Sweatshop Oppression by Rajeev Ravisankar: Rhetorical Analysis - Essay Example

In the opening paragraph, Ravisankar says that we are all “poor college students” (87). Through these words, Ravisankar conveys the message that despite our formal education, we fail to understand the relation between our tendency of low-cost consumerism and the poor wages the employees get in those sweatshops. In other words, ‘we’ are placed first in the list of culprits by Ravisankar. Thereafter, one can observe the use of pathos by Ravisankar. He says that the employees in sweatshops ‘are forced to work 70-80 hours per week making pennies per hour’.

In addition, there are ‘unsanitary bathrooms, poor ventilation, and extreme heat upward of 90 degrees’ (86). Evidently, this description sufficiently informs the readers about the pathetic situation prevailing in such sweatshops. Thereafter, Ravisankar depends on logos to disprove the claim that the fight against sweatshops has an adverse impact on the poor in developed countries as companies change their locations when there is opposition from labor rights activists and trade unions.

Here, Ravisankar uses the logic that trade unions and labor rights activists are not against the location of the companies but against the inhuman activities prevailing there. He alleges that the companies shift their location because they want to find cheap labor in another location. From the very beginning, one can see the use of ethos. Throughout the essay, he relates sweatshops with the inhuman situations in the said companies. At first, he says ‘we’ are responsible for this inhuman condition as we are crazy about ‘low-cost’ products.

Thereafter, he describes how pathetic is the condition of employees in such sweatshops. After contradicting the claim that the anti-sweatshop campaign adversely affects the poor workers, he asserts that the companies are the ones to be blamed. It is their zest for excessive profit that creates such a situation. Now, as ‘we’- ‘the poor students’- get confused as to what to do, Ravisankar comes up again with what the ‘good students’, the University Students Against Sweatshops do.

He points out that the students have urged the universities to avoid the products of such companies where employee rights are not respected. After the example, Ravisankar says we have to introduce such effective measures to stop the companies from continuing their inhuman practices. Thus, in total, in the essay, Ravisankar depicts the difference in the attitude of both ‘poor students’ and ‘good students’. While the ‘poor students’ are eager to consume low-cost things that are the result of the grave human rights violation, the ‘good students’ have already started their protest against the sweatshops where people are treated like animals.

Here, Ravisankar urges us to follow the good students by using only those products that are made in companies where human rights are respected.