Rhetorical devices

Direct references

The text includes various direct references to media, literature, or events that help David Joy give a context to his arguments or emphasize them.

For example, he cites lines from two poets to describe the way he feels about people living in poverty: “…a line from a Maurice Manning poem (...) The line reads, ‘I loved the helpless people I loved.’ ” (ll. 105-109); “There’s a poem by one of my favorite writers, the Kentucky poet Rebecca Gayle Howell, titled ‘My Mother Told Us Not To Have Children,’...” (ll.52-155).

Joy also mentions his novel and the media that praised it, as a way to gain more authority: “I had a novel come out a few weeks back, The Weight Of This World […]. The Associated Press praised the pacing and prose…” (ll. 128-131).

In another instance, he mentions a BBC report about poverty, which is also the topic of his essay: “The other day I was watching a BBC interview about poverty in Baltimore.” (ll. 166-167).

At another point in the essay, he mentions a friend fighting in Iraq and draws comparisons between him and a famous guitar player: “…holding up an M-249 SAW machine gun like he’s Kerry King playing a B.C. Rich guitar for Slayer.” (ll. 237-240). He also associates the friend’s attitude when he was photographed with prisoners with the TV comedy “The Fonz” (l. 244), which creates dark irony.

The story also mentions the 9/11 terrorist attacks which triggered the War in Iraq: “After 9/11, Paco joined the Marine Corps and served multiple deployments to Iraq.” (ll. 233-235).

Joy also mentions having a critical reviewer on his latest book, to whose criticism the essay replies: “Maybe that’s why what I read in a trade review recently struck me so hard. The reviewer didn’t like my book…” (ll. 254-256).

Finally, he also makes a direct reference to “an article recently from The New Yorker titled, ‘Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich’ ” (ll. 302-304) as a way to introduce his argument that poor people are better at surviving than rich people and to help him mock privileged people.

Antithesis

Antithesis refers to creating opposition between things or ideas, often with the purpose of maintaining the readers’ attention while outlining an idea.

One example from the essay is the opposition between living and...

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