This American Life by Sterry Butcher - Article Example

This American Life by Sterry Butcher In many governments political and social set-up, the citizens usually expect that the government will take care of the quality of their general livelihoods as far as their economic description and security are concerned (Roulier, 2018). Clean environment and a healthy lifestyle for all citizens are subjects of paramount importance that the United States government is keen on ensuring they are planned expertly. Tharefore, the positive anticipations that United States residents have on issues concerning national security are cut short when one thinks of the injustices and killings that are conducted by robbers and gangsters in many United States' towns and cities, in this case, Texas being one of the places. Therefore, this paper analyses Sterry Butcher's story, "This American Life" published on May 2017 in Texas Monthly magazine. "This American Life" by Sterry Butcher describes the kind of life that United States' immigrants live in Radford, Texas. According to Butcher, the staff surgent's briefings portray the unfriendliness of Radford. Radford has a history of crime incidences with robber and gangster activities being the top crimes (Butcher, 2017). These crime threats pose a lot of danger to immigrants and citizens. For instance, Esequiel Hernández Junior was killed in May 1997 for a crime he had not committed. The police shot the young man immediately he appeared in the scene without considering whether the young man was a criminal or not. Butcher builds the credibility of his story using essential facts and statistics concerning the killing of Esequiel Hernández Junior. The author's ability to appeal the readers' emotions, therefore, is evident in the first paragraph of the story. The author makes an ironical statement in the first statement by referring to Radford as a humble place for a person to die. The first statement made by the author in the first paragraph appeals the reader's emotions concerning the killing of Esequiel Hernández Junior. However, towards the middle of the story, the author's subsequent attempts to appeal to all the readers' feelings considerably weakens when he shifts the whole story and begins to provide a reflection concerning the journey to the Cemetry. The author drove past a doomed park that he calls Chinati. The author captures the attention of the reader by bringing a tense atmosphere especially when he mentions the silence which was evident in his journey through the doomed park. Throughout the story, Butcher uses reliable sources and legal references that are centered at strengthening his appeals to ethos as well as to build his general tale and arguments. The author provides a picture of Radford Cemetery which he gives all the information concerning the location of the grave, the photographer and the day that the Cemetery photo was taken. The author also appeals to the ethos by giving the historical facts of the river found in Radford. The author appeals to the ethos by providing a statistical value 9/10 to describe the way people drifted from one side of the river to another grazing their animals. The author, therefore, refers to these statistical sources and other references such as pictures to boost his credibility and the accuracy of the information he provides in the story. In addition to the author's ethos appeals, the author also uses a real appeal to the logos. The author appeals to the logos through using a logical and factual progression of arguments, and ideas. The author points out clearly why the grave of Esequiel Hernández Junior was kept for all Americans and non-American citizens to pay homage. From the story, the author drives at the need of the government to be careful on issues regarding citizens' security. The author portrays the need for avoiding discrimination of any kind to United States' immigrants. Even if the immigrants are not the indigenous citizens of Texas, they ought to be treated fairly as United States citizens because they have acquired their citizenship through registration. The author appeals to logos by describing the challenges he faced when he went to register his adopted son. These arguments and emotional shifting of the reader, therefore, build a strong appeal to logos and considerably engages a reader in a cognitive reflection on the need for equity to all United States residents. Despite the strong appeals to logos, the author also efficiently appeals to pathos mostly in the middle and the ending parts of the excerpt. The author's middle section is full of emotional descriptions and expressions. The authors set the emotional pace in the middle section by describing the writer's motivation to seeking a new registration offer after realizing the government could take the life of Huck, his adopted son. The writer builds a more emotional atmosphere when he relates the innocent government killings of Huck to that of Esequiel Hernández Junior. In particular, the author expresses his deep sorrow and regrets in paying $550,000 to register Huck who is unfortunately killed the same away as Esequiel Hernández Junior. The authors' goal in appealing to the pathos is to make the reader feel the injustices that the government did his son and Esequiel Hernández Junior. Though the author starts his work effectively by actively engaging the reader in a provocative imagination and an emotional tone, the tone, however, the tone changes at the end of the story. The reader may quickly lose the emotional consistency at the end of the story and may easily fail to understand the emotional message that the author tried to portray in the story, the general conclusion and mixed feelings of happiness and sadness may make the reader forget the primary purpose of the story. Thus, the author could have been specific and more precise on the issue of feelings. The author ought to have used a sad tone throughout the story and not to mix with happy feelings. References Butcher S. (2017). This American life. Retrieved from https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-edge/dispatch-from-redford-this-american-life/ Roulier, S. M. (2018). American Democracy and Its Spaces: An Introduction. In Shaping American Democracy (pp. 1-24). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Read More