Analysis of My Son the Marine by
Analysis of My son the Marine By: Frank Schaeffer
My son the Marine gives the audience a journey of all sorts of feelings a parent could go through when a child decides to enlist in the service. Frank Schaeffer is the author who starts his story about his son, John who sees the Marine recruiters showing up at their home. Frank describes how he couldn’t comprehend on how John could relate to these stern, clean men with such flawless uniforms. This uneasy feeling made his wife feel uncertain about her son enlisting which promoted her to ask “What will he get out of being a Marine?” The response from the recruiters was “He’ll be a United States Marine, ma’am!” Frank and his wife may not have understood what this met at this time but all that mattered was their son, John understanding that if he wanted to join the military that he wanted to be in the United States Marine Corps. This is how Frank connects with the audience showing their insecurities about their son joining the Marine Corps.
As the audience reads more into Frank’s stories, we get an idea that he wasn’t supportive of his son joining the United States military in the beginning. Frank immediately explained how ignorant he was regarding the military life due to his childhood and how difficult it was for him to send his other two children off to college. This tone that Frank uses is a pathos form of writing which helps the audience connect with the author. The audience will feel how Frank struggled with this choice that his son was making. By using this format the audience will be able to connect with Frank as he continues to go through a mix emotion of feelings as his son leaves. Frank may have seemed ignorant in the beginning but by the end, we have an author who is very proud and glad that he can look someone in eye who wears a military uniform.
This writer gives hope to those people who are in the same situation as he was. He found a way to connect with the audience so that they could put a human
My son the Marine gives the audience a journey of all sorts of feelings a parent could go through when a child decides to enlist in the service. Frank Schaeffer is the author who starts his story about his son, John who sees the Marine recruiters showing up at their home. Frank describes how he couldn’t comprehend on how John could relate to these stern, clean men with such flawless uniforms. This uneasy feeling made his wife feel uncertain about her son enlisting which promoted her to ask “What will he get out of being a Marine?” The response from the recruiters was “He’ll be a United States Marine, ma’am!” Frank and his wife may not have understood what this met at this time but all that mattered was their son, John understanding that if he wanted to join the military that he wanted to be in the United States Marine Corps. This is how Frank connects with the audience showing their insecurities about their son joining the Marine Corps.
As the audience reads more into Frank’s stories, we get an idea that he wasn’t supportive of his son joining the United States military in the beginning. Frank immediately explained how ignorant he was regarding the military life due to his childhood and how difficult it was for him to send his other two children off to college. This tone that Frank uses is a pathos form of writing which helps the audience connect with the author. The audience will feel how Frank struggled with this choice that his son was making. By using this format the audience will be able to connect with Frank as he continues to go through a mix emotion of feelings as his son leaves. Frank may have seemed ignorant in the beginning but by the end, we have an author who is very proud and glad that he can look someone in eye who wears a military uniform.
This writer gives hope to those people who are in the same situation as he was. He found a way to connect with the audience so that they could put a human
Cited: Schaeffer, Frank and John, My son the Marine?, Reading Literature and Writing Argument, Fourth Edition, Custom Edition for Oklahoma City Community College, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Published Prentice Hall, 2008, print Amanda, You make some valid points in your journal, though your writing could use some fine tuning. As you proceed, keep the following in mind: · Pay attention to MLA format. For example, titles of short works are not italicized, but placed in quotation marks. · You might review the terminology, as you seem to be confusing some of the terms. For example, you refer to a tone of pathos. These are two separate aspects, though. Tone is the writer 's attitude towards the topic while pathos is a rhetorical appeal to the audience 's emotions. · Your writing is quite wordy. When you revise, see if you can eliminate wordy passages or confusing passages. · Pay close attention to your use of pronouns. Is it clear what each pronoun refers to?