Haydee Mendoza
11/ 18/13
English 102
Rhetorical Style Analysis
Not Rising from the Dumps
Barbara Ehrenreich has a sarcastic way of expressing herself when it comes to things that are serious, especially when it has to do with oneself and self-respect. In her book Nickel and Dimed she brings herself down from having her PHD in biology to show us what it is like to live in a working class. She comes to see that people in the lower class don’t receive the respect they deserve. Through her ethos we can see how she moves about to try and find a way to survive with $1,000 in her pocket; fined a job she can keep and be able to pay necessary bills. She expresses her struggles through pathos while her and her co-workers survive in the working class on a daily basis. They don’t only try and survive financially but by putting up with their employers unfair treatments. Is the American dream that hard accomplish?
Ehrenreich expresses herself in a sarcastic way in order to show us her point of view in ways that don’t always seem meaningful to us. Many people might think she is rude but she is only expressing herself in a way that makes sense to her. Like when Ted says “cleaning fluids are less expensive than your time” and she says “it’s good to know that something is cheaper than my time or in the hierarchy of the company’s value I rank above Windex” (74). In a way it is funny but it makes her feel that she is just another cleaner being used without the owner caring about how she is being treated. By saying this she is showing us that the working class should be treated with more respect. With that being said Ehrenreich brings up another point when she is talking to Ted about Holly’s fall. She asked him if “Holly was going to get paid for the day she went home” and he says “yes” “what do you think I am an ogre”? She tells us the word she is thinking of is “pimp” (115). She says this because the maids are being exploded and they seem to be scared of Ted because if...