The Box Man Analysis Essay

Box Man Final Draft We come alone in this world and one day we will be alone once again; therefore, we must formulate the choice to achieve things ourselves. That is why in the essay “The Box Man”, Barbara Lazear Ascher writes about the evening customs of diverse people that live alone and by observing these people, reflects on the nature of solitude. She demonstrates that solidity doesn’t necessarily mean being lonely, just alone and explains how lonely and alone are unlike. Ascher uses the rhetorical strategies compare and contrast and imagery and description to demonstrate her views on solidity. To start off, Ascher uses the rhetorical strategy of compare and contrast to reflect on the nature of solitude. She compares the characteristics of the people she studies to additional items to give us a clearer picture of the scenario. Ascher first compares the Box Man to a book she read as a child. She utters that the book, The Boxcar Children, reminisces her of the Box Man because in the book, orphan children learn to live independently and choose wise alternatives to survive alone just like the Box Man lives independently and makes use of what few resources he has. Ascher compares her experience reading a story and why that story reminded her of the Box Man. She employs this comparison to exaggerate the brilliant fortune she tries to portray of the Box Man being alone to prove to us that being alone by choice isn’t strife but that it is something to yearn. Next, the author contrasts the Box Man’s good fortune with that of a woman who eats soup alone every night and that of a woman who subsists alone with cats. Ascher describes the woman that eats soup alone as someone that is discontent because she has nil to live for anymore. The woman doesn’t get any visitors and she shows no signs of having someone special in her life that cares for her and vise versa. Basically Ascher depicts the woman who eats soup as a miserable elderly who is unhappy because she is