City Of Glass Rhetorical Analysis

In the novel City of Glass by Paul Auster and Jonathon Swifts “A Modest Proposal”, the form is changed by content to modify the outcome of the text. Swifts text uses content built off of satire and rhetoric while Austers uses preconceptions of language and meaning to change the chosen form. In the context of this essay form being the mold, base or structure of the text, for example, the pamphlet style of “A Modest Proposal” and the detective fiction of City of Glass. Content for the purpose of this essay is the literary devices and words chosen in the texts. Texts can use specific manipulation of content to oppose the preconceived notion of the chosen form. The pamphlet style “A Modest Proposal” uses requires it to provide evidence

The text uses the three major rhetorical appeals to enhance the arguments made. “A Modest Proposal” uses Logos (logical reason) to legitimize a preposterous idea. The first instance is the production of money for the parents which would then be invested into the economy (Swift 3). Another is the fact that beggars would no longer plague the streets of Dublin (Swift 2). Pathos (an emotional tactic) is used in the opening paragraph. The essay creates emotions of pity; as “it is a melancholy object to those, who walk through [the] great town” (Swift 2) to see “beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four or six children all in rags”(Swift 2) who have no option but to be on the street. There must be a way to end the pitiful situation. Ethos (creating reliability) is done through the math regarding a number of children is one example. There is “no other motive than the publik good of [the] country” (Swift 6), as the narrator has no children and his wife is too old to have any now (Swift

The narrator feels “any inaccuracies in the story should be blamed on” (Auster 158) him; although, he “refrained from any interpretation. The red notebook, of course, was only half the story” (Auster 158). The text is suggesting it is not reliable. Obviously interpretations were made throughout the novel as Daniel Quinn’s thoughts are written down by the narrator. The text also loses credibility as it only provides half of a story. The majority of the book seems to be in third person narrative, which means the whole story would be