The “Year of the Blue-Collar guy”written by Steve Olson, is well written and an interesting essay. Steve Olson specializes mostly in science and math and has written many books and magazines in the past. Awards have been given to him for his outstanding work in 2003, 2004, and 2007. In this particular writing however, he provides multiple examples of rhetorical strategies that is used to help the reader get a better understanding of his point. Although this essay contains several rhetorical devices, there are some that protrude more than others. In particular, he uses imagery, humor, shamelessness, and irony. The use of these devices is to help the author prove and support his point about how blue-collar guys deserve the honor, as well as respect for their hard work that they do not usually receive.
The writer does an amazing job at getting his message across to his audience. The figurative language he uses is wonderful throughout the entire writing. A good example of this is the imagery that is used. As a reader,
However, most people may not have on caught to this idea. What is interesting about this is that he had his audience fooled on the fact that he himself is a blue-collar guy. At least, that is what seems to be his targeted intention. The author is speaking as a blue-collar guy but is more of a white-collar guy, because he is probably sitting in an office at a desk writing this essay for our own amusement.
“Year of the Blue-Collar Guy”, written by Steve Olson is an ideal thought-provoking essay that brings to pass the many rhetorical devices authors use to define their points.These rhetorical devices or figurative language include, imagery, humor, shamelessness, and irony. Whether a person is a blue-collar guy or a white-collar guy, whether they are in jeans and boots or suits and ties, it is the same. How people make money depends on the job that suits them best, and that is
In this poem called “Creatures” by the author Billy Collins there are three examples of figurative language helps convey the meaning that the author Billy Collins is conveying. The three examples of figurative language that the author Billy Collins uses are a metaphor, enjambment, and imagery. These three examples of figurative language help illustrate Billy Collins” theme in this poem called “Creatures” that he is writing because these three examples of figurative language help emphasize the theme of the poem. These three examples help emphasize this poem called “Creatures” meaning because it makes the theme of this poem have a deeper meaning. The theme of the author Billy Collins poem called “Creatures” is that the reader has to imagine
We, as a society, feel the need to draw imaginary lines to separate ourselves whether it’s the line between color of our skin, our religion differences, our political beliefs, or the status of our class. As much as I wish there wasn’t a defining line between high class and the educated vs. low class and uneducated, there is. In Mike Rose’s narrative essay “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” he describes his mother’s lack of education and her hard labor work which is the quote on quote the blue collar working class.
“My very ability to work tirelessly hour after hour is a product of decades of better-than-average medical care, a high-protein diet, and workouts in gyms that charge $400 or $500 a year. If I am now a productive fake member of the working class, it’s because I haven’t been working, in any hard physical sense, long enough to have
Mike Rose wrote “Blue Collar Brilliance” to showcase the underlying and previously unheard of intelligence of blue-collar workers that is often ignored by scholars because such workers are not commonly seen as conventionally intelligent. Rose challenges the idea that intelligence is solely based on the amount of schooling completed, and instead explains that blue-collar jobs require more intelligence than most would think. Using personal examples and various comparisons, Rose describes the true value of working blue-collar jobs. The arguments presented in the essay parallel the saying “It’s more than meets the eye.”
Imagery is used by many authors as a crucial element of character development. These authors draw parallels between the imagery in their stories and the main characters' thoughts and feelings. Through intense imagery, non-human elements such as the natural environment, animals, and inanimate objects are brought to life with characteristics that match those of the characters involved.
When you think of a typical college student you may think of a young adult around 18 to 22 years old. You may also think of someone with little world experience that’s off on their own for the first time in their short life. Surprisingly, there has been a recent phenomenon with an increase in older people now attending post-secondary education, specifically the baby boomer generation. Libby Sander, a staff reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education, explores this topic in an article called “Blue-Collar Boomers Take Work Ethic to College” (782). Sander combines the use of all three rhetorical appeals throughout her article to successfully argue that the wave of baby boomers enrolled in postsecondary education is changing the perception
The poem describes workers to be “Killing the overtime ‘cause the dream is your life, / Refusing to take holidays or go home to your spouse, / But for many the overtime comes, ‘cause the work is not done. / Deadlines to be met. So you continue to dream like a war vet, / Having flashbacks to make you shiver and scream” (Jones, stanza 7, lines 2-6). Jones reinforces that overworking for an incentive of money does not give one a sense of gratification, and it also distracts them from the values that should matter more to them than anything else. Both Kohn and Jones have a similar approach to showing the reader the effect that overworking can have on a person, and how it will change their values in life, causing unhappiness. Many students go through school dispirited and do not join various clubs and activities for their own enjoyment. A friend of Kohn’s who was also a high school guidance counsellor had a student with ‘…amazing grade and board scores. It remained only to knock out a dazzling essay on his college applications that would clinch the sale. “Why don’t we start with some books that
The articles “Blue-Collar Brilliance” has an excellence style that is very organized that helps the reader understand and collect their thoughts. The author gives us many examples including the author’s mother and uncle. Further in the article the author also examines many other jobs that others may not respect in society, The examples are very effective and support the author’s point of view very well. The article states “Eight years ago I began a study of the thought processes involved in work like that of my mother and uncle” (Rose 910). We also learn that the author has been researching and studying his topic for many years which shows us that the information is credible. The author uses very good language and tone while addressing the reader, he may have his own opinion but he is not harsh and abrupt about it. The article also has a great amount of detail that helps the reader understand the author’s point of view clearly. An example of great detail is when the article mentions “ Planning and problem solving have been studied since the earliest days of modern cognitive psychology and are considered core elements in Western definitions of intelligence. To work is to solve problems. The big difference between the psychologist’s laboratory and the workplace is that in the former the problems are isolated and in the latter they are embedded in the real-time flow of work with
Blue Collar workers today are looked down upon by most of society. People think that if you have a blue collar job you aren’t smart and not successful. But in my opinion, blue collar workers are the backbone of our society, and deserve the same amount of respect as white collar workers. “Blue Collar Brilliance by Mike Rose” explains how blue collar workers are very smart and use a lot of brainpower to get their jobs done. Both his Uncle and mother were blue collar workers and that’s where he got his inspiration to stand up for blue collar workers around the world. He gives us examples of how his own family members were blue collar workers and how they were smart and how they excelled at their jobs. He uses his own experiences to show us that blue collar workers are in fact smart, able to adapt to many different situations, and deserve respect.
Throughout the entire article, “Blue Collar Brilliance” the author Mike Rose is trying to show the real fact of Blue Collar jobs by describing his mother work as a waitress and his uncle as a factory worker who made his way up to manager. By giving evidence, he is also trying to open the readers eye that Blue Collar workers are in a same intelligence skill as other high-level workers though they do not have four years degrees. The author, Mike Rose, passed his childhood by watching his mom as waiting on booths and table with skillfully to assemble the skill to do work efficiently. He also watched out all other workers and interested by their adaption to coexist with each other. He got the chance as a first person to attend college in his family,
Throughout the poem, the author uses various types of figurative language to immerse the reader in the thoughts and feeling of the speaker. The personification of fear in the form of Mr. Fear provides one such example.
William Faulkner overwhelms his audience with the visual perceptions that the characters experience, making the reader feel utterly attached to nature and using imagery how a human out of despair can make accusations. "If I jump off the porch I will be where the fish was, and it all cut up into a not-fish now. I can hear the bed and her face and them and I can...
...mple of imagery is when Richard’s friends run up to him with his article in their hands and a baffled look on their faces. This shows that Richard is a very talented writer for his age and that Richard is a very ambitious person because his school never taught him to write the way he does. This also shows that Richard took it upon himself to become a talented author and wants to be a writer when he grows up.
The structural-functional analysis of jobs in the U.S. is governed by the workforce stratification and technology. The more educated and diverse a society is the better society’s job market is served. This social economic separation of class has been both good and bad for society. Many workers at the lower levels of employment are both pleased and displeased with many aspects of work. Though this fact also holds true with most any job at any level, pay scale often compensates for endurance of a particular job type. The security of a person’s job also is an issue that in today’s economic times forces one to be prepared for change. This is to say that even if one’s field of expertise is needed today it may not be tomorrow. This type of ever-changing job market leads many to believe that another socio-economic change may occur at any time. This change was apparent with the transition into the industrial age and again in the information age. These concerns caused stress, various health issues, a...
Another scene I particularly enjoyed was the scene in which a large cask of wine had dropped and broken in the street. Because many people had very little to eat or drink, a large crowd gathered around the dirty puddle and began drinking what they could of the spilled wine. This scene was very descriptive, explaining how the people tried to scoop up the wine in their hands, and how they soaked it up with handkerchiefs from women's heads and squeezed the wine into infants' mouths. Other people licked the stones in the street or sucked on the pieces of wood from the cask. This passage showed how unfortunate many of the people were, without actually saying that they were just poor. Specific words and phrases were used to effectively paint a vivid picture of the scene.