Intention

Beth Macy has two main intentions with her article “‘I Am Going to Die if I Keep Living the Way I Am.’ She Was Right.” The first is simply to raise awareness about the opioid crisis and its human consequences, whereas the second is more specifically related to how the crisis might be solved.

Raising awareness about the crisis

In order to raise awareness about the opioid crisis, Macy uses a combined strategy where she shares both Tess’s personal story and some statistics and wider observations about the crisis as a whole. In this way she tries to give the readers a good impression of the scale of the crisis and a strong image of what its impact on an individual and their family can be.

Macy’s mainly raises awareness by sharing Tess’s story, as the headline refers directly to Tess and the entire article is framed around Tess’s tragic death after years of failed treatment attempts. Macy also makes many direct references to her own personal connection to Tess and her family, which help her to provide a detailed ...