder, reading this book would help them understand the common feelings associated with them.