Richard Louv Rhetorical Essay

Amanda Marroquin
Mr. Gonzales
English III AP/DE – 1A
13 January 2015
What happened to Nature?

The development of technology has caused the separation between humans and nature. Although, nature has been the primary source of living since the beginning of time many seem to have forgotten that nature has always been there to provide the necessities of living such as, oxygen, food, water, and medicine that helps people survive from medical complications utilizing natural supplements to create the medication needed. Technology has been evolving quickly and mostly everyone has adapted to it and is apart of their natural environment and utilizes it in anyway daily. In Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv utilizes rhetorical questions, anecdote, and repetition to convey his message about the separation between humans and nature.
In the passage he utilizes rhetorical questions and asks two in particular to really get the audience thinking. "Why do so many Americans say they want their children to watch less TV, yet continue to expand the opportunities for them to watch it? More important, why do so many people no longer consider the physical world worth watching?" Louv asks these questions to implement into the passage because they force the audience to critically consider about what they are actually reading and at the same time he is leaning to his point of view which is trying to get people to understand the situation that they do not try hard enough to succeed limiting their children’s technology usage.
He began his argument with an anecdote and relates a story about a friend of his who decides to buy a new luxury car. However, this friend knew where to “draw the line,” which meant she did not want a “backseat television” added for her children in the car. Also, utilizing a hyperbole to illustrate how the “salesman’s jaw dropped” to create a dramatic feel about how shocked the salesman was. Further description in the anecdote leads the reader to feel the same annoyance that the lady must have felt when the salesman would not let her leave without the technological luxury. But, this annoyance also reveals how the salesman has a dependence on technology, which Louv relates to the rest of society. Louv acknowledges the common dependence on technology and his disapproval of it.
At the end of the essay, he talks again about what his generation did while moving their thumbs during long car trips. He recites "We..." and elaborates on the less important things that held their eager attentions. The repetition is very effective because it is a story of the past and it is able to make the reader consider what they do during road trips. It also makes the reader realize that watching television during road trips is a waste of time.

Technology can be a good thing because it assists people in their every day lie but can also be a bad thing because it makes us forget to truly appreciate nature and our landscape surroundings. Throughout, the book Louv utilizes rhetorical devices such as, rhetorical questions, which he utilizes towards the end of the passage, anecdote to show an example that includes the situation, and repetition it emphasize what “we” used to do during road trips, to convey his message about the separation of nature. What really did happen to nature? Why do we not appreciate it anymore?