A Rhetorical Analysis Of Reading The Paper By Ron Carlson
Reading the Paper
Ron Carlson’s Reading the Paper is a list of the things occurring in the time period of a day in the life of a character. The idea of the common everyday life is represented with the very first sentence: ALL I WANT TO DO is read the paper, but I’ve got to do the wash first.
Yet, even though the author wants to represent it as a normal day in which normal day events take place, mundane happenings are introduced before some bizarre ones are presented. That way, a structure of mundane – bizarre – mundane – bizarre happenings is presented. Here is a table showing of all the mundane things, summed up right next to the bizarre ones:
The fact that there is no kind of emotional response between them, and they are nothing but event after event, makes this piece a running style text. It almost makes it feel as if there was no importance on what has happened, it simply happened and the day went on. Not only that there is no emotional response presented, but that the character even refers to Timmy as “bless his soul, always thought was silly”. The lack of response is not only shocking, …show more content…
The previously mentioned running style, the paractical elements, the structure itself… they all lead to present one thing: every day’s hypocrisy spread all over the world. All these bizarre events could be interpreted as if they were told in the news, heartless, with no emotion, just stories that need to be told. The fact that right after an event such as a chorus is presented a tragedy occurs, is used to resemble the fact that after watching these horrific happenings on the news, people go on with their lives forgetting completely about what they had just watched. Even the title roots back to the idea, as it says “Reading The Paper”, that paper could be referring to the papers that are in fact read every day and in which those stories are
Ron Carlson’s Reading the Paper is a list of the things occurring in the time period of a day in the life of a character. The idea of the common everyday life is represented with the very first sentence: ALL I WANT TO DO is read the paper, but I’ve got to do the wash first.
Yet, even though the author wants to represent it as a normal day in which normal day events take place, mundane happenings are introduced before some bizarre ones are presented. That way, a structure of mundane – bizarre – mundane – bizarre happenings is presented. Here is a table showing of all the mundane things, summed up right next to the bizarre ones:
The fact that there is no kind of emotional response between them, and they are nothing but event after event, makes this piece a running style text. It almost makes it feel as if there was no importance on what has happened, it simply happened and the day went on. Not only that there is no emotional response presented, but that the character even refers to Timmy as “bless his soul, always thought was silly”. The lack of response is not only shocking, …show more content…
The previously mentioned running style, the paractical elements, the structure itself… they all lead to present one thing: every day’s hypocrisy spread all over the world. All these bizarre events could be interpreted as if they were told in the news, heartless, with no emotion, just stories that need to be told. The fact that right after an event such as a chorus is presented a tragedy occurs, is used to resemble the fact that after watching these horrific happenings on the news, people go on with their lives forgetting completely about what they had just watched. Even the title roots back to the idea, as it says “Reading The Paper”, that paper could be referring to the papers that are in fact read every day and in which those stories are