In this section I will be Talking about the rhetorical strategies Michelle Alexandra used in the section. I found certain strategies to be strengthening her argument and certain strategies to devalue some of her points. This section I found the hardest to get through and I feel like the writing in this section felt out of place with the rest of the book because the rest was very well supported and this section moderately felt like unsupported claims. Nonetheless the main rhetorical strategy I’ll be focusing on is actually the first pages.
So far this book has been a lot about crime, black people and stereotypes. This chapter sets you up to dive more into specifically drug crimes. The first page of chapter 3 starts off with a point of view of a 31-year-old African-American mother who was arrested in a drug sweep and the author asked the reader to imagine themselves as this person. And then continues to unfold and what happened to this person (Erma Faye Stewart), her (your) court appointed attorney tells you to plead guilty, you refuse knowing you’re innocent, then you end up pleading guilty, in the end anyone who didn’t plead guilty was dismissed. So you're a felon and One tragedy after the next, the story unfolds. The author then puts you as another person in the same drug bust, but this person (Clifford) you are taken away by officers at your 18 month old daughter’s funeral and all of your stuff is taken and it ends up being nothing.
Directly after this goes straight into talking about drug crime statistics. This section uses good literary strategies in the form of pathos. This section appeals to pathos because it puts you in the perspective of people in really bad situations. Situations that make the reader feel compassion and understanding for both of the stories, especially since both were about losing children, which appeals to strong emotions regardless of the race or situation. The way it was written forces the reader to be put in that point of view, which was smart on the authors part because it made the reader already emotional and ready to hear her argument out of compassion.
The other rhetorical strategy that I’ll be analyzing is word choice. This in particular at the beginning of chapter, I found certain words to be ineffective and moderately distracting from her purpose. These words were used to refute The other argument but came off as distracting, when refuting an argument she would say “ The fact” or “ common sense“ and other things in that realm. These to refute an argument made her lose some ethos and credibility because if she had addressed it in a qualifying way, it would show she could understand the other side and give her argument maturity and style. Her way of refuting opposing arguments moderately reminded me of in our satire unit in the text we read. The way she refuted was like just denying the other side, I found this to be the same strategy, and I think it took away from her writing.
These rhetorical strategies added and took away from her writing but I think the first one is extremely successful.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI like your discussion of the author's rhetorical strategy, specifically her use of perspective. When I was reading your second paragraph I became a little bit confused with the way you were paraphrasing that part of the chapter. Maybe that was because I have not read the book. I agree with your point that the author choosing to put the readers in the point of view of the characters makes her argument stronger because by doing this it allows people who read it to feel more emotionally connected to the characters story. They are no longer just another statistic, or another woman or man who took part in a drug crime, they are Erma and Clifford and we now know their stories. Being put in their point of view makes us see their situation in a whole new way, and by going right into the statistics after they are probably more likely to make an impact on the reader. One thing that I would suggest is that maybe next time you should include a quote from the reading and refer to that to further point out the author's rhetorical strategies rather than just paraphrasing all of your examples. Otherwise good job!
Your first paragraph really reminded me of my book. Sometimes there are lots of unsupported claims that leave me wondering if there's even going to be any evidence. I think for both of our books, it seems like evidence is a part of how the book is structured and where the author wants to place it. I really enjoyed this post, especially because you expressed your own thoughts about how effective the evidence really was.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I keep forgetting that not everyone else has read this book, next time I’ll make sure to include some background and context. Agreed, if I had used a quote it would’ve been more effective to show exactly what she was saying. Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteEmma got to the comment that I was going to make, about the point of view explanation being a little confusing.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think that the appeals to pathos aren't effective? That's usually one of the most effective appeals.