Peculiar Benefits After reading both the articles, I selected to write rhetorical analysis on peculiar benefits by Roxane Gay as the title was interesting. The author talks about the certain privileges given to a certain group of people in the society who would not use them properly. The author tries to motivate individuals by saying that they should use their privileges rather than trying to make accusation of those privileges given to others.
However, the author also says that there are advantages and disadvantages of privileges. The author uses ethos to convey about the privileges and she gives the supporting examples to support her arguments. She argues about people acknowledgement of privilege. The author begins her essay by her personal story which is about a trip to Haiti, her father’s land. She noticed the differences between the people’s poverty and her easy life in the united states which makes her feel acknowledgment of her privilege.
She grew up in a strict but a loving family. Roxane Gay has a good educational career. Her masters and doctoral degrees were funded and her monthly bills were paid on time, which happens in very few families. She is a professor and is known as a writer feminists and racism. The essay of peculiar benefits is interesting to read because of the authors choice of words.
I discover this article powerful because it has a great deal of strong reasons. For each argument she states, she tends to back it up with adequate supporting examples. The author talks about the backdrop in her father land. She talks about the slums, shiny and sweat men and women would mob their car, piled up trash in the streets. She gives out a contrast between the United States and Haiti, between rich and poverty.
From this example we can say that her life is bright as she was bought up in happy family. She has a good education and a good job but still she thinks it is embarrassing and difficult to accept those privileges. This is like a pain in her life as she doesn’t like to express her peculiar rights or benefits. For example, when the author talks about privilege at the beginning it was kind of difficult for the readers to understand but later she gave the examples like racial, gender, economic and educational privileges which makes the reader understand more precisely.
These are the real-life examples in which most of the people have a better idea. She argues about “privilege is relative and contextual”. She says that privilege is just a matter of perception that can benefit some people and she mentions that few people in the United States have no privilege at all. She makes a new argument that “wont shield you from racial epithets”. To prove this, she took an example of president Barack Obama as he has a lot of privilege, president of United States, rich successful and powerful.
She took Barack Obama as an example because few people don’t respect him due to his skin color which is racism. From this example readers can gather that privilege can’t protect from racism or stereotype. She mentions about the word “battle” like comparing herself with a wealthy white man in a battle of privilege and she gives out similar examples like privilege battle between working class white man and a wealthy white woman. These examples are listed in a classic way that the author tries to put them in a rhetoric questions for which we can’t find a winner.
The author is trying to say that it’s pointless to compare different and mixed kids of privileges. Finally, she tries to make the reader get a better idea about the privileges and the matters related to it. Finally, when the author speaks about her personal story which was a trip to Haiti with her family was descriptive as it makes the readers imagine that picture of the poverty in their mind about the rough life of the people in Haiti. It seems like a sad story as it mixes the readers emotions and makes them to continue the reading. This is like a contrast between the developed and undeveloped counties and a contrast from rich and poor.
She takes her own life as an example before moving to a favored individual tend to be accused and make some random excuses. The aim of author in this essay is to make the reader imagine themselves in those scenarios. She gives examples of pathos which is her own personal story which is kind of emotional for the reader. She also gives examples under ethos and pathos like comparing the mixed privileges. She grew in a middle-class family and then and upper middle-class family. The tone of author is serious and the readers feel sad about the essay.
