In a passage from his book, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, author John M. Barry makes an attempt use different rhetorical techniques to transmit his purpose. While to most, the Mississippi River is only some brown water in the middle of the state of Mississippi, to author John M. Barry, the lower Mississippi is an extremely complex and turbulent river. John M. Barry builds his ethos, uses elevated diction, several forms of figurative language, and different styles of syntax and sentence structure to communicate his fascination with the Mississippi River to a possible audience of students, teachers, and scientists.
From the very beginning of the passage, John M. Barry “sucks” the reader in- similar to the way the Mississippi River would do to anything in its way-through elevated diction. He uses words like “extraordinarily dynamic”, “turbulent”, and “complex.” He goes on to say that studying the river is a science of “chaos.” All of these words transmit Barry’s fascination. He is so perplexed and astonished by how dynamic the river is that he says it is chaos, or having unpredictable and seemingly random behavior. His elevated and well-chosen diction shows that he has actually studied the river and is knowledgeable about the way it works. By doing this, Barry builds his ethos, something he continues doing in the first paragraph by alluding to a renowned physicist, Werner Heisenberg. A physicist would very obviously know about the inner and complex mechanics of a river like the Mississippi, yet the very appropriate expression he is quoted for shows that he is just as surprised as Barry and believes that not even God could explain the mechanics of the river.
After establishing himself...
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...ed in the first paragraph and that later increased as he and his readers analyzed together the different aspects that make the Mississippi River so complex.
John M. Barry is successful with his use of rhetoric because of his varied forms of the art. He makes the Mississippi River seem not only like a body of brown water in the middle of the continental U.S. but like a whip, a live snake, a living being, and a whirlpool all at the same time. Not only does he build his ethos, he also uses elevated diction, varied forms of sentence structure, or syntax, and different types of figurative language. Because of this, Barry is able to successfully achieve his purpose: communicate his fascination with the complex mechanics of the Mississippi River. The reader ends up being just as fascinated with a river that they may have never seen before but are now just as amazed with.
Contemporary writer, John M Barry, in his passage from Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, seeks to communicate the extraordinarily perplexing river that has a life of it’s own. Barry illustrates the incomprehensibility and lifelikeness of the Mississippi, and how that makes it so alluring, by establishing it as far superior to all other rivers.
Heinrichs had previously worked as a journalist before becoming a full time writer and advocate for rhetoric. He utilizes illustrative examples to convey rhetorical concepts. Furthermore, chapter four reveals the most valuable logos and pathos tactic. Lastly, this book’s use should be continued in this course.
First, John Barry utilizes rhetorical questions to convey how scientists must think in order to be successful. Barry uses rhetorical questions to put the reader in the mindset of a scientist. Barry questions, “Would a pick be best, or would
Lincoln cleverly uses the rhetorical devices of juxtaposition, parallelism, and repetition. Juxtaposition is the comparison of two ...
... and well-known African Americans. The imagery he uses is a painting of his experiences, and his thoughts and feelings of those experiences. His use of hyperboles is a connection of dot from his experiences and his emotions. Now that we have seen Cleaver’s literary design, we now understand how his experiences affect his life. We also understand the messages that the other authors mentioned in this essay are trying to send. Like Cleaver, they use certain literary methods for certain reasons, whether their literary methods are to express their feelings or to teach us things we may have not known before. Although the other author’s appear to have different reasons for using certain literary methods than those reasons of Cleaver’s, Like Cleaver, their aim is to get a point through to us; therefore, they too, create a successful literary design.
One of his intriguing skills as a writer is his ability to intertwine narration and analysis in his essays. James Baldwin mixes narration and analysis in his essays so well that coherence is never broken, and the subconscious is so tempted to agree with and relate to what he says, that if you don’t pay close attention, one will find himself agreeing with Baldwin, when he wasn’t even aware Baldwin was making a point. Physical placement of analytical arguments and analytical transitions, frequency and size of analytical arguments, and the language used within the analytical arguments are the keys to Baldwin’s graceful persuasion. Throughout this essay, I will be using Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” as an example. “Notes of a Native Son” is an essay that Baldwin wrote which focuses primarily on his life around the time his father died, which also happens to be the same time his youngest brother was born.
The Johnstown Flood Stained the history of the United States. Over 2000 victims died and even more injured. The flood has been blamed on many people since it happened. One group individually brought about the flood. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club made selfish changes threatening the effectiveness toward holding back a water overflow. The renovation made to the dam brought about the destruction killing many people and causing millions of dollars in damages.
The Civil Rights Movement is usually seen as a social movement primarily throughout the Southern states during the 1950’s and throughout the 1960’s. However, the movement is taught by giving specific points, events, places, and people. The Civil Rights Movement in some regions such as the Mississippi Delta is not credited enough in history. The movement found crucial support inside of the Mississippi Delta due to its population being predominately African American. The Mississippi Delta played a key role not only in the movement, but in its development from encompassing Civil Rights activist, movements, tragic events, and more.
Rodriguez,Richard. “The Fear of Losing a Culture.” in Writing on the River.2nd ed. By English Faculty and Staff of Chattanooga State Community College. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2009. 129-131.Print.
to Writing. The Basics. Visual Rhetoric. Readings. Ed. Dore Ripley. Pleasant Hill: DVC, 2013 83-89.
Pipher writes of her experience reading Twyla Hansen’s article that “encourages land owners to plant slow-growing shade trees” (439). “After reading Hansen’s article,” Pipher states, “I bought a sycamore” (439). Along with personal experience in the specific example, Pipher uses allegory to convey the effect of writing using a much more corporeal and understandable example. By using allegory, Pipher’s concept of the significance of writing is “dumbed down” to make it quite clear and understandable to even the least educated
Eiseley, Loren “The Flow of the River” from Fifty Great Essays 2nd ed. 2002 Penguin Academics New York.
In "Two Views of the River," an excerpt from Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, Twain comes to the realization of the realities of the river. After a life along the river and knowing "every trifling feature that bordered the great river as" well as he knew his alphabet, (Twain 1) Twain sees the reality behind the "beauty" (1) and "poetry" (1) of the river. A comprehensive analysis reveals Twain's argument questions the value of learning a trade, as his images of "the majestic river" (1) and the peril it may cause for the steamboat, show the comparisons of the beauty and the reality of the river.
Using his experiences as a steamboat engineer, Mark Twain creates a realistic novel through meticulous detail in the descriptions of the setting, diction, and characters. The setting is described with much detail and imagery, so as to make it as close as possible to the actual surroundings. Twain uses a page just to describe the sunrise over the river.
"Photography." Understanding Rhetoric. A Graphic Guide to Writing. The Basics. Visual Rhetoric. Readings. Ed. Dore Ripley. Pleasant Hill: DVC, 2013. 93-95. Print.