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Sarah Burn's Argumentative Essay: The Central Park Five

1417 Words6 Pages

This is an argumentative essay which stipulates that Sarah Burn’s documentary and book The Central Park Five is persuasive due to the use of Aristotle’s four characteristics of peroration. The essay is strong surrounding the concept that the four characteristics of peroration are rhetorically effective and enhance the persuasiveness of Burn’s argument. However, the essay is week in relation to its counterargument. The counterargument, while seemingly legitimate, could certainly be developed. Potentially, if the author was to return to this essay he would reform the counterargument to more accurately counter the main argument of the essay. Essay: As the conclusion of the Central Park Five nears, the full impact of the ordeal is laid open. Now that the specific hours or days of the trial of the attack do not matter, Burns spreads the concluding chapter and epilogue over several …show more content…

Specifically, Burns wished to highlight the systematic racism inherent in American society that allowed this case to occur as it did. Stemming from years of America’s racial unrest, Burns argues that American society failed the Central Park Five. In the documentary, historian Craig Steven Wilder, delivers this haunting statement towards the closing minutes of the film. “I felt ashamed, actually, for New York, and I also felt extremely angry because their innocence never got the attention that their guilt did…I want us to remember what happened that day and be horrified by ourselves because it really is a mirror on our society (Wilder).” Burns latches onto Wilder’s statement, emphasizing the racial tension which the case highlighted. The investigation into the history of black subjugation in America which occurred in the earlier portions of the novel and documentary served as a reference to this statement, arguing that the racial climate of New York during the time period can be blamed for the trial’s

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