mel-u@mail.utexas.edu
This is a sample that I wrote of what (roughly) I'm looking for in a rhetorical analysis. There aren't nearly enough examples in this paper, and it is a bit too general, covering as it does an entire novel. Your papers will be considerably more focused and precise.
Paper |
Function |
| ¶ Jonathan Swift was a man with a searing and critical sense of humor. He wrote satires and parodies that lambasted the morals, politics, values, and pretensions of his time (the 18c). Gulliver's Travels, his most famous work, is a paramount example of Swift's merciless wit. Swift sends his hapless hero Gulliver (whose name bears a suspicious resemblance to the word "gullible") on a series of surreal adventures in fictional foreign lands. Each adventure and each new land illuminates something new about Swift's England. In Lilliput, we learn of the corruption and ambition of life at court. In Laputa, we learn of the absurdity of contemporary academia. But the most disturbing condemnation of all comes in the land of the Yahoos, degraded humans who serve an enlightened race of horses. Here, Swift not only mocks the morality of the English, but also the arrogance and futility of reform. His satire, which attacks everything it sees, eventually circles around to indict Gulliver himself, who spends the rest of his life eating in his stable with his horses and stuffing pot pourri up his nose. | Intro/Description |
| Swift uses humor as his most powerful tool to create a vision of a world utterly and irredeemably ludicrous. He employs pathos, a sort of inverted ethos, and values to convince his audience, and a naive, blunt, and obscene tone. | Intro/Thesis |
| ¶ Although Gulliver's story is presented in the form of an argument to explore, the analogies between the lands he visits and England make it clear that the author knows precisely what he is doing from the outset. [some examples here.] The narrator (Gulliver) is exploring, but the author (Swift) seeks to convince. | Analysis: Reasons to Argue |
| ¶
Swift's
favorite line of argument is pathos, which he employs in the form of
humor. [3 particularly persuasive and funny examples.] He also
employs the pathos of shock, freely discussing disturbing bodily
functions, odors, and secretions. This contributes to the creation
of Swift's world of grotesque absurdity. [3 examples.]
¶ In addition to pathos, Swift performs a peculiar perversion of rhetoric. He argues by "anti-ethos." That is, he deliberately undercuts what appear to be his own conclusions about the stupidity of humans by repeatedly demonstrating that his narrator is ignorant, pretentious, smug, and bumbling. Swift initially seduces us with traditional ethos (Gulliver speaks of his personal experience and makes an honest confession to convince his readers of his integrity); however, before we have read much further, we begin to question the good impression the narrator made. [3 examples.] ¶ Finally, Swift uses the strongest perversion of rhetorical modes when he employs logos. On the one hand, he presents entirely false "facts" (that us, inartistic logos) to generate his analogies with England. [some examples.] On the other hand, his hero Gulliver employs artistic logos to arrive at the conclusion that the only truly civilized beings on the planet are horses. Thus, as Swift mocks anything that comes into his view, he even manages to generate a mockery of rhetoric, which, curiously enough, is very persuasive. |
Analysis: Lines of Argument |
| ¶ The narrator's tone is naive, blunt and obscene. [some examples.] It was intended for an audience that was familiar with life at court in England, that had a sophisticated sense of humor and high literary intelligence. The audience must possess a certain subversive streak, and not be overly invested in "sacred cows". | Analysis/Description: Tone/Audience |
| ¶ It is difficult to precisely identify logical fallacies in Swift because it is difficult to determine where the author stands on any one issue. However, one can clearly detect his feckless hero in a number of errors of logic. He generates a faulty analogy in comparing the Yahoos to humans everywhere. He commits hasty generalizations among the Lilliputians. [specific examples.] He succumbs to appeal to false authority among the Laputans [example], and among the Brobdignags, Gulliver commits the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. However, it is important to remember that these fallacies are deliberate on the part of the author, and help to illuminate Gulliver's impulsive and limited character. | Analysis: Logical Fallacies |
| ¶
Swift was very effective
in his own time. His
inverted ethos and his biting pathos still delight the perceptive
reader. However, Gulliver's Travels has varied in efficacy over
time. When he was alive, "black" humor was very popular,
and Swift was one of the blackest. His bawdy references would have
been seen as indicating a refreshing honesty. His naive pose and
"anti-ethos" would have been much more apparent to a society
whose literature was routinely deceptive, slippery, and
sardonic.
¶ The Victorians, in the following century, must have found him very distressing. They had inherited from their parents and grandparents a strong belief in Swift's place in the "canon" of literature, but his work must have continually upset the Victorian's rather more delicate sensibilities. The obscenity that was once an indication of daring truthfulness became a sign of perversion and undercut the author's ethos, rather than the narrator's. However, Swift's satiric tone was very congenial to the morally earnest and improving Victorians, who were always sympathetic to reform. They edited out the dirty bits, and presumably ignored any uncomfortable parallels between themselves and Gulliver, reformed into an asinine superiority. ¶ Contemporary readers are often puzzled by Swift. His sustained irony is unfamiliar, and readers cannot understand why any author would make such insane and unkind assertions, with what appears to be a straight face. [examples.] They fail to perceive Gulliver's naiveté, and are simply amused and a little bewildered by the obscenity. Moreover, Swift's bluntness is lost on modern readers, who don't know enough about 18c context to understand his references. In short, Swift's perverted rhetoric, so devastatingly effective in his own day, decays in persuasiveness as time passes. However, for those students who take the time to learn about the period, it can retain its original, alarming charm. |
Evaluation/Conclusion |