The Good Short Life

Written By Dudley Clendinen

Dudley Clendinen is a sixty-six year old man with loving friends and family, however he learns that his life is coming to an abrupt end because he is diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or also commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. In response to his diagnosis, Clendinen wrote a short essay titled, The Good Short Life about how he plans to live out the final months of his life. He also explains how he is ready to endure the remaining weeks of his life, however his loved ones (such as his daughter) are having a tough time coping with the unexpected diagnosis. Throughout the essay, Clendinen stresses the fact that he wants to live out the rest of his life, and not use various life-saving medications, that will drastically exacerbate the remainder of his life.  The essay was written to an audience of any reader, mostly because Clendinen wants to inform his readers of how “The blessing of Lou” (As in the ALS disease) has changed his life completely, even if it was for the worse. The purpose of the essay is to introduce an unaccustomed idea to the reader, which is “How to learn how to die”, simply because we are continuously taught how to live life, but never how to approach your own death. In order for Clendinen to achieve his purpose, he uses rhetorical devices such as diction, to ultimately connect to the concept of pathos. Sentences such as, “It suddenly hit me that I was going to die” (Clendinen 64) exhibit the simple diction used by Clendinen to connect to pathos. The word choice that Clendinen uses regarding his quickly approaching death is so simple that they create an emotional effect on the reader that makes them feel sympathy and therefore accept the purpose of the essay. In my opinion, Dudley Clendinen successfully achieved his purpose because the simple diction he used as a rhetorical device is the reason why the purpose of the essay is so simple to comprehend as the reader.

Pictured above was the famous Yankee ball-playuer Lou Gehrig.

When Clendinen was diagnosed with ALS (Gehrig's disease) he stated, "It's about life, when you know there's not much left. That is the weird blessing about Lou" (Clendinen 64). 

This image is from www.Time.com

Outlaw

Written by Jose Antonio Vargas

In Jose Antonio Vargas’ compelling essay Outlaw, he retells his journey from the Philippines to America that he started at the age of twelve. Vargas flew to America by himself more than twenty years ago, traveling halfway across the world to move in with his grandparents that would take care of him. Jose’s mom decided to send Jose to “The land of opportunity” due to the fact that she was a single mom who saw better chances for her son in America, rather than their homeland in Eastern Asia. The essay consists of Vargas’ experiences moving to a foreign country; that includes his high school years, eventually leading up to college and also his years as a professional journalist for some of the largest newspaper organizations in America.  Even with all of his success in America, Vargas thoroughly explains the issues he had being an “Illegal Alien” in America, even though he contributes to society and was well-liked by many of the people he met throughout his activities. The essay is written to an audience of any reader, particularly because Vargas’ purpose behind the essay is to tell his story of his journey to America and also apologize for misleading his former acquaintances that he is not indeed a “legal” American citizen.  Vargas’ readers easily comprehend his purpose of Outlaw because of the rhetorical devices he uses such as hyperboles. When recalling a business experience where the editors at his journalist job Vargas writes, “And worried that any of these professional journalists could discover my secret. The anxiety was nearly paralyzing” (Vargas 270). The use of the hyperbole by over-exaggerating “The anxiety was nearly paralyzing” allows the reader to truly understand the situation Vargas was in for many years, conclusively allowing Vargas to reach his purpose. I believe with the use of hyperboles and also Vargas’ perfectly scripted conclusion, he successfully accomplished his purpose for the essay Outlaw, which was is to tell his journey as a young boy from the Philippines in an unfamiliar country to a successful American journalist.

This political cartoon regarding "Illegal Aliens" showcases how Americans view illegal immigrants moving towards America. However, after reading Outlaw the reader realizes how valued a trip to America is by immigrants such as Jose Antonio Vargas. 

This image is from www.legalregulationreview.com

Other Women

Written by Francine Prose

The essay Other Women, is written by Francine Prose, a formerly married college graduate who became a writer and is also an active member in her local women’s group. Prose’s essay is about how her young marriage changed her view of men, and eventually turned her into a feminist. When her first marriage at the age of twenty soon began to fail, she started to question why men are still valued superior to women in this day in age.  This led Prose to her decision of joining the local women’s conscious-raising group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When Prose moved away due to an editor’s interest in her new novel, her former husband decided to sleep with several women in her women’s group. The audience that Prose writes to is a reader of any gender, however it is more directed towards men because her goal is to gain equality for women and destroy the common belief that men are superior to women. The purpose of Prose’s essay Other Women is to address the idea that many truly believe that women are inferior to men, however this idea is foolish and also unfair due to the fact that women deserve better, and are just as capable as men. Prose uses diction as a rhetorical device to achieve her purpose because her word choice connects to the reader’s emotional appeal. An example of Prose’s diction is, “I remember why he slept with all those women…by all those women, we meant two women” (Prose 243).   When Prose carefully used “all of those” instead of the actual “two women” it connects to the reader’s emotions because the reader now feels sympathy for Francine Prose because of the horrific treatment by her ex-husband because he believed that women are inferior to men. Therefore, the diction used by Prose as a rhetorical device helps her reach the purpose of the essay because the reader now will side with Prose due to the emotional appeal created from the diction of her essay.

This image of an old fashioned scale connects to Other Women because the author Francine Prose discusses the unfair treatment women receive as a result of the ancient belief that men are superior to women. 

This image is from www.photospin.com

Killing My Body to Save My Mind

Written By: Lauren Slater

In the essay Killing My Body to Save My Mind, the author Lauren Slater describes her struggle between various psychotropic pills and their affect on her obesity. She starts out the essay stating her issues with incredibly high cholesterol levels, however she then leads into her story that deals with her body’s “breakdown” due to her strongest pill, Zyprexa. Slater states that she used to be a petite young lady in her early twenties, nevertheless, she rapidly increased in weight when she started to take more and more psychotropics to deal with her complications with depression. Despite the colossal weight gain that Slater endured as a result of the Zyprexa, she declares that she would much rather be in a better state of mind than one regarding her physical appearance. The essay is not written to specific reader, largely due to the fact that her purpose is to tell the world her story and how she has no regrets sacrificing her weight for a better attitude, and happier outlook on life. Slater finds success in attaining her purpose with the help of rhetorical devices. One example of a rhetorical device Slater uses to achieve her purpose is an analogy. When examining her decision to take the Zyprexa pill (that had many side effects), Slater writes, “I would have rather been a happy elephant than a miserable hominid” (Slater 257).  The use of this analogy helps Slater acquire her purpose because the reader evaluates the comparison between the lifestyle options Slater was dealt. As a result, the reader will also evaluate the analogy and will see Slater’s opinion, which ultimately allows Slater to achieve her purpose. I personally believe that Slater successfully achieves her purpose because of her use of rhetorical devices such as analogies, and also because of her well-explained reasoning that this decision was the best for not only herself, but also her children and husband.

When talking about the powerful psychotropic pill Zyprexa, Slater states "Zyprexa, I put the one pill in the center of my palm. I put it right on my lifelines, smack in their center–a reminder, a reassertion that this is the choice I've made–and then I send it down the chute, while high up in my head I look all around" (Slater 261). 

This image from www.rxlist.com

How Doctors Die

Written by Ken Murray

In Ken Murray’s essay How Doctors Die he addresses the concept of how doctors do not die like normal people because they know the power of modern medicine and the human body’s limits. Murray, a former doctor, uses his prior medical experiences to persuade the reader that most medical professionals do not believe in life-support devices, and would much rather a natural death when the time has come. In addition to using past experiences Murray has gained as being a doctor, he also adds personal stories of his mentor and cousin, both regarding the death process and how both of these men chose a natural death compared to one full of constant medication and endless misery. Murray delivers his ideas to an audience that consists of typical Americans, mostly because he wants to inform other Americans the different opinions that most doctors have of the death process, compared to people of other occupations. Murray has success in achieving his purpose of explaining the differences between how doctors approach death compared to other individuals through the use of irony in one of his past experiences. One of Murray’s former patients was a woman who had clogged blood vessels in her legs, and after much debate Murray performed bypass surgery on her. The irony comes into effect because, “Two weeks later, in the famous medical center in which all of this occurred, she died” (Murray 234). The irony plays a role in this past experience of Murray because the women would have most likely lived longer without the surgery rather than having it. The irony of Murray’s failed medical experience gave insight to his belief that doctors do think of the death process differently than other individuals because of stories such as this that haunt doctors and their views on a natural death. Overall, I do believe that Murray accomplished his purpose of informing the reader about the differences of thought between a doctor and any other individual regarding the death process because of his touch of personal stories and irony of a failed experience. 

Murray and other doctors agree that they would rather have a quicker natural death than one prolonged with the assistance of a life-support device, such like this ventilator. 
This image is from http://darthmed.dathmouth.edu