Atwood
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Form, Not Content
Remember that the point a writer makes isn’t the rhetorical strategy. If you re-state the point in depth, you’re paraphrasing or summarizing the content. If you show how the point’s made, that is, if you explain the form in which it’s delivered, then you’re analyzing rhetoric. You shouldn’t simply explain where and that certain strategies are used. Your job is to examine how and why they’re used.
Examples
✗ Summary of content = what: Smith shows that violent conflict in gender relationships comes from conflicting assumptions that escalate into violence.
✔ Analysis of form = how: Smith starts with an analogy, likening our interaction with the other sex to a walk through a minefield. She then expands on this analogy, using examples of conflict situations that blow up into full-out war.
〰️ Analysis of how but not why: In the first paragraph Smith uses a conceit comparing a heroine dealer to a vampire. In the second paragraph she uses cause and effect …
✔ Analysis of how and why: In the opening paragraph Smith grabs the reader’s attention by comparing a drug dealer to a vampire. She implies that a dealer keeps an addict alive so that the dealer can drain the addict of his life-blood, his will to be independent and healthy. In the process, the dealer turns the addict into a dark vampire-figure, who, like himself, operates outside the norms of society. Smith then switches from this pop culture vampire comparison to a more down-to-earth instance of cause and effect, which appeals more to the rational side of the reader. …
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Think Like a Lawyer
In analyzing rhetorical strategy, try not to get bothered by the idea that there’s only one strategy and that you may have picked the wrong one. Rather, pick the strategy that seems most important to you, and then show how it works throughout the material. Rhetorical analysis isn’t like doing a math equation or a science experiment; it’s more like making a legal argument, one that aims at the most convincing case. Try to think less like a lab scientist with a specific methodology to follow, and more like a lawyer with a variety of strategies to choose from. Each lawyer will emphasize different aspects of the situation and will play to his or her own perceptual, interpretive, and rhetorical skills.
This doesn’t mean, however, that you can make any argument you want. Just as a lawyer has to keep in mind the basic facts of a case (the police report, the time line of the crime, etc.), so you need to take into account the basic rhetorical situation — for instance, the simplicity or complexity of the communication, the tone, the historical context, etc. You don’t want to make an argument that leaves out or contradicts key aspects of the material. Again, your aim is to make the most convincing case you can.
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Atwood’s "Canadians"
The rhetorical analysis below examines Atwood's article, “Canadians: What Do They Want?” Look closely at this sample of rhetorical analysis, particularly since later (when we get to the evaluation section of the course) you'll be looking at a sample essay that examines the same Atwood essay from an evaluative angle. Atwood’s essay is from Mother Jones, January 1982. A copy of it can be found on Google Books here.
The Bristling North
In her essay “Canadians: What Do They Want?” (1982) Margaret Atwood examines Canadian identity in relation to the United States. Leaving aside questions of Quebec nationalism, aboriginal land claims, and the influence of England, she focuses primarily on today’s over-riding influence on Canada — the United States — and on how Canadians sometimes bristle when Americans assume Canadians ought to be happy about the present position of influence Americans have in the world. Atwood gets her points across by using comparisons that align gender with militarism, that use geography to illustrate a power differential, and that make parallels between the history of Roman imperialism and US foreign policy.
Atwood starts and ends her essay by aligning the male gender with militarism. Taking a feminist and pacifist position, she likens the violence of men to the violence of America. Men’s shoes remind her of jackboots or army boots, and she asserts that women have a difficult time appreciating the entirety of a man because even looking at his shoes reminds them of the violence men commit. Likewise, Canadians have a difficult time appreciating the positive aspects of America because they find it difficult to see past the violence Americans commit. She doesn't examine American violence, yet this is presumably obvious to Canadians who watch U.S. media, or who know about U.S. history.
Atwood’s geographical comparison, between the U.S. and a hypothetically larger Mexico, is used to illustrate to her American audience the sensitivity that comes with a large power differential. She urges her audience to imagine a Mexico that's ten times as large as the US, a hypothetical situation that may well resonate, given the large recent increases in Latino populations in the US, especially in states bordering Mexico. Explaining to Americans how their neighbours to the north feel, she points out that the uncomfortable feeling Canadians have (that they're like a satellite or branch plant) is a function of sheer numbers and economic forces, not of excessive national sensitivity. By giving Americans a comparison that they might appreciate, she aims to help them understand that Canadian resentment is a natural feeling. The resentment may cause Canadians to bristle, but it's understandable on an emotional level.
Her discussion of the power differential leads to her third comparison — between imperial Rome and imperial America. She asserts that just as France during the Roman Empire was a satellite, so Canada during the present American empire is a satellite. The difference, according to Atwood, is that the Romans didn't expect the French to like them, whereas Americans expect Canadians to like them. By giving this historic dimension to her essay, Atwood suggests that Canadian sentiment is a function of time, and is a function of a process that has happened for ages. It's really nothing unique or idiosyncratic. This historical comparison with Rome complements her previous geographical comparison (with Mexico) to give the reader a larger context — in both space and time — which aims to explain the feelings of Canadians. (500 words)