Mississippi River Changed America Summary

The Mississippi river holds various interesting characteristics and its complexity is explained by John M Barry. In Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America by John M Barry incorporates strong adjectives, long lists, and vivid similes in order to communicate his fascination with the river to his readers and spread fascination to his audience about the river. Barry incorporates strong adjectives at the beginning of his piece to draw the reader's fascination with the river. Barry's excitement with the river is expressed when he mentions “an extraordinarily dynamic combination of turbulent effects.”(lines 2-3) This pulls the reader in and makes them ask questions. Through these words “extraordinarily dynamic.” The reader wonders why the river is so extraordinary and dynamic. Barry knows that this river is very interesting therefore choses this diction to intrigue the reader about what the river's characteristics are in an exiting manner. When Barry mentions “and the rivers hydraulics quickly go beyond the newly complex.”(lines 3-4) he adds mystery to the reader because he doesn't specify in

When Barry lists “through its size, sediment load, depth variations in its bottom…” (lines 20-22) while making these long lists Barry is able to emphasize the amount of factors that a river has therefore increasing the reader's fascination with the river because of its complexity. Barry lists elements of the river because of his fascination with each aspect of the river and increases the fascination by making the list so long in order to emphasize how many diverse characteristics goes into a single river.

Barry's fascination of the river reflects onto the reader through his rhetorical strategies. Barry makes lists, uses similes and includes strong adjectives.This gives way to spread his fascination of rivers to his audience, therefore they will develop a fascination for