Invisible Child
Andrea Elliott is a writer that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. She seeks for the best stories even if they are the most complicated. According to the New York Times article about the author, she became passionate about disclosing poverty and social problems. On 2013 as an extensive report for the New York Times, after her article “Invisible Child” was published, she won the George Polk award among other honors. With this article she prompted city officials’ to remove 400 children from substandard shelters.
As part of her background she faces the problem as there was no middle class in the city of New York, where financial pressure such as unemployment, health care, housing costs, and low wages are becoming more common. Andrea Elliott puts in the spotlight this social problem as a person; she has a name, a family, and a dream, but not a place that she can call home. This “invisible Child,” Dasani, comes out to the world to show people how little grateful they are, I include myself. This 11-year-old girl, seen by the eyes of Elliott, shows that Dasani is strong enough to wake up under the same roof of 22,000 other homeless, the same roof where drugs are toss around like air, where the oxygen is almost not enough, where the piles of unwashed clothes are bigger than her bed, and sexual predator are always puckish. Dasani still goes on, despite the daily struggle, her vast amount of responsibilities, her parental dysfunction, and her fear of being rejected by society. In my analysis I would show how the author makes her readers question about how fortunate they are; she sets forth this article via pathos, to indicate that this “invisible child” is still able to get up every day with zest and yet say “That is a lot on my plate.”
Andrea Elliott shows her version of what New York is without the luxury, kudos, and wealth. That New York related with, commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, technology, education, and entertainment; opens its doors every year to approximately 55 million annual visitors. Sadly, according to the Coalition for Homeless Organization, 58,987 people will sleep tonight in New York City shelter, yes the same New York. Year by year this number gets higher and the solution gets more remote. That is why Andrea Elliott through pathos, plays an important role on the issue. Each word and each picture set on this article brought home the incompetence of society to take a closer look to the problem. This impressive and powerful article that Andrea Elliott shared provides a window into inequality. Every single time that Elliott talks about the homelessness, is easy to sense how this issue, dispensing the tragedy and the rough conditions is handle with bravery.
Elliott implies on every line that the simple things can be more meaningful for people with fewer facilities in life. The author displays empathy with her readers on each detail. For example, a character on the story of the girls mother Joanie, got a her life turned around after the New York Times helped her to find a job she said that the best day of her life was her first day of job, they live by a dream ruling them, a reason to live. Normally a regular person that has everything will never catalogue his first day of job as the best of his life, most of the time they feel forced or miserable about it. Elliott touched me in a way that probably any article before. Elliott’s rhetorical analysis of pathos is her forte; her words to describe the situation are labels to describe a situation for example: garments, veneer of affluence, and yearnings are more emotional for readers than clothing.
The use of analogies, metaphors, and other figures of speech not only make Elliott’s article more interesting and compelling. Dasani’s own spirited intelligence and devotion for life is what Andrea Elliott gives to her readers into pathos. She sleeps with her seven siblings, and her parents on six decaying mattresses. Not even close enough to the queen mattress where most of the New Yorker spends their nights. They share a communal bathroom, with toilets frequently clogged with vomit and feces. And yes! Sometimes people just complain about their siblings taking longer in the tub. Simple details can prove how unequal life can be. While some people are fighting for their life others are fighting against it. On that view given by Elliott, is possible to face with more than inequality; the real issue is how tight-lipped people shutter themselves when the moment of facing a social problem starts questioning their way of living.
A concrete visual element opens many more emotional pathways that abstract words alone. One of my strongest connections with Elliott’s article was the visual that she used along her article. The persuasive appeal of pathos identify the audience self-interest, in this article her words are vivid and specific but is not the same, as a readers, to see exactly how the room of a homeless shelter looks like, a concrete demonstration of pathos. She creates and addresses image of the room where this family lives among a few others. An image can work on our pity thus descriptions of painful or pleasant things.
Stories are normally the best path to get closer to an audience, just as Andrea Elliott does in her article, an author named Sherman Alexie in his book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tells a story, he get to his readers by humor in order to evoke emotions such as joy and surprise, and often triggers a strong connection of friendships. In this book Alexie, introduces himself as a hydrocephalic, not very wealthy, but an amazing artist. This author uses simple but engaging words in order to connect with his readers. This story of Alexie is a simple kid trying to live a better life in between of two different cultures while trying to discover his own potential. So how many invisible children are worth telling their story? His rhetorical style is based on the same story telling that Andre Elliott presents, the difference is that Elliot’s article even though has support from data to build credibility is connect with Alexie’s by pathos, on this emotional appeal with vivid language and numerous detail that only a story can present.
A perfect example of this can be the article The Public Obligations of Intellectuals written by Michael Eric Dyson. He thinks that the problem of society is that has dumbed down, dumbed down till the point where people won’t take time to know the problem. I believe that 90 percent of the people that could have had access to Elliott’s’ article the problem could seem distant from them and out of their reach; but an action taken can be as simple as taking a closer look, a look than can be more meaningful than just turning the back and pretending that the problem is not there. If I compare Dasani’s economical poverty with tight-lipped people that are just pretending to be out of the problem, I get a 50-50. The story is based on a fact by pathos though a homeless girl that has plenty of what many lack. More than taking action the authors make a call that needs to be answer, and it can be as simple as getting into another’s’ shoes and at least taking the moral of this fable.
george clothing
