Which are you: A Taker or a Leaver?

In most situations there is always a “good guy” and a “bad guy,” where most of the time the participants of the situation are arguing to one another that they are  the better of the two. Having old age rivalries between such forces as God and the devil, the Capulets and the Montagues, progression versus the environment, being unsolved due their strong separate arguments for one another. In being that such rivalries can and may never be solved each side is forced to gain additional “firepower” against one other to potentially draw the war to an end. Setting out to inform, persuade, and even force other members to join their cause to gain strength in numbers. By using rhetorical situations the rhetor or in other words the organization, creates an exigency that calls for the audience to make well informed and educated decision based on their logos and pathos on why they should join a particular side.

There are decisions to be made every day whether it is to eat breakfast or to do one’s homework, we are always making decisions based on what we believe to be better for us. In a matter of speaking we use rhetoric to make these decisions to from a quick cost benefit analysis of a situation. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” was in brief terms, all about this rhetorical analysis we humans conduct even in the smallest of scenarios. Books, advertisements, the media, and all extensions of communication form this rhetorical triangle between reader, purpose, and writer that causes such rhetorical situations to created.

This is no less the case in the novel Ishmael written by Daniel Quinn. Throughout the novel the gorilla which the title derives from named Ishmael talks to an unknown narrator about the driving forces of the environment and the two different types of people. Explaining in brief that a taker is one not only takes from the environment  but takes more than it needs and doesn’t give back. As opposed to a leaver who takes but only what it needs too, but gives more back than what it takes. With this being the main focal point of the novel, having it put into question the existence of humans and our role in the grand scheme of things.

In being that this is what Quinn is trying to project to us as readers, I believe this is why the narrator is never given a name, that way as us the audience and Quinn as the rhetor he can appeal to our emotions more clearly and closely. By doing so he would have implemented the reader by the end of the novel with ideas on how they effect the environment and their world around them. Of course I do not believe Quinn did this on accident he wanted us to think about our place he wanted to present us with this idea in our head.

Most people may created exigency, because they like to state trouble and watch constraints be broken well I believe this is not the case in Quinn’s scenario. I believe what is being done Is to personally better the world around us.

 

Works Cited

Bolin, Laura Carroll. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. 45-58. Writing Spaces. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.

Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael. New York: Bantam/Turner Book, 1995. Print.