rhetorical analysis essay 73

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to persuade your audience of your evaluation of the rhetorical effectiveness of your selected article. In order to do this you will have to carefully read the text, and then analyze its rhetorical effectiveness from the perspective of the intended audience. You will establish an argument (thesis) that speaks to the writer’s effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) in the use of rhetorical appeals (logos, ethos, pathos, etc.) and other rhetorical strategies that persuade (or fail to persuade) a reader in favor of the writer’s argument.

Audience

Your audience for this assignment is a peer reader who may disagree with your thesis. This means that you are writing for a general college reader who may not have read the text you’re analyzing. You also need to assess the audience of the original article. Who was the writer trying to reach with this text? This is extremely important because effectiveness is dependent on the intended audience, NOT on what you think about the article.

Description

You are to write a thesis-driven analysis of an article that addresses the rhetorical effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of that text, the rhetorical appeals (logos, ethos, and pathos, etc.) used by the writer, and any additional rhetorical strategies that the writer employs to attempt to persuade the reader. Your analysis should include a concise summary of the original text and an analysis that supports your thesis and addresses the rhetorical context (audience and purpose) of the original text. Your final essay should be between 600 and 800 words in length, double-spaced, and in Times New Roman 12 font (or Arial 10 font.)

Real Talk: Self-Love Doesn’t Mean Loving Everything About Yourself

byrdie.com/self-love-eczema-essay
written by Kate Lindstedt Author’s Instagram • Kate Lindstedt is a writer with more than five years’ experience in

copywriting and branding. Byrdie’s Editorial Guidelines Kate Lindstedt

For most women I know, stepping into a salon to get their toes done isn’t a confidence- shattering experience. Pedicures are supposed to feel good and bring comfort—some soothing “me” time that consists of dipping your feet in hot water, sinking into the comfort of a massage chair, and flipping through trashy magazines.

In my case, the reality is a little different. I fantasize about being the hot girl casually enjoying a spa day, or the fancy career woman getting gel nails and tapping away on her iPhone. Instead, I’m filled with anxiety from the minute I enter the room. I’m the awkward girl avoiding eye contact with my pedicurist, silently pleading Please don’t look too closely at my toes.

During a recent visit to a nail salon in Mexico, the nail technician removed my old polish then proceeded to stare at my bare feet with thinly veiled disgust. She ran to grab her phone and passed it to me. On the screen, there was a Google-translated message: “Sorry, you need to pick a different color because you have a bad fungus.”

I nodded my head, too embarrassed to ask why certain polish colors—ahem, fuchsia— weren’t okay for my toes while others were. I left the salon before my nails had fully dried, with smeared maroon polish in my sandals and a better understanding of why my mom avoids professional pedicures altogether.

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Loneliness

I often wonder whether fixating on my skin is a self-fulfilling prophecy of loneliness. It can be tempting to believe that problems in my love life are as unfixable as my skin and feet—or even a result of them.

When I express these fears to friends, family, or therapists, they tend to opt for clichés. You know, that I need to love myself before anyone else can love me in return. That “we’re all beautiful in our own way” or that “insecurities about flaws are more off-putting than the flaws themselves.” The truth is, those kinds of platitudes rarely offer real comfort, and there are many problems with them.

Regardless of the good intentions, those statements only remind me that my physical flaws are the elephant in the room. No one really knows how to talk about aspects of our appearance that are slightly gross, objectively speaking, so we rarely acknowledge that they are. Our conventional beauty standards are constantly evolving, but the very notion of conventional beauty itself is constant.

Not all parts of my appearance fit into that framework, and I wish we would stop pretending otherwise. In other words, I’d feel better if you just told me my toes are ugly. Because the reality is that not every part of everyone needs to be beautiful, and insisting we’re all goddesses only helps create a world in which flaws aren’t welcome.

Image and Self Love

Earlier this year, I had a conversation with a close friend about image and insecurities that I frequently think of. I had recently been dumped and found myself wondering, once again, if my appearance was to blame.

“Sometimes I worry that I’m not hot enough to ever find love,” I confessed. “I mean, could you be cuter? Yes,” she said. “But you’re plenty cute.”

Her response initially caught me off guard, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt comforted. I think what I found so refreshing about it, apart from the blunt honesty, was her nonchalant tone. I wasn’t a supermodel or the hottest friend in my friend group, and it didn’t need to be a big deal. When my friend spoke openly instead of tiptoeing around, not being conventionally hot suddenly mattered much less.

Beyond that, there’s a fundamental issue in the imperative to love every part of yourself because others won’t love you back until you do. When we repeat those sentiments, the end goal of self-love is to make yourself more desirable to someone else, to win them over. It makes me wonder who exactly I’m loving myself for. Probably some guy on Tinder with serious boundary issues.

In our “Yass queen!” world of #nomakeup selfies and body positivity, where we often pretend we were all cut from the same cosmetic cloth, self-love and unwavering comfort in one’s skin have become new standards to embrace and adhere to. Admitting that you don’t love what you see in the mirror isn’t attractive; it can be a taboo on par with bodily functions. We act as if strong women never feel shame, embarrassment, or anything other than total self-acceptance—perhaps because acknowledging that they do would force us to rethink our one-dimensional Beyoncé-ized conception of strong women.

When we reinforce the idea that self-love must precede another’s love, we’re still playing into societal narratives of insecurities and confidence, not to mention a very simplified conception of what it even means to love yourself. We like to think of self-acceptance as an

ugly duckling–to-swan journey with a tidy conclusion. Friendly reminder: Sometimes loving yourself is something you have to learn. For some of us, that learning process is lifelong work. And that’s okay.

One good thing about having severe eczema and toe fungus—about having hated these parts of myself for so long—is that it’s given me the opportunity to better understand my relationship with what I see in the mirror. So here’s my take: Self-love doesn’t mean loving everything about yourself; it’s accepting yourself despite what you don’t love. It’s loving yourself despite the fact that doing so doesn’t guarantee the love of others. And it’s learning, in your own time and on your own terms, how to live in a body you wouldn’t necessarily choose.