TOW #6- After Shootings, Varying Shades of Recovery at Charleston Church by Richard Fausset

        

(A picture from the original article taken from the back of the Charleston Church, where 12 members where killed by a gunman in June)  

            It has been four months since the Charleston Massacre has occurred where 12 victims from the Emanuel A.M.E. Church were killed by a gunman. This article’s purpose was to focus on the recovery of the church and the people with in and this purpose is achieved well. According to the article it was a slow recovery for the church. As people entered for the first time they were confronted with the memories of what happened. In the walls there were bullet holes and some of the church had to be redone. Despite all of this the church still manages to go on. With support from the entire country the church was donated two million dollars and as the author, Richard Fausset, a national corresponant, for the New York Times puts it, the church still preached words of hope.

            The most powerful part of this article was the change in tone that happened throughout the article. In the beginning the article has a depressing tone. When describing the background of the massacre, the author says, “Four months after one of the worst racially motivated massacres in recent American history, the members of this historic African-American church are laboring to return to the everyday rhythms of worship. But they also know that things will never be the same” (Fausset 1). This line uses diction like “massacre” to get a sad and depressing tone. This tone continues then throughout the beginning of the article to appeal to the emotions of the audience, the American people. Then towards the end of the article this tone switches into something hopeful. Come the end of the article the author says, “It is a perspective, he said, that makes it possible, in the hardest times, to carry on” (Fausset 1). This quote is meant to leave the audience with this feeling of hope when they finish the article. With the combination of the depressing tone in the beginning to the hopeful tone at the end, the author is able to express a lot of emotions through this article in order to show the recovery of the Charleston Church after such a horrendous massacre.  

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/us/after-shootings-varying-shades-of-recovery-at-charleston-church.html?ref=us