A Rhetorical Analysis Of Howard Dully's My Lobotomy

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Bus Driver, Howard Dully, in his memoir, “My Lobotomy” recounts his heartbreaking life after receiving a lobotomy when he was just 12 years old. Dully’s purpose is to raise awareness and share his riveting story about the after effects of having ice picks stabbed into his brain. He adopts an effective tone in order to aid, and inform readers of all ages about mental illness, family abuse and the corrupt past of American Psychiatry. When thinking of any type of writing, typically the goal is to use the highest level of vocabulary. Good writers avoid small words like good, or happy. In My Lobotomy though, Dully fully embraces the low level vocabulary. One quote that demonstrates this is “ There was lots of coffee and lots of juice, and I like that, and the toast was good” (Dully, 132).The use of “lots”, “like” , and “good” illuminate the purpose of the weak words. Dully specifically chose these words, because they reinforce the issues brought about by the lobotomy. His lobotomy led to little education, little manners and little responsibility. With Dully’s constant unstable life, he never learned the right way to speak or write. He could've very well hired a writer, to make it higher level and easier to understand. The choice to not do this is extremely important. Despite having a co-author, Dully’s voice is
He had blocked out a lot of his life, and the only way he gained them back were from others opinions about him. “For years and years I had wondered whether there was something I had done, some terrible crime I had committed, that made me deserve the lobotomy. There was a lot I had forgotten, a lot that was lost in the foggy aftermath of the surgery. Had I forgotten this, too? Was this the horrible thing I had done that made it necessary for them to hurt me?” ( Dully, 233) Dully is speaking about his doctor, and step mother’s fake accusation that Howard killed his little