Sample - Essay Example

Harris Kamran English Literature 14 December 2007 Rhetorical Modes In his book Healing Together: How to Bring Peace into Your Life and the World, Lee Jampolsky deals with the subject of personal problems, sufferings and crisis, how they affect our lives and what is the best way to deal with them in order to gain the most benefits from the troubling situations. There are many rhetorical modes, and each mode has certain reasons to be used in a composition, and hence, produces a certain affect due to which the writer chooses to use that particular mode. It is also common for writers to use a variety of modes, instead of just one, to have different effects at different instances in the book, depending upon the situation, the points under discussion, and the desired effect that the writer wishes to instill in his readers.
The excerpt under discussion is the first chapter of Jampolsky's book, titled The Key to Maintaining Peace of Mind. In this chapter, whereas he does use the cause/effect mode to a certain degree, in that he proposes certain actions that need be taken in critical situations and then gives the effects of those actions on the situation, the main rhetorical mode that forms the backbone of the chapter is what is called the problem posing/solving mode, or the problem/solution mode.
Jampolsky starts by posing a problem; the multitude of suffering and traumas that rid the world from day to day basis, both on the personal and the global level. He goes on to elaborate on the issue, citing examples from his own life and from the lives of the people around him. This induces in the reader a sense of deep connection with his writing and the issues he is addressing, and the reader forms a connection with it. He feels the pain that the writer is describing, and is inclined to ask himself the question that the writer wants him to ask; what is the solution to this problem He tends to read on in search of it, and then Jampolsky puts forward the solution; different ways in which personal tragedies and sufferings could be handled in order to bring peace of mind to ourselves and to others, and the long-term effects this approach has on our personal and social development.
This rhetorical mode works because it is the most suited to the given issues, and to the effects that need be developed in the readers. When the writer puts forth a problem, and develops on it so that it seeps into the reader's minds, it is but a natural progression that the reader would be interested and even eager to know the solution to the problem under discussion. The reader subconsciously tends to start thinking about the possible solutions himself, and then when the writer suggests the solutions, it naturally creates and effect of a successful discussion and composition on the part of the writer, and a satisfactory reading on the part of the reader. Jampolsky in this abstract achieves this goal by successfully using the rhetorical mode of problem/solution which is perfectly suited to the issues that he is dealing with in his book.
References
Jampolsky, Lee. Healing Together: How to Bring Peace into Your Life and the World. Read More