Inquiry 2 – Rhetorical Analysis

Beautiful Bodies

What is the most important factor that successful women should have? The answer will never be the same; it varies on the time period, on woman’s living conditions, on her age and social status. But then ask someone if human’s expectations of feminine beauty has been vigorously shaped by TV, advertisements, and fashion broadcasting. No matter who you ask, men or women, young or old, the answer will always be “yes”. And it won’t be an exaggeration to say that for the last 30 years, social media has been actively convincing people that fitting into the standards of modern beauty will immediately make life glamorous and exciting. At one point of her life, any woman wishes to become more beautiful than she already is, either if that woman is a kindergarten girl who dreams to be as charming as her beloved Disney princess, or a middle – age housewife who wishes to escape into the fun and carefree world of the glossy magazine that she reads while waiting in the grocery store line. So, what is the most important factor that successful women should have? Intelligence, sense of humor, creativeness, kindness. But perhaps, the most frequent answer nowadays would be “beauty”.

Naked, out of shape, breastfeeding women with stretch marks on their bellies can hardly fit into conception of being beautiful. Or, at least, that is how most of the Facebook users think, according to the Huffpost article that posted a controversial picture made by American photographer Jade Beall. The picture, called “Beautiful Bodies” displays a group of naked breastfeeding mothers whose bodies are far from being perfect. According to the article, most people find this image extremely disturbing and ridiculous, meaning that breastfeeding is something that should be done in private and that it is inappropriate for mothers to show their post-birth bodies. Some internet users even viewed this picture as women’s sick attempt to attract male audience. But upon a closer examination, it is obvious that the message Beall has tried to convey through her art is neither vulgarity nor irrational motherhood. No Photoshop, no makeup, or bright clothes; just mothers standing straight and confident. Their fearless stares at the camera lead to the strong and powerful message “Love yourself, don’t hide, make your own standards of beauty.”  In her picture “Beautiful Bodies,” Jade Beall has used several of powerful rhetorical appeals, such as pathos, ethos, and logos to convey the message that every woman should embrace her unique look and should never be embarrassed of her imperfections, because every woman is uniquely beautiful, especially mothers.

Even at the first glance, the controversial picture quickly catches the audience’s attention by appealing to their emotions. Some people get frustrated, some become interested in a deeper meaning, and some are confused by such unusual representation of feminine beauty. However, through the use of pathos appeal, Beall has tried to target other two, no less important emotions which are respect and love. The picture gains audience’s respect through the way models are posing.  Despite the fact that they don’t wear any clothes, women don’t look embarrassed and they don’t hide their faces. Instead, they just stand in their casual positions as if they don’t even care about their body imperfections. It is possible that some of these women were recognized by their neighbors the other day, maybe they were blamed for their action, and perhaps they even gained a bad reputation after this photo was taken. However, through this bold move of posing naked for the famous photographer, these models conveyed a very powerful message: there is no need to hide from who you are. They motivated those girls and women to embrace their appearance and to be proud of who they are even if they don’t fit into the standards of modern beauty. Because of models’ courage and sacrifice to do that, they gained an enormous respect of the audience. Another, no less important emotion that picture targets is love. Newborns babies, calm, friendly looking breastfeeding mothers, and absence of clothes brings the atmosphere of peace and nature. Such ambiance resembles a very popular movement of hippies – people for whom the main factor in life was love and peace, rather than social opinion and aggression. Through the use of pathos, picture does a great job of bringing out audience’s emotions and making them feel connected to the picture.

After the first flush of emotions and a closer examination of the picture, one can notice that in order to emphasize her message that every woman is uniquely beautiful, Beall also effectively uses ethos rhetorical appeal. Ethos, which is conveyed through the overall ambiance of the picture, is known as the credibility the picture holds and to what extend the audience believes in it. Models have no makeup, no clothes, no shoes, some of them are not very young and all of them hold their children. The main purpose of such staging is to vanish the preconceived idea and stereotypes of a social status. Audience doesn’t know these women, it cannot make any assumptions or judgments based on their outfits. The only fact that audience does know is that these women are mothers, who have wrinkles, stretch marks, excessive weight and other kinds of body imperfections. Because the picture is not Photoshopped, it easily persuades the audience to believe in its credibility. Thus, audience can see that these women are not superficial – they are just normal women who you can meet outside in the park, in the restaurant, in the grocery store, or even see in the mirror – yourself. Through such use of ethical appeal, Beall showed that no matter which social class or race women might come from, all of women are normal human beings, and none of them are perfect, but that doesn’t mean that they have to always be embarrassed of their body imperfections. Instead, women should be proud of their looks, just like these women on the picture are proud of their bodies.

Along with ethos and pathos, Beall also uses logos rhetorical appeal. Logos appeal can also be described as logical because it persuades audience by the use of reasoning. Picture appeals to logos through the image of breastfeeding mothers. According to the comments left on the Huffpost article, a lot of internet users stated that breastfeeding has to be forbidden in public places. Ironically, on the contrast of such comments and her image of breastfeeding mothers, Beall has showed that people began forgetting about the simple logic of motherhood. It is logical that milk comes from the mother, but not right from the bottle. It is logical that mothers have stretch marks after childbirth and that their bodies cannot be photoshopped in real life. Constantly surrounded by deceptive advertisements and social media, we began forgetting about what is natural and what is not. People’s conception of logic has shifted and flipped. Otherwise, why would they normally react to the casual magazine cover that displays half naked celebrities while forbidding women such a natural thing like breastfeeding their babies in the parks or restaurants? Or maybe these people think that breastfeeding is more unpleasant than the broadcast of apocalyptic TV series, where actors blow and splash out brains of zombies and ruthlessly kill each other? And while people might have different answers to these question, Beall shows that it is perfectly natural and logical for mothers to breastfeed their babies and to have body changes after the childbirth.

Jade Beall’s picture “Beautiful Bodies” is a breakthrough in the human understanding of beauty. The purpose of this picture, as some people think is not to motivate women to breastfeed naked or to discourage them to be in a good shape. The message that this pictures tries to convey is that every woman is beautiful in her own, unique kind of way. There is no need to define yourself as fat or unattractive just because you don’t look like a model in the magazine. Beall asks women to stay confident, don’t be self-conscious and create their own standards of beauty. The body of ever woman is beautiful, especially the body of mother.

Work Cited

Caroline Bologna “Photographer’s Picture Celebrates ‘Diverse Bodies Feeding Their Babies’ — Despite What The Haters Say.” HuffPost,com. Prents, 12 Feb. 2015. Web. 19 Feb 2015

Progress report on Rhetorical Analysis revisions

Throughout this week I have been actively revising my Rhetorical Analysis Essay.

While revising I noticed  few very important mistakes.

First, I realized that  in my second draft I did a very poor job explaining the particular rhetorical appeal and how it is used. For example, I could say that the author uses very important pathos appeal, but I wouldn’t describe what pathos is and how it is related to the picture itself. Such mistake might leave reader confused about what I am trying to explain.

Also, I noticed (and I still have problem correcting this issue) that the begging of any paragraph is hardly connected to its ends. For example, I start my paragprah describing rhetorical appeal and end paragraph with just describing the picture itself. I think I should always end paragraph by connecting it to the beginning, meaning that in the end I should also mention why particular rhetorical appeal is important.

Besides grammar errors, I also noticed that some of my sentences are too long and wordy. I am still working on this issue, but I think I mostly need to concentrate on description of rhetorical appeal.

Also, in my second draft my essay lacked description og logos rhetorical appeal. I am working on adding it right now.

NADYA

Rhetoric And You_Inquiry 1_REVISION

Why everyone is so weird and how come I be the only smart person in the world?

“It is always so easy to give advice and admonish people around me. I often give advice to friends because I always know what is best for them. But even more often I get surprised when they don’t take my advices seriously. How dare people ignore me when I offer my help, when I seek the easiest solution for their problems, when I spend my own time and energy fixing their lives instead of doing something more interesting. How blind the person must be to not see that my advice is the easiest, the best way to solve the problem. I just don’t understand.”

These are the thoughts that went through my mind when a high school friend of mine, Scarlet, told me that she didn’t want to join the Track and Field team, which we decided to join together in the Spring semester. “Scarlet is so weird. Running is good for the health, you get to spend more time on the fresh air and it’s just fun to run. I don’t understand why someone would refuse to run every day”, I thought.

But giving advice is always much easier than actually following them, especially when you see the situation only from your own perspective. Before I began persuading Scarlet to join the team, I did not even have the slightest clue that I should probably look at the situation from her side and that the advice that I would give might not be the best option available. There are always different perspectives of every situation and every decision, therefore there are always several ways to solve the problem.

But I did not understand the concept of the different perspectives at the moment when I was trying to persuade Scarlet to join the team. Instead, I began thinking of the arguments that would make her change her mind. I noticed that during the practice Scarlet was always the last runner on the team. I knew it was annoying when you always ran behind everyone else, so I supposed that this was the main issue as why she wanted to quit. In my first attempt to change her mind, I decided to apply a sense of ethos by relying on the team’s reputation, its responsibility for all the runners, team bonding, and friendliness of other girls.

– You know, when I first joined the team, I also was the slowest runner. And because I was always so far behind from the whole team, I often got lost, especially when we ran in the forest. But if anyone went missing, the whole team would immediately come back for that lost person. And if you need to tie your shoe, the whole team would stop and wait for you. Furthermore, everyone on the team is very friendly and open, so you will easily make new friends there.

But Scarlet was silent. And I was confused. I did not know why she wouldn’t say anything. I supposed that my argument wasn’t convincing enough, therefore I decided to continue talking. This time in order to persuade her, I used pathos by appealing to Scarlet’s emotions, her sympathies, and love for animals. I said:

– Do you remember when I told you about those huge lake turtles in the forest that we ran by every week? You could finally get to see them if you run with us.

I knew that Scarlet always wanted to see these huge wild turtles that I told her about each time I came back from practice. But she wouldn’t go to the forest alone because she was too afraid to get lost, and we never got the chance to go there together because of our busy academic schedule. It seemed to me like the chance to finally see the turtles will make her want to join the team. But Scarlet remained silent. We continued walking towards dining hall in complete silence.

As we sat down at the dining table and began eating, I noticed that Scarlet barely took any food – just a salad and a plain yogurt, while I had a full plate of chicken nuggets and chocolate muffin ready to be eaten. Her food choice seemed weird to me because as long as I remember, Scarlet always ate much more than me. “She must be on a diet”, I thought. Following my instincts, I decided to apply logos persuasion by relying on some simple and logical facts – the more you run, the more fat you burn, the skinnier you are.

You know, – said I – long-term diet is not healthy. Obviously, physical exercise is healthier, and a much more effective way to lose weight. Besides, a week ago I read in the “Health” magazine that all the toxins leave the body through sweat, which makes the face skin look smooth and clean.

But Scarlet continued eating, and we just ate silently throughout the whole lunch. Finally, she got up, took her backpack and said:

– I need to go to class – and she almost headed towards exit, but she turned to me and said – you know, when I was asked you to join the school choir with me, you refused. You had your reasons for that, even though there is no harm in singing. – and she went to class.

“Of course, I had a reason, several reasons” – I thought as I was sitting alone, finishing my chocolate chip muffin – “I hate singing, and I am too bad at this. I am just not passionate about singing. It is just ridiculous – why would I spend three hours per week doing something that I hate, when I could work on my homework instead? Scarlet is just so weird” – I though once again.

But a moment later, I realized what Scarlet actually meant. I suddenly became so embarrassed of myself for not understanding the very basics of human nature – before giving advice, it is essential to look on the situation from the different perspectives, especially from the perspective of a person who you are giving advice to. I realized that my arguments were not persuading, but rather upsetting, because I pointed out on the issues that probably didn’t even bother Scarlet that much, for example the fact that she is the slowest runner on the team or has an excessive weight. I just wanted her to like what I liked, wanted her to think the same way I thought, wanted her to be like me, and did not accept her decision because it was not the same as mine. It was not her, but me who was blind and “weird”, because I did not want to see anything besides my point of view and did not want her to consider anything, but my advice. That was the moment when I realized that there are always different perspectives of every situation and that one solution can apply to one person, but never to several different people.

Autobiography

Hi everyone.

My name is Nadya, I am a freshman and my current major is business.

I was born and raised in Russia, Moscow. I have two older sisters who are also my very best friends. One of them is married and the other one is also a college student.

At home I have two cats – Vasya and Lis. I adore them. When I grow up I want to have 15 cats living with me. Cats are the best.

In free time I like to play piano. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of free time right now, so I had to put this hobby aside for some period of time. But during the holidays I play all days long. It might sound weird, but both of my cats enjoy listening to the piano sound so they always sit on my lap when I play.

I recently joined Miami Student newspaper. I try to write articles every week, because I enjoy it. So far, I have only written three articles, but I am planing to write one more this week.

I also used to be a part of Equestrian team last semester. But this semester I quit becasue it takes up too much time and I don’t get enough time to study, Anyway, I hope that you and I will have a great time in this englihs class.

Thank you.

Reflection on Inquiry 1

The lesson that I learned from the story that I wrote actually changed my perspective of life. It is not that I have never understood that there exists more than just one perspective, but I actually began to apply this knowledge to the daily life. I remember how annoying I always was in my high school years once I learned English; I was constantly giving advises, consultations, always pushing someone to do something, always thinking that people are weird, even stupid for not doing what I could have done in their situation. But after this particular conversation with my friend Scarlet I understand that I was wrong.

The most difficult in this essay was to prove my thesis that there are always several perspectives of every situation. The problem is that Scarlet didn’t say her point of view about not joining the team, which makes reader think that there actually no perspective, besides my own. But in this essay I wanted to say that even though Scarlet did not say her reasons to quit the team, it doesn’t mean that she didn’t have the reason to do so, therefore she had her own unique perspective on the situation.

Blog decription

Hello everyone!

This is my blog for the ENG 109 class – Composition & Rhetorical Writers.

Here I am going to post my work and writing portfolio so is will every be interest in my writings visit my blog)))))

Have a great day!!!!!