Rhetorical Analysis Of On Dumpster Diving

I feel that the author’s purpose was transmitted successfully through his essay, despite how distracting the organization of the text was. The author focused on employing the use of rhetorical techniques such as defining, describing, explaining a process, and narrating. In paragraphs three and four, Eighner takes the time to give the reader his ideas about words he feels represent his hobby the best. Choosing words like scavenging and scrounging as opposed to diving is how he defines what he does to gain necessary resources. In other words, he is defining his idea of the term dumpster diving for the audience. The new definition is meant to make dumpster diving sound like a necessary and tolerable thing so that readers will not constantly

The describing technique is more apparent throughout the text and helps the reader, through imagery, to imagine the ordeal of digging through dumpsters to find important materials. Such imagery includes the warnings about what to and what not to eat or drink from the dumpsters such as “I have discovered nasty mold in vegetable juices…” (“On Dumpster Diving” from The Norton Reader page 23, paragraph 26). The imagery does not go into much detail in the text but that is most likely due to the fact that Eighner did not want his audience tossing his work away out of repulsion. Describing was added to the mix of examples to aid in reinforcing the ideas presented towards the end. Explaining a process was recognized by me majorly only one time. The process explained was the evolution of an amateur dumpster diver into a professional. This evolution had four consecutive steps I dubbed self-disgust, curiosity, realization, and possibly hoarding. Each step is clearly described to the reader and helps the reader to understand how the process is a full one. I believe Eighner wanted to introduce this series of steps because it brings the reader closer to the full experience of being a dumpster