Rhetorical Analysis Essay On The Spectator

In the passage from The Spectator, written by Joseph Addison, the life of a wealthy British man is satirically documented in a journal. Addison recounts the activities of six full days with the style of a personal journal. The journal entries mock the British upper class, this mockery ranges from the lackadaisical lifestyle to the repetitiveness of everyday. Addison created an entertaining work of satire through the use of repetition, detail, and tone.

Throughout the passage Addison uses repetition to express the similarity of every day to a wealthy British person. The structure of the entire passage is similar, the fictional author of the journal writes down the time of day something occurred and a brief recap. While the structure is repetitive the more glaring use of repetition is the events themselves. A good example is the characters afternoon nap, every single day except for thursday the character took a nap. One day it will say, “From three to four.- Took my afternoon’s nap.” and then another day will say, “Three.- Nap as usual.” Addison is critiquing how lazy and absent of meaning their lives are through the boring repetition of his day and the overall lack of change
He mentions unimportant things such as, “Nine o’clock.- Washed hands and face, shaved, put on my double-soled shoes.” He mentions things of this nature as if they are important events that require detail. These basic, daily occurrences are given detail to show that the life of the wealthy is so absent of activity that a simple activity like shaving should be documented. The fictional character is so detached from society that he believes that him washing his face and shaving are events that should be noted and have some importance. The use of detail shows the lack of importance of the everyday activities and the repetition of those same activities in the lives of the British