Hillel Schwartz Fat And Happy Rhetorical Analysis

Fat acceptance is a radical concept that most Americans shy away from discussing. This is not the case with Hillel Schwartz’s essay “Fat and Happy?” from his book Never Satisfied. Schwartz discusses the way fat people are treated by society and what he believes life would be like if we lived in a Fat Society rather than the current Skinny World we live in. In his article it seems that Schwartz’s goal is to capture the attention of as many different audiences as possible by using sarcasm and many different sides to his argument that fat acceptance should be an important value in society. While Schwartz tries to connect to as many different audience members as possible with a dry and popular sense of humor by implementing a sarcastic tone, his

Schwartz’s essay is written in the satirical style using a sarcastic dry humor to appeal to its audience. He claims “if fat people are unhappy people, blame not their fat but their fellow citizens who bill them as clowns, clodhoppers [a clumsy or awkward person], cannibals, or criminals;” (Schwartz 179). This claim when read by a fat audience member may allow them to relate despite the bias because it is biased in their favor, however if Schwartz is trying to appeal to other audiences this claim comes across as not even close to what they as non fat people experience. Schwartz tells the reader to “[b]lame the kindergarten teachers, the coaches, the friends, and physicians” (179) as he claims they are the ones who start fat people on the diets that do not work. His statement does not come across as sarcasm but rather a fact he believes to be true and most people don’t see kindergarten teachers pushing children into diets. This turns off both fat and non-fat audience members because they cannot relate to or find humor in this argument. If kindergarten teachers were taken out of the statement the argument would be more believable however still not sarcastic. In an attempt to get the reader to find a personal experience to relate to his argument that fat acceptance is necessary value in our society, Schwartz says, “fat people are seen as throwbacks to a more primitive time...The modern world is passing them by.” (181). By using an image most people have seen, Schwartz effectively appeals to any audience member’s ethos. Schwartz argues that fat people are not allowed to do well in whatever they choose to do with their lives because people are too focused on their looks rather than their work ethic. He then argues that physicians are just as bad as the rest of society because, “They find fat patients distasteful… Fat