In response to an essay by Salman Rushdie on the profits of moving, Scott Russell Sanders, in his dialectic essay “Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World,” contradicts “the belief that movement is inherently good.” He claims that we should not root ourselves in places rather than ideas, but that we should care for the place rather than our own desires. Through his use of direct quotes from his opposition, Sanders relates his belief that we must settle down and end our endless moving if we are to ever “pay enough heed and respect to where we are.” Sanders employs an effective use of repetition, antithesis, and diction to respectfully and informally argue against the views of Rushdie. Sanders uses repetition in his first paragraph whilst using America as an example of a country whose people move constantly. He states that Americans have “dug the most canals”, “laid the most rails”, “built the most roads and airports”, all of his examples being methods of transportation. Sanders is using repetition to show that he sees and comprehends the point of Rushdie’s argument that migration is beneficial. Throughout his entire essay, Sanders employs interesting and methodical uses of diction. He describes Rushdie’s articulation skills as “eloquent”, doing his best to remain …show more content…
He states that the Spaniards desolated Central and South America by “imposing on the New World the religion, economics, and politics of the old”. Sanders is proving that when people who root themselves in ideas immigrate to new places, it wreaks havoc on their and the people around them’s lives. He also states that “The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was caused not by drought but by the transfer onto the Great Plains of farming methods that were suitable to wetter regions” Here, Sanders is providing more historical evidence that proves that people who root themselves in ideas shouldn’t do so, but rather root themselves in