TOW #20- Unbroken part 1

          This will be my fist attempt at the argument TOW’s for my IRB. So lets see how it goes. I will be answering the question, “Do you agree, disagree, or qualify they authors main argument.

            For my IRB I have read about half of the book Unbroken. One of the main arguments, at least what I think is an argument is the ideas that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This book follows the life of Louie Zamperini and his life’s accomplishments. One of the first things the author shows you is that Louie has a rough childhood. “Bullies, drawn by his oddity and hoping to goad him into uttering Italian curses, pelted him with rocks, taunted him, punched him, and kicked him” (1). He was bullied as a child and grew up hated. Obviously this was something that motivated him. It was then the reason that he went out for track. Then from there he worked through the pain to training to get good and set records. And then eventually go to the Olympics. It was the pain that he always worked through. Pain was his motivation. And I think that is what the author is trying to say. 

            I agree with this idea. I think that working through struggles makes people come out stronger than ever before. One of the examples that I can think of that I am currently learning about is a man named John D. Rockefeller. He by no means lived an easy life as a child. According to an article by thestreet.com, Rockefeller was2 “One of six children, he was raised almost single-handedly by his devout Baptist mother while his father, a traveling salesman of questionable character, was on the road. It would later be learned that his father had a secret second wife” (Mont 1). Yet he worked hard earning himself money and savings to which he was able to invest in a part of his brothers oil company. Through his skills and hard work ethics that he acquired as a child he was able to grow his company to one of the largest in the world becoming one of the richest men on earth at the time. It was the American dream and that is what the author of Unbroken is expressing through his book.

TOW #19- "Attitude" by Margaret Atwood

       

       This week I read “Attitude” which is a speech written by Margaret Atwood. Atwood is a Canadian novelist and is one of the most honored authors of fiction. This speech was written to an audience of college graduates where she gave her insight on life. Her purpose in the speech was to explain, using humor, that the student aren’t prepared for life, but it’s all about the attitude they express which will either make life great or terrible. She goes into saying, “I’m here to tell you that it’s an armpit out there. As for your university degree, there are definitely going to be days when you will feel that you’ve been given a refrigerator and sent to the middle of a jungle, where there are no three-pronged grounded plugholes” (Atwood 1). In this quote there is a lot of humor and an analogy. Quotes like these were found throughout the speech and it truly made it enjoyable. For this reason it was very effective and got her purpose across. 

         Another example of this wonderful humor can be seen when she says, “a liberal arts education doesn’t exactly prepare you for life. A preparation-for-life curriculum would not consist of courses on Victorian Thought and French Romanticism, but of things like How to Cope With Marital Breakdown, Getting More for your Footwear Dollar, Dealing With Stress” (Atwood 1). In this quote she effectively uses humor to add to the pathos of her speech. As a bonus she also expresses some credibility. She knows the courses are “Victorian Thought and French Romanticism” because she went through the same things as these graduates. So when she explains it, the addition of that information makes her speech all the more effective.

         I’m not sure if this is a rhetorical device but Atwood talked about how she was writing this speech a lot. She talked about her thought process and why she talked about what she did. This is probably a strategy of some kind and I thought it was very interesting and useful. 

         I recommend this speech to anyone who is looking for a good TOW.