Aaron Hannon

Liberal english professor, Aaron Hanlon, writes for The New York Times, about being an english professor on a campus that is simply conservative. Including his colleagues and majority of his students. In his piece he speaks about how he deals with the different viewpoints that he experiences at his workplace. Hanlon’s purpose for writing this particular piece is to show his readers that people could have a mature and intellectual conversation even though both parties have opposing attitudes. Hanlon used allusion to begin his piece by mentioning September 11th. Hanlon assumes that his readers would know what happened on this particular date. In any case, if the reader did not know September 11th significance they could guess that the day was not all that bright. The readers could come to that conclusion, because Hanlon writes, “... Sept. 11, reject marriage equality and insist on authority over women’s reproductive health decisions.” In my opinion, any American or any foreigner would know the significance of September 11th. Furthermore, Hanlon does not list those three awful things that occurred in America to make America seem like an atrocious place, but in fact he does this to show his readers that those were the
He uses anecdote to prove that the way that he was living life in college was not the life that he was expecting to live. He decided to go to a liberal arts school and that’s when he received a culture shock, “I was a reasonably good-natured kid from a modest Catholic household when I showed up to my liberal arts campus.” He had to adapt to his surroundings and become a new person other than being a white male. With this anecdote it shows that Hanlon did not let his conservative ways depict who he was but because he had an opened mind he was capable with adding some liberal ways into his lifestyle, while still being a