Rhetorical Analysisi free essay sample

Rhetorical Analysis Essay The work that I chose to write about is â€Å"The Homeless and Their Children† taken from Jonathan Kozol’s book, â€Å"Rachel and Her Children†. This is a story of a woman whom Kozol calls Laura and her four children that lived in a run-down hotel room in 1985. The intended audience for this piece was pretty much anyone interested in reading this particular book. He wrote it for the general American public. I believe that Kozol felt bad for the women and their families that had to live in this government sponsored hell-hole. He describes Laura as a â€Å"broken stick† and says that Laura, â€Å" is so fragile the I find it hard to start a conversation when we are introduced a few nights later†. Then he later describes her children as â€Å"having the washed-out look of the children Walker Evans photographed for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. † and having â€Å"dark and hallowed eyes†. We will write a custom essay sample on Rhetorical Analysisi or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page (1) Kozol also describes the hotel and the rooms that these families were living in. He seems to have a sympathetic tone. He talks about how there is sludge running down the walls, beds with mattresses that did not fit correctly, there was a radiator that spewed out hot water at the kids’ eye level at any time and how this could do damage to the more than twelve hundred children living there. Kozol also brings up the fact that there are guards in the hotel, but they let the drug dealers walk right in like they own the place. Laura states, â€Å"I don’t know the reason for the guards. They let the junkies into the hotel. When my mother comes, I have to sign† (Kozol 2). He brings up the fact that Laura’s children do not get Christmas presents and how this upsets her. Laura states, â€Å"Christmas, they don’t get. For my daughter I ask a Cabbage Patch. For my boys I ask for toys. I got them stockings. † (Kozol 3). She feels bad and the fact that Kozol dedicates an entire paragraph to it, tells me that he feels for these kids and their parents. Kozol also discusses the fact that Laura is illiterate and how this affects their daily lives, such as Laura having to spend more money on groceries due to the fact that she can only buy the products with pictures on them. Also, he talks about how she has trouble looking for a place to live, which is required by the welfare system because they pay her rent, due to the fact that she cannot read the newspaper. The fact that Laura could not properly care for the health of her children seemed to bother Kozol as well. There are several occasions during their interview where Laura asks him to read letters and most of those letters are about how she needs to bring her oldest son Matthew in for treatment for lead poisoning. There was also a letter telling her that her daughter has scabies. Overall, this excerpt has a sympathetic tone. The way he describes the hotel and the things that these families have to deal with tells us that he feels bad for them. Kozol is a very credible writer for this particular story because he is directly interviewing the people that live in this hotel. He takes what these people tell him and what he sees with his own eyes, such as the way the rooms looked, and lays it out. Kozol was not only trying to get the audience to feel sorry for these people, but trying to educate the American public as well. He wanted to let us know that there were, and still are, people right here in America having to live in places like Martinique Hotel. He also was letting us know the reasons why certain people have trouble getting out of these kinds of situations, once they get in (i. e. the fact that Laura was illiterate). At the very end of this excerpt Kozol asks Laura how she relaxes. Laura replies that she â€Å"turns out the lights and lies down on the bed†. She also talks about how the room is gloomy with no pictures or flowers and how she wished that she had a dog. She states, â€Å"A brown dog. Something to hug† (Kozol 3). This shows us that wanted this pet so badly that she has thought about every detail, even down to the color of the dog. The last few paragraphs had a somewhat different tone than the rest of the excerpt. He seemed to be feeling down and depressed for Laura. He describes how there is a â€Å"spindly geranium plant† in the window of Laura’s room and how â€Å"the blowing snow hits the panes and blurs the dirt† (Kozol 3). It just seems that the reality and sadness of the situation are really setting in. The detailed descriptions, such as when he describes Laura and her children, as I mentioned in paragraph two of this paper, that Kozol puts into his piece also help him to set this sympathetic tone. Kozol is also very descriptive about the way the hotel looks and the management of the hotel. He wants us to be right there with him, Laura and her children. He wants this so that we feel what he feels for her and also to feel what Laura is feeling. On a personal note, I would like to read the rest of this book and possibly other works that Mr. Kozol did. In discussion with other classmates, I discovered that he did a lot of work with homeless and illiterate people. I do not know if he still writes, however, I would like to do some research and find out how long of a time period he did write for and compare some of the stories to see if and how situations changed over the years.