The Illusion of Safety/ The Safety of Illusion Rhetoric Analysis
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The Illusion of Safety/ The Safety of Illusion Rhetoric Analysis
Introduction
Roxane Gay’s “The Illusion of Safety/The Safety of Illusion” is one of the most persuasive articles that try to convince the human population that everyone will harbor a percentage of fear and will remain in their lives even if they try to discount the fear. Authored in 2012, the article centers on the idea that people may try to run away from their history, but they can never escape their pasts. Her reflections remind the audience that each is a prisoner of their history, whether positive or negative. Through imagery, Gay conveys to the audience that humans rely on the illusion of safety to distance themselves from learning how to confront triggers and get assistance.
Rhetorical Analysis
Roxane Gay’s essay begins with a musical tone infused with the poetic nature of the wording. This is reflected in the way each sentence starts with the repeated word “when.” the repetition in this aspect was intentional, and the significance was to tell the audience the essay’s central theme, which was centered on the usefulness of trigger warnings. The musical tone created by the poetic diction and structure of the report also adds more emphasis to the author is putting on the message being delivered on why people cannot run away from their past. Indeed there is a direct connection between her repetitive writing style and our pasts because our history will continuously be repeated through memories and reflections.
The entire argument she makes in the essay is centered on the significance of trigger warnings in life, she conveys the importance of the trigger warning, and she has to make efforts to let the audience believe that she knows what she is talking about. Here, she uses both logical appeals and ethical appeals. She uses logical appeals by listing her triggers in a poetic style and describing how she feels when someone in her past is triggered or is pulled up by her triggers. She begins each sentence with the same word. Similarly, she is strategic because she wants to capture the audience’s attention.
To achieve her intentions, she uses broken sentences that do not complete her thoughts. For instance, in sentence one, she writes, “When I see men who look like him or his friends,” or in the following sentence when she writes, “When I smell beer on a man’s breathe” (Gay, 2012, p. 147). She engages the audience by using broken sentences with unfinished thoughts as they have to think about what she will say next. Her diction makes the essay sound informal because she is vulgar in one way or another, especially when she talks about having sex directly. Roxane Gay’s article reconnoiters the topic of trigger warnings and why they may not be as valuable as people would like to think. Because of Gay’s theme choice, her thesis is a grind of non-fiction. It utilizes Gay’s involvement and opinions to teach the listeners her posture on triggers and why she thinks about them in life. She also coaxes her audience through numerous metaphors, analogies, and real-life situations.
Through her essay, Gay seems to use imagery to bring the audience to her line of thinking when she wants to emphasize that a person cannot do away with the past; she does not just say it directly, but she employs compelling imagery by asserting that, “There will always be a finger on the trigger. No matter how hard we try, there’s no way to step out of the line of fire” (Gay, 2012, p. 153). her intentions are not only to deliver the message to the audience, but she also delivers the message through imagery that will create a powerful picture that will remain in the audience’s mind forever. It is imperative to understand that the intended audience of the essay is the young generation, and the idea of bringing in an informal language, such as sex and being placed in front of the firing squad or held at gunpoint, makes the central theme of her story more of a punch line. The other half of the quotes she uses in the essay regarding being unable to “step out of line” serves two different meanings. Firstly, it implies that the victims are not held captive by their pasts but are also limited in what they can do throughout their lives because of their pasts.
Conclusion
It is clear from this analysis that the effectiveness of Gay’s rhetoric stems less from the pathetic appeal of his utopian trigger warnings but relies more on imagery and ethos to construct a powerful message that reminds the people why they cannot run away from their past. She uses both ethos and logos to construct her statements throughout the essay and make sense of what she is saying or conveying to the audience, for that matter. Interestingly, her intentions to achieve a lasting memory in the reader’s mind are achieved by using imagery that creates a strong picture that lasts in the audience’s memories. Similarly, she uses metaphors and analogies, for instance, at the beginning of her essay, and real-life examples to connect with the young people who are the intended audience.
References
Gay, R. (2012). The illusion of safety/the safety of illusion. The Rumpus, 28.
