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Rhetorical Analysis Of What Is Snow Like

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Syd Mattord AP Lang 4th hr. Rhetorical Analysis “What Is Snow Like?” Brian Doyle’s essay “What Is Snow Like?” allows his audience to see snow through the eyes of the experienced. Doyle’s anecdotes, imagery, and varying sentence lengths allow us to interpret the physical and emotional transformation of snow. Throughout Doyle’s essay, there is the prominent use of anecdotes, allowing the audience to connect with his piece, whether or/ not they have seen snow. His opening: “I met a small girl who told me she had never seen snow.” sets a rhetorical situation. Doyle’s use of a rhetorical situation allows the audience to read from the point of view of a young and curious mind while also presenting his purpose, “snow is inarguable” …show more content…

Doyle captures the beauty of snow throughout its physical transformations. He humanizes snow throughout the text using the word female in his sentence “Snow is like when female cottonwood trees let go of vast gentle quantities of fluffy seed pods all at once in spring.'' We often connect the adjective “female” to living beings; by including this in his text he creates the image of snow in a life-like approach. His word choice is important in this sentence, allowing us to witness the movement of snow without being in its vicinity. His mention of cottonwood seed pods provides an impression for those who have yet to experience snow, assuming the audience has seen cottonwood during warm seasons. Doyle promulgates a description allowing for deeper analysis of snow; “Snow starts white and then gets grayer and browner and sometimes black as if it’s rotted, which in a real sense it does,” creates an image in our head that begins to form a life-like cycle of snow, you may compare it to metamorphosis, a physical transformation occurring in nature. The audience can then conceptualize snow and its traits, seeing they have never experienced it firsthand. His description deepens the image his audience has formed of snow throughout his article. Initially, Doyle aims to have his audience picture the physical transformation of snow, even when not in its

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