Rhetoric is found everywhere, whether it be on a billboard, in a literary text, or even on a grocery store advertisement. It’s used every day in the form of speech: in arguments, in conversations with a friend, in stories told around a campfire, in texting or TV commercials, in an appeal to a parent for the use of the family car. Rhetoric is what convinces an audience to agree with the speaker or writer.
It is vital in establishing credibility as well. Rhetoric helps a reader understand where the writer wants to go with their opinion and how to get to that point of understanding. Along with that, rhetoric is used to describe a point of view and offer solutions in how to solve the issue.
So What?
In Picturing the Crisis, an online commentary from the New York Times, the writer Paul Reyes establishes rhetoric through the emotions, or pathos, and also with ethos by posting stirring photos, recalling significant memories from United States history, and providing interesting commentary that shows the reader how foreclosures are an increasing problem in American society and need to be addressed.
The Effect of Images
In Picturing the Crisis, pictures and visuals are really what set the tone and bring the meaning to life. The very first thing that is brought to the reader’s attention when first opening the article is a picture of a kitchen. At first glance, it’s just a kitchen. There is no significance or meaning. Reyes generally asks, “…would the images resonate the same way without knowing beforehand that you were looking at a foreclosed home? Probably not."
However, the first lines states, “One of the ways we remember an economic crisis is through images." Immediately, the reader stops and re-evaluates the image. What’s the significance with the photo now? They notice that the kitchen is empty. There are no furnishings, no food, no people, and no color. The cupboards are open, the refrigerator is out of place, and the floor is filthy. Only then does the reader begin to realize what’s going on. Things start to connect in a way that wasn’t as apparent before. Reyes is definitely using ethos through the use of visuals and the descriptions connected to them. He knows that they will catch some attention.
Throughout the rest of the document, there are links posted (underlined and highlighted in blue). Not only do those attract attention all by themselves, but when clicked on, they come up with more images that support the author’s theme. These include Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange, Now Let us Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans, Fort Myers and Detroit by Bruce Gilden, and Anthony Suau’s Cleveland. Now, even more artists from different genres are covering foreclosures in America and bringing them to the surface in order to help citizens understand the effects. He’s taken recent artists and pinpointed their work in one common place.
It’s the connection between these pieces that creates such an overwhelming feeling of seriousness. It’s not just one person’s focus. Many people are beginning to make this the focus of their work. They see it as a serious problem as well and want to make it more known to the general public. “And while it remains to be seen if it achieves the social and artistic impact of the Depression-era work, foreclosure photography has already helped define an era that will mark American society for decades to come." By including these images in his writing and bringing them all together in one place, Reyes applies to the visual senses of the reader which in turn makes things more realistic and understandable.
Emotional Appeals
Not only does Capturing the Crisis use images to capture attention, but it adds compelling emotional appeals as well. Great events are mentioned throughout the writing: The Great Depression, Wall Street problems, Dow plunges, the oil crisis of the 1970’s, (and more recently) the Great Recession, September 11th, and Hurricane Katrina. Each name has a powerful significance, but none have a positive connotation associated with them. They were each a time of hurt and depression in our history. Many homes were lost and lives affected.
Depression and Foreclosure: a Growing Epidemic
People died as a result of all of these tragedies. During the Great Depression, people lost their jobs so they weren’t able to afford proper food, clothing, housing, or schooling. The Depression, along with the Wall Street problems and the plunge of the Dow, led to, essentially, depression!
Many people couldn’t handle the situations they had been thrust into and found suicide a welcome alternative to the pain they felt in their situations. This had a great impact on big and small communities alike. As the more recent crises have occurred, many families have found themselves in the center of economic downturn once again. This essentially leads to a foreclosure on their homes. The past seems to repeat itself, and this is no exception. As an impact of depression, foreclosure is a major issue facing our nation right now. New stories are posted in the news daily, and even more go unnoticed. Foreclosure can mean different things to different people, however. For some, it is just a bad word—something to avoid at all costs. For others, it’s a house being abandoned, belongings being repossessed, cardboard boxes, constant worry and tears.
Depression and foreclosure are still major problems here in the United States. Reyes sees this is as a key recurring issue in our society, and he wants to bring some light on the situation in order to inform readers of the recurring harmful trend. He wants this trend to stop and for people to find hope! For this reason, he’s brought all these elements together and given foreclosures a new outlook.
Digging a Bit Deeper
In the mixture of all the rhetoric through pictures and events, Reyes uses interesting and compelling commentary to add the final touches to his argument. For example, he includes comments like this:
“But in viewing foreclosure interiors, a curious thing happens: the voyeuristic awkwardness passes, and one begins to piece together the missing characters. We already know the circumstances, generally; but why was a wallet-sized snapshot of children left behind? What left the holes in the wall? Through these questions that flit behind the scanning eye, the portraits become a kind of forensic study."
The reader is here left to think for him or herself. This is the take-home message, or the point where the reader really has to start forming an opinion of the issue. It's the point at which the issue becomes more real and compelling, and one asks, "What can be done to help this situation?" The author applied this technique by simply asking a question that digs a bit deeper than the surface.
The Take-Home Message
A viewer is able to connect to a piece of writing through elements of ethos, all of which were presented in Paul Reyes’ Picturing the Crisis. He sums up the point of his rhetoric with this final message: “In a single image it’s difficult to illustrate the size and enormity of the problem [of foreclosures]. But they all come from the same idea, and the result is the same in the end.”
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