Rhetorical situation

Sender

The sender of the article “The Truth About Cocoons” is Sam Anderson. He is a writer for The New York Times Magazine and therefore used to expressing himself in writing.

Throughout the text, Anderson reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic by referring to a caterpillar’s life inside a cocoon. He talks about his own experience reading the children’s book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” when he was young, and also reading it to his children: “Like many children, I read the book so many times that it blended into my psyche as a kind of background color. Years later, I read it again so many times with my own children” (ll. 28-30). 

Anderson uses the story of the caterpillar to discuss his experience of being confined indoors and struggling to cope with the way his life changed because of the pandemic.

Anderson refers to his current life in the context of COVID-19 throughout the article: “...