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Analysis of nickel and dimed essay

Analysis on “ Serving in Florida” In the essay, “ Serving in Florida,” by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author shares her experiences of how it is for an unskilled person to live on minimum wage in Florida. She wanted to see if she could maintain a lifestyle working low wage paying jobs the way millions of women were. By the authors use of ethos, pathos and logos, one can feel and understand the stress that many of these Americans have. There are three types of persuasion; ethos: the credibility that the author establishes, pathos: the persuasion of audiences by using emotions, and logos: systems of reasoning. By putting all these persuasive techniques together, the author was able to create an essay in which the people from the same background could identify with. Ethos refers to the trustworthiness of the writer.

In this essay, the author tries to establish her trust with the readers by stating since the beginning of the essay that she was not poor herself. “ My own situation, when I sit down to assess it after two weeks of work, would not be much better if this were my actual life. ” (p. 246).

It is as if her mission was to see whether the lower-class life was worthwhile. Instead of me feeling good that she was trying to portray what an unskilled laborer has to go through, I felt like she was making fun of them. She was trying to demonstrate that “ she” was not one of “ them. ” Ehrenreich makes the assumption that this personal experience is a valid way of estimating what a low-wage lifestyle is like. It could have Torres 2 been better if she presented herself as a scholar who was writing a book and conducted interviews, instead of writing it as a story. Like the quote says, “ The best way to find out what a certain life would be like is to walk in the shoes of one who lives it.

(Anonymous) Even if she did try to place herself in the position of the working poor, she is never going to feel the same way that they will. They did not start their life with a car that they could rely on; they did not have a large amount of money to put as a deposit for a room. The fact that Ehrenreich used her car from the beginning, gave her a great advantage over the poor. It’s possible for a cheat to put on false ethos and create an impression of trustworthiness he shouldn’t have. Pathos is an appeal to an audience’s sense of identity, their self-interest, and their emotions.

’ In this essay, I believe that the intended audience is the working poor and those who can do something to help them. Ehrenreich shows many emotions throughout this essay; sadness, tiredness, stress, and unhappiness towards the workers. But it is possible for a liar to misuse pathos to play on an audience’s heartstrings. Ehrenreich identifies several problems low-wage restaurant workers face, including inadequate housing and health care.

It is not hard to get my coworkers talking about their living situations, because housing, in almost every case, is the principle source of disruption in their lives. If you have no money for health insurance-and the Hearthside’s niggardly plan kicks in only after three months- you go without routine care or prescription drugs and end up paying the price. ” (p. 247). By reading these lines, ones emotions start to come out as well.

One feels furious at the fact that the government has a lot to do with this problem and do not fix it. What inadequate health care the working poor receive is paid for by the government; they are the ones that who set and enforce the minimum wage. We are never going to close the income gaps between the rich and working poor this way. Torres 3 Logos is the most important of the three persuasive appeals, in many ways, because it is the most honest.

This is where all the evidence, data and statistics go. Works Cited Ehrenreich, Barbara. “ Serving in Florida. ” The Arlington Reader. Bedford/ St.

Martin’s, 2008. Rhetoric. 8 October 2008. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. , 28 October 2008.

http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Rhetoric.

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