Barbara Lazear Ascher's On Compassion

Author, Barbara Lazear Ascher, in her essay, On Compassion, draws attention to the homeless in New York and how they are affecting others. Ascher’s purpose is to invoke empathy among her readers. Using rhetorical questions, imagery, and compares the homeless of today to, Ascher inspires her readers to think about the poor situation the homeless are left with.She adopts a reflective and thoughtful tone in order to cause readers to wonder if people should be more compassionate towards the homeless. Ascher opens her essay with an anecdote recounting an incident between a homeless man and a mother with her child. She uses imagery to create a definite separation between the homeless man and others on the street. As the man approaches the mother
She states that compassion “must be learned, and is learned by having adversity at our windows, coming through the gates of our yards, the walls of our towns” (12). This makes the readers sort of start to make connections with what was brought up throughout the essay to the main reason it was written in the first place. Ascher continues to compare the dramas put on in Ancient Greece. The Greek “drama taught and reinforced compassion within society”(13). The author draws this comparison in order to create a connection with a well known staple of the past. Readers are able to take this and make the connection with the past and the present. They are able to see the situation in a reflective light. Though,it is clear to see that when Ascher concludes the essay with ,“of course, there's a difference. This play doesn't end-and the players can’t go home,”(13) that she is obviously pushing the readers to sympathize for the homeless and have a gentler disposition towards them. The readers may take this last sentence to really push them over the edge. It sort of has a shock factor to really add finality and opinion to a mostly objective