Thank You for Smoking
John Bushman Bushman 1
3/19/2013 English 103 Mr. Anderson
Thank You For Smoking: Rhetorical Analysis
The book/article Thank You For Not Smoking is a 1994 satirical novel written by Christopher Buckley, and written as an e-article by Peter Brimelow. It was also made into a dark comedy film in 2005, written and directed by Jason Reitman and starring Aaron Eckhart, In the article, the story follows a tobacco industry lobbyist named Nick Naylor. Like most lobbyist, Naylor is a cunning, level headed support of the tobacco industry, with many arguments he provides throughout the article on why smoking is good. His claims are not always so simple and straight forward, but instead he uses many different tactics to convince people to agree with him and take his side. There are many good examples of rhetoric in the article, one of them being his argument against the skull crossbones death symbol on every pack, a symbol that causes each pack to not only have a warning label, but a potentially scary visual image to go along with it. This is done in front of a Congressional committee and an audience which includes his young son, during a hearing in Vermont. He defends a highly debatable idea with arguable evidence and support, whether it affects him positively or not. Pretty much all of the main points of rhetoric are in Naylor’s arguments. His argument has a relatively decent ethos, logos, and pathos.
Naylor claims that there shouldn’t be warnings on products people already know is dangerous. More specifically, he thinks that cigarettes shouldn’t have a warning label. It would appear is warrant is that people should do what they want to do. If they decide
Bushman 2 to use something they know is dangerous, that is their personal choice. But, this is
3/19/2013 English 103 Mr. Anderson
Thank You For Smoking: Rhetorical Analysis
The book/article Thank You For Not Smoking is a 1994 satirical novel written by Christopher Buckley, and written as an e-article by Peter Brimelow. It was also made into a dark comedy film in 2005, written and directed by Jason Reitman and starring Aaron Eckhart, In the article, the story follows a tobacco industry lobbyist named Nick Naylor. Like most lobbyist, Naylor is a cunning, level headed support of the tobacco industry, with many arguments he provides throughout the article on why smoking is good. His claims are not always so simple and straight forward, but instead he uses many different tactics to convince people to agree with him and take his side. There are many good examples of rhetoric in the article, one of them being his argument against the skull crossbones death symbol on every pack, a symbol that causes each pack to not only have a warning label, but a potentially scary visual image to go along with it. This is done in front of a Congressional committee and an audience which includes his young son, during a hearing in Vermont. He defends a highly debatable idea with arguable evidence and support, whether it affects him positively or not. Pretty much all of the main points of rhetoric are in Naylor’s arguments. His argument has a relatively decent ethos, logos, and pathos.
Naylor claims that there shouldn’t be warnings on products people already know is dangerous. More specifically, he thinks that cigarettes shouldn’t have a warning label. It would appear is warrant is that people should do what they want to do. If they decide
Bushman 2 to use something they know is dangerous, that is their personal choice. But, this is