Herold’s AP Comp and Lang blog

In “Shooting an Elephant”, the author sets the reader up in the first few paragraphs to think of him as a victim surrounded on all sides by those that hate him and yet a sympathizer with those same people, which is an admirable trait in anyone - “love thine enemy”, as the saying goes. He then says that he is forced into shooting the elephant, something that he does not want to do, because he needs to impress the “natives”. As he is trying to decide whether or not to approach the elephant, he says that “even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin”. He then talks as though he regrets killing the elephant and succumbing to the will of the “natives”. He uses practical wisdom and virtue especially well to convince us.

The author of “The Careful Cultivation of Belief” uses ethos to achieve credibility in his writing. She emphasizes the fact that she has experience with “honors-level senior” students to show that she knows what she is talking about. She also shows disinterest by saying that rather than planting ideas for beliefs in her students’ minds, she wanted to let them discover their beliefs on their own - whether that’s actually true or not, it makes her sound like an honest and unselfish person who doesn’t promote her own causes. She also quotes Socrates and other important well-known authors, which makes her look intelligent.

The two NPR essays “The Strange Blessing That Brought Me Home” and “A Marriage That’s Good Enough” both attempt to convince readers of opinions that are not particularly prevalent in our society, and do so with varying degrees of success. One discusses the fact that Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of her house and her material posessions was a blessing for her by helping her to reconnect with her parents and with nature and allowing her to appreciate them, while the other talks about being content with her life and not constantly needing more or better than she already has. However, their use of rhetoric makes a huge difference in their abilities to convince. The author of “The Strange Blessing That Brought Me Home” used several different rhetorical methods, but most importantly, she used exaggeration and overly descriptive language to convince the reader that she felt that the destruction of her home was good for her - and no doubt it was. The important difference between the essays is that while she was convincing merely in her excitement about this new epiphany, the author of “A Marriage That’s Good Enough” is so utterly apathetic about the mediocrity of her marriage, job, health, and every other aspect of her life that it’s highly unlikely to convince anyone. She describes herself not as “happy”, but as “content” - not nearly a strong enough word to convince millions of Americans who are searching for the perfect marriage, job, and body that they really don’t need all that. Therefore, one author’s story is much more convincing than the other, merely through the rhetorical strategies each uses to tell it.

The author of “A Marriage That’s Good Enough” uses ethos by making herself comparable to other Americans who might feel like they are in the same boat by describing herself as average, and by saying that she herself is in a marriage that’s “good enough”. The Author of “The Strange Blessing That Brought Me Home” uses similar techniques by putting herself on the same level as other Katrina survivors. Neither author uses ethos all that sophisticatedly, however.

I agree with Mr. Murray on everything in his article except for one crucial point. He is of the opinion that some children are simply born with higher intelligence than others, and for this reason he believes they should receive better education. This is untrue, however: no child is born with an intellectual advantage over another. Every child may be born with an affinity for or an advantage in a particular area or method of learning, but what brings them to develop their minds is the environment around them, especially the parental or teacherly encouragement they receive, as well as an unquenchable need for knowledge and achievement. That is the quality that leads certain children to become the outliers that they are. This love of intelligence and the need to do great things with one’s life is what makes it possible for the supposedly brilliant ten percent of the population to rise above the rest. This quality is the reason that these children should get the education that they want and deserve to have. Their ambition and their need to achieve should be the reason, as opposed to the supposed quality of “natural” intelligence and the apparently inherent need of American society to create a hierarchy not only of money and social status, but of intelligence as well, as Mr. Murray insinuates is the reason for the need for advanced education for certain members of society. Despite this skewed reasoning for the higher education of the gifted, however, these children do indeed need to learn humility and to learn how to deal with the rest of society, so that they can be truly wise leaders in the future.

Kenneth Burke’s metaphor represents the never-ending intellectual discussion that has existed for many years before our own lives and will continue to exist long after we are gone. As we now enter this conversation, we are just beginning to understand what the people around us in the parlor are discussing. Many of these people have many years more experience than you do, yet none have all the answers, as much as they’d like to think so, because none of them were around when God/Allah/whatever other higher power one may believe in – or not – created the world and its population, and therefore no one knows the intentions of said higher power. Burke seems to emphasize the fact that we must form our own opinions by listening to the opinions of others and weeding out the bias from the facts, rather than merely swallowing everything a single person tells you, be it a parent, teacher, politician, or any other seemingly intelligent adult. However, an equally important point that was missed in the metaphor is that you must learn to accept that you’re not going to convince everyone – indeed, you might convince no one at all – but that it does not make your opinion any less valid or important to the conversation. And even more importantly, you must remember that you may easily be just as wrong as you believe your opponent to be, and so you have to keep an open mind to the other opinions that are out there.