Rhetorical Analysis Assignment, Essay Example

Throughout the story “Living Like Weasels” by Annie Dillard, the author utilizes many different forms of rhetorical strategies to properly influence and emphasize her points to the audience.  These rhetorical strategies are important to understand and analyze because they can often lead to fallacious arguments or reasoning that may have gone unnoticed by the reader.  The mood that the author injects into this written work is somewhat dark or ominous, yet at the same time it has any elements that suggest an exciting and profound epiphany has been reached as well.  Nevertheless, by properly conducting a rhetorical analysis the audience is able to gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of the story.  Through using a rhetorical analysis, it is important to analyze Dillard’s uses of the rhetorical strategies of questions, metaphors and stories to emphasize the specific mood throughout this short story.

The first, and perhaps most obvious rhetorical strategy to express the mood of the story, came from the author’s use of questions.  The obvious mood stemmed from the use of vocabulary within the questions used.  One of the first questions came early in the story when the writer asked, “was the whole weasel still attached to his feathered throat, a fur pendant? Or did the eagle eat what he could reach, gutting the living weasel with his talons before his breast, bending his beak, cleaning the beautiful airborne bones?” (Dillard 1).  This suggests that the mood is somewhat dark and very serious.  There is nothing about an eagle devouring a weasel, or the weasel’s attempt to perform a death grip on the eagle’s mouth that makes the reader believe the mood is light and pleasant.  This question alone provides a much darker understanding of the imminent events of that will be present throughout the story.  Furthermore, the author presents the question “shall I suck warm blood, hold my tail high, walk with my footprints precisely over the prints of my hands?” (Dillard 2).  This question surrounds the author’s cognitive process of understanding her encounter with the weasel and how to improve her own life through the lessons learned within the encounter.  The mood is very serious and perhaps even a little sarcastic as Dillard draws a comparison between her life and the weasel’s.  However, the rhetorical strategy of using questions is not the only strategy used to convey a deeper sense of mood within this short story; the author also uses metaphors to draw a specific linkage between comparable elements to provide a setting for the mood.

Metaphors are often used to help draw a comparison or provide a deeper meaning for an element within a story by suggesting its inherent association with another, separate element.  For instance the author uses the narrator of the story to express her understanding of a new way of living life that is comparable to the weasel’s life.  “And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel’s: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will” (Dillard 2).  By suggesting that the solution to her problems comes from the metaphoric lessons learned from the experience with the weasel, the narrator in the story provides a serious mood that implies a clear epiphany has occurred.  Again, the mood here is not joyous or light, but rather it is solemn and consistent with the mood that was provided earlier in the story.  Furthermore, the author provides a metaphor for explaining the setting of the story earlier in the work.  “In winter, brown-and-white steers stand in the middle of it, merely dampening their hooves; from the distant shore they look like miracle itself, complete with miracle’s nonchalance” (Dillard 1).  Again, the serious mood is maintained, but a peaceful calm can overcome the reader through the suggestion that the setting within the story is almost like a miracle.  This provokes the reader’s understanding of a miraculous occurrence or scenery and helps explain the setting and mood of the story even further.  At this point, the reader must have gained a very clear appreciation for the mood of the story and the author makes a very conscious effort to maintain the serious, solemn aura of the mood throughout the remaining passages of the work.

Finally, the author uses multiple stories to help express the mood that is intended for the reader to gain within this short story.  Early in the beginning, the author tells a story of a naturalist that refused to kill a weasel that had bitten deep into his hand like a rattlesnake and refused to let go.  The man was completely unable to pry off the small weasel, and he was forced to walk half a mile to water where he could soak the weasel into the water so it would fall off “like a stubborn label” (Dillard 1).  This story immediately provides an educational, very serious mood for the reader regarding their new information about the determination and survival behaviors of weasels.  By creating a story that emphasizes the weasel having bitten into a man’s hand, the author leaves no doubt that the remaining portions of the story are intended to be taken very serious and a thoughtful, important lesson will be taken from the story.  In fact, the author even follows the first story with one expressed by Ernest Thompson Seton. “Once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky.  He examined the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to his throat.  The supposition is that the eagle had pounced on the weasel and the weasel swiveled and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly won” (Dillard 1).  Here, the reader continues to gain a deeper appreciation for the determination and survival instincts of the weasel, which comes in handy as the narrator begins to analyze the important lessons she has learned from her close encounter with the weasel at the climax of the story.

It is clear that there are many examples of rhetorical strategies that exist within this story.  The author uses these strategies in order to provide the reader with a deeper understanding and appreciation for the events, setting, and creatures described throughout “Living Like Weasels.”  Without these specific elements, the reader would not have been able to fully appreciate or understand the lessons within the story, which shows the strong importance of such elements as they are used in many short stories by other authors.  Whereas, the author could very well have included general statements or broad adjectives to help describe these elements throughout the story, she chose to utilize more effective rhetorical strategies that became very useful in suggesting the true intended meanings behind the elements of the story.  The climactic realization of the peaceful, honorable life that the weasels live becomes very apparent to the reader and the rhetorical strategies help assist the narrator in describing the importance of this lesson within the story.

Annie Dillard utilized three main rhetorical strategies within the short story “Living Like Weasels.”  These strategies include the use of questions, metaphors and stories to help describe and mold the changing mood throughout the story.  As the events within the story continue to evolve, the mood also evolves as well.  This is shown from the changing rhetorical strategies that Dillard uses throughout the story.  Nevertheless, the overall mood is obviously very serious, solemn and intentionally educational so that the reader is able to gain a deep understanding of the events within the story.  Without using these strategies, the mood is not clearly described within the story and the impact of the lessons and events of the story may have been lost to the reader.  Dillard shows her mastery of adjectives, metaphors, and other descriptive phrases to emphasize the main points of the story as well as describing the setting.  This is an excellent story to analyze the rhetorical strategies and writing styles of a great author and excellent literary work.

Works Cited

Dillard, Annie. Living Like Weasels. Annie Dillard. Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 1 Nov. 2009. <http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG200-lad/dillard.htm>.