Serving In Florida Rhetorical Analysis

A restaurant worker’s work is never complete: many restaurant workers feel that they are public servants because they make harsh comparisons, generalizations and arguments. Barbara Ehrenreich’s piece titled “Serving in Florida” represents the condition in which workers are treated while working in a restaurant. Ehrenreich describes this condition as unfair because she must perform duties as if they are “strictly theatrical exercises” (130). By this she means that even if there is no work left to do, the managers do not want to see workers sitting. Ehrenreich believes that she is performing in a play while she is at work because she must pretend to be doing work at all times so that the managers, who sit around, don’t yell. Ehrenreich argues

At the end of the essay, Ehrenreich loses her effectiveness because she starts to talk about a male server who pulled three shifts in a row and the things he did after the shift. The problem clearly evident to the reader is that instead of following through with an influential conclusion about how she overcame her difficulties as a restaurant worker, she instead talks about a male server who is capable of three shifts and other activities afterwards. Despite the fact that Ehrenreich uses many personal anecdotes, I got lost at the end because this makes the reader not want to take the author seriously in the conclusion and rethink everything that was previously said. Ehrenreich could conclude on a strong point about how she was able to quit working at that restaurant and find a better job that gave her better pay, benefits, hours and respectful people. Ehrenreich did a good job using a metaphor because it provided the reader with sensory detail to allow the reader to feel as if they were working in the restaurant. She used a stereotype that allowed her reader to understand the difficulty of having to return to work every day. The way Ehrenreich used personification allowed her to put emphasis on her coworker’s thoughts and her own. Lastly, the surveys helped to show the reader that many of Ehrenreich’s coworkers struggled, not only herself. Overall the rhetorical devices: metaphor, stereotype and personification, complement one another to provide aid and support in appealing to pathos because they are able to convey how Ehrenreich’s experience has made her feel disrespected and