REHUGO-Reading

Charlene Asuncion

Mr. Soeth

English 3 AP

January 26, 2011

REHUGO Analysis: Reading–Essay

A. Article: “In Search of the Good Family”– Author: Jane Howard

B. In the essay, “In Search of the Good Family,” Jane Howard claims that family is essential to humans and their well-beings. Regardless of whether or not people are biologically related, Howard defines family as the “clans or tribes,” or the people that surround you; they are the people you need and encounter each day, which may include peers, acquaintances, and even people in your community. In addition, Howard presents and explores the characteristics that make conventional families and new kinds of families meaningful communities.

C. Evidence

a. Howard uses pathos by addressing his audience in a call to action, “If blood and roots don’t do the job, then we must look to water and branches, and sort ourselves into new constellations, new families.” In this, Howard emotionally ties her audience to her work by redefining family as friends. Also, Howard utilizes logos in referring to “new families” as terminology of the Bangwa tribe of the Cameroons, which “may consist of either friends of the road, ascribed by chance, or friends of the heart, achieved by choice.” Through this use of definition and logos, Howard reflects back to her claim that family extends beyond those genetically related to you.

b. Howard also establishes her ethos by referring to the intellectual fictional work of Kurt Vonnegut, known as Slapstick, “’…human beings need all the relatives they can get–as possible donors or receivers not of love but of common decency.” In the novel, Vonnegut considers extended family as “’one of the four greatest inventions of all time.’” This reference to Vonnegut’s novel supports Howard’s argument that family is essential to people and reveals how significantly family has impacted the life of Vonnegut, as a writer of individual and social scale.

D. Rhetorical Strategies

a. Allusion: Howard alludes to Aristotle’s philosophy on friendship in order to express the slow-paced development of a true friendship. Through this allusion, Howard metaphorically expresses to the reader that in order to be friends with another, one must take the time and true effort to get to know someone, “An ancient proverb he [Aristotle] quotes…you cannot know a man until you and he together have eaten a peck of salt.” This passage conveys that you do not truly know someone, unless you have spent a great amount of time getting to know him or her. Furthermore, Howard alludes to the Apollo spacecraft and the Houston Mission Control to exemplify how a family needs a person who is aware of the whereabouts of everyone else in the family. Howard states, “Good families have a switchboard operator– someone who can keep track of what all others are up to… who plays Houston Mission Control to everyone else’s Apollo.” Just as the people of Houston Mission Control does its job to watch and ensure the safety of the Apollo astronauts, a person in the family, like a mother, for example, watches over and takes care of her husband and children. Through these allusions, the audience is able to better connect the characteristics of family and friendship with tangible, real-life concepts to give a clearer understanding of Howard’s work.

b. Rhetorical Questions: On numerous accounts throughout the essay, Howard utilizes rhetorical questions such as, “What can such times teach us about forming new and more lasting tribes in the future?” and “What are we who lack children to do? Build houses? Plant trees? Write books or symphonies or laws?” These rhetorical questions are built up from facts and evidence presented before the questions in order to provoke thought in the audience or reader. For example, the passage, “Whatever ‘support systems’ may be, the need for them is clearly urgent, and not just in this country. Are there not thriving ‘mega-families’ of as many as three hundred people in Scandinavia?... Should we not applaud and maybe imitate such ingenuity?” presents evidence in the questions that support the idea in the previous sentence. The questions, in this case, include evidence and reflect back on the ideas presented that lead up to them. The effect of rhetorical questions is to engage the reader to the work by getting them to ponder the information provided.

MLA Citation

Howard, Jane. "In Search of the Good Family." 2008. The Language of Composition. Boston: Bedford, 2008. 283-88. Print.