Originally written for Advanced Language Composition at Santa Monica College, taught by Professor Susan Caggiano
Use of rhetorical devices are as varied as the authors who choose them. Dillard and Orwell are as different as could be in how they used the rhetorical devices, but they used them all with the same purpose of persuading their audience. Orwell’s purpose in “Shooting an Elephant” is to show the audience the horrors of imperialism and how it ruins those who are imperializing: “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys… He wears a mask and his face grows to fit it”. Orwell’s purpose, like his rhetorical strategies, is straightforward and logical. Dillard in “Living like Weasels”, on the other hand, has a far more round about way of reaching her point: “I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you” (VI). She hopes people will learn to let go of civil standards and follow their true passions. With these two authors, we find ourselves convinced of their argument. By the end of each piece, we’re on board and ready to defend their thesis, since we believe what they are saying and how they said it. This, in a persuasive essay, is true success to an author. This end result shows that their goal was to persuade the audience of their ideas, rather than to just inform them of the events that happened in their stories, or rather to simply entertain us. However, they achieve this purpose in near opposite ways.
All the rhetoric devices Orwell uses in “Shooting an Elephant” are easy to understand and logical in the context of his story. Before even looking at the content of his essay, we can see his logical approach to storytelling in how he formatted the paper. When we look at Orwell’s essay, it looks how we expect a short story to look: it’s broken up by paragraphs, it’s several pages in length, there aren’t add ons like footnotes or bullet points, and the title is descriptive.This choice to structure it like a story rather than a persuasive essay made it easier for him to draw readers in, since he didn’t have to start out by convincing them to listen and give him a chance. Orwell is known as a pretty serious writer, and if he had structured his essay to look like an essay, he might not have reached both his typical crowd and the people who were looking for an entertaining story. This same effect happened when he chose to use an Aristotelian narrative and formal language, which gave logical structure and tone to a story piece that could have otherwise been seen as fiction. Each of these specific choices in format played a role in how his audience perceived his essay, before they even started reading it. Once he made them want to read, he had to make another set of choices to make sure they finished the piece and agreed with his thesis.
Within the story of “Shooting an Elephant” Orwell chose various rhetorical strategies to convince his readers of the evil of imperialism. One of the biggest techniques he employs is the use of symbolism in which the elephant he is shooting represents imperialism itself (and its end); in this essay, the animal is a symbol for a concept. Orwell also chooses to sympathize with the other characters in his story, he sees the horrible things that happen under imperialism and knows it’s wrong: “I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors”. This choice to tell the story with extra meaning given to the elephant, and to use pathos while talking about the Burmese, gives the reader a deeper understanding of what imperialism does to a society and also why it needed to end. There is also a lot of logos in the way he tells the story and the insight to his thoughts he provides. Throughout the narrative we hear what he is thinking and worrying about, and everything he thinks about is easy to relate to: he’s unhappy with his job and its conditions, he’s worried about looking like a fool, about the Burmese people laughing at him, he feels uneasy being followed by a crowd… Practically every person who comes across this essay will have felt these same feelings before in their life; because of this connection to him, we feel more inclined to listen to what he’s saying and agree with his opinion.
Dillard’s rhetorical strategies in “Living like Weasels” are a little confusing and revolve around abstract ideas. At first glance, one would think her narrative essay actually a teaching piece or a research paper, since she used roman numerals. This gives her essay the structure that it wouldn’t otherwise have, and serves to draw people who like structure (people who normally wouldn’t be reading a Dillard piece) in. On the flip side, she uses circular storytelling and peculiar dialect throughout her essay, which serves to keep her normal readers interested and not bored by complete structure and typical way of doing things: “I could live two days in the den, curled, leaning on mouse fur, sniffing bird bones, blinking, licking, breathing musk, my hair tangled in the roots of grasses” (V). Also, she chose a somewhat unrealistic story to begin with since generally, it’s far more interesting to read fiction than non-fiction. This over explained, all over the place story, keeps her normal readers’ attention when usually they would have turned away at the sight of the numbered paragraphs. Each choice in structure served a purpose in trying to draw a broad audience in, and Dillard would have to continue to make these choices in the content of her essay.
Within “Living like Weasels”, rhetorical devices are used to convince the audience to let go of some of their civil ways, and live in a more wild manner. Dillard uses symbolism in every paragraph of her essay, and with every mention of the weasel. The weasel she talks about is what she believes we should act like, the weasel is a symbol for a person that we should become, and something we can all work towards: “I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should” (IV). Dillard convinces us to believe her ideas about the weasel by setting the whole story in solitude, unseen by other humans. Had she been in a park when all this happened, with people watching her and judging her, readers might have felt more like those watching the scene of her and the weasel unfold and simply thought she was some crazy woman trying to act like an animal. Her actions are more logical to the “structured” crowd if she’s already in an untame part of the world while she is telling us to be untame. She also keeps the interest of her logic audience by including stories from other people in the piece. However, while she is appealing to her logos audience, she also continues to appeal to her pathos audience when she uses hyperbole, which gives the whole situation a more dramatic and exciting tone: “Our look was as if two lovers, or deadly enemies, met unexpectedly on an overgrown path when each had been thinking of something else” (III). Because there is a balance in normal and abstract methods of storytelling, Dillard is able to keep her audiences’ attention throughout the entire essay, and convince them to live like weasels.
Most of the rhetorical devices Orwell and Dillard chose are the same, but they used the devices in completely different ways. However, there are a few that they used in the same way. Both authors used symbolism, and while one was to represent a concept and one was to represent a goal, they both chose animals that one wouldn’t normally associate with that symbol. When we think of elephants, we often think of machines, wise elders, or Gods, not as the British Empire and imperialism. In the same way, we don’t normally think of weasels as something to strive towards and be like; we think of them as sly, sneaky, and as thieves. The choice to use an unusual animal as the symbol makes both their audiences think more and open their minds to the stories being told. They also chose to use graphic and detailed images to appeal to pathos with their audience, to get a reaction out of them: “till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter” (Dillard VI) “His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony” (Orwell). Finally, in their narration both authors do two things. First, they both use a first person narrative. This is done to make the audience feel more comfortable, and make the audience believe that what the author is saying to be true. With a first person narrative, it sounds like the author is telling us a story over a cup of coffee, rather than years later and in an essay. Second, both authors have two voices within their stories, they both have a character voice and a narrator voice. By doing this, the authors have given the audience a broader understanding of what they were going through. In Dillard’s character voice, we hear her talking about her interaction with the weasel and the scenery around her. In her narrator voice we hear her talking about what she should have done and about other stories she’s heard, now that she is looking back on the interaction. Similarly, in Orwell’s character voice, we read his juvenile fears and thoughts while he is in the moment of shooting the elephant, while in his narrator voice we have a much older Orwell giving us insight on what actually happened, what he should have done, and how it all ended up.
Orwell and Dillard used the same rhetorical devices in their essays. However, to achieve their purpose they had to be extremely aware of how they were going to use them to reach the broadest audience possible and still convince the readers to agree with their point of view. In each essay they have symbol, imagery, first person narrative, dual voices, dialect, pathos, logos, and structure, but, the specific and different choices each author made is what allowed them to both be successful in their respective situation. Had they used every rhetorical device in the exact same way, neither of them would have been as successful in their delivery of their idea.
Works Cited
Dillard, Annie. “Living Like Weasels.” Fifty Great Essays. By Robert J. Diyanni. N.p.: n.p., 2013. 88-92. Print.
Orwell, George. “Shooting an Elephant.” 1936. Print.