I’m going to jump right into talking about the readings by stating that I absolutely loved the third reading. The poem accompanied with the two letters. The response letter was devilishly gratifying, it was like a kick to the face. It didn’t just say no, it listed several reasons why he could say no, then the reason why he did say no. To put it into the context of it’s rhetoric, it was a massive blow to the Nike Representative’s ethos and pathos. Espada harshly criticizes whether or not several practices within the company are ethical, and manages to degrade the self-worth of the representitive by challenging her knowledge of the work of a poet. Not to mention his slicing one liner, “A poem is not a pop tart.”
The other readings have successfully made American Commercialism disgust me more so than it did before, I’m glad I do not own any Nike shoes and only own two articles of clothing made by Disney. That gives me at least the feeling that I’m doing less to perpetuate this attrocity. The annalysis of the article’s appeals is simple. The appeal to pathos can be found in the way the article’s make a personal narrative out of the poverty gave the reader something they could relate to, this sense of empathy making them care for the people who are being mistreated. The Ethos appeal can be found in the juxtaposition between the comfortable life we live as Americans and the horrid life the Haitians live constructing disney apparal. The Logos appeal is obvious, it can be found in the way that the authors crunch numbers to show you how taking better care of the workers would not hurt the profits of the company in any way, such as in a set of pajamas that cost 11.97 the workers would go from getting seven cents of the price to nine cents of the price.
Filed under: Uncategorized
