The Great Influenza Rhetorical Analysis Essay

In John M. Barry’s “The Great Influenza” scientific research is made out to be a process based off gaining knowledge in fields that have little base knowledge and then cooperating with other researchers in order to either further develop from that point or to further validate the current idea. Barry supports this ideal through his extended metaphor, parallelism, and the exemplification.

Throughout the piece, Barry describes scientific research as a step into the unknown through his extended metaphor. Barry relates all scientists together onto the same playing field stating, “All real scientists exist on the frontier. Even the less ambitious among them…” He refers to the research about to start as a frontier, in the same ways that a frontier

“Certainty creates strength. Certainty creates something upon which to lean. Uncertainty creates weakness…” This two sentence antithesis is directly parallel to his later statement, “It is not the courage to venture into the unknown. It is the courage to accept- indeed, embrace- uncertainty.” These corresponding explain the societal views of certainty and uncertainty, maintaining that uncertainty is negative and a sign of weakness. However, the second quotes contradicts that viewpoint by emphasizing that a more notable trait, courage, is present in the less favorable condition. Barry parallels the two in order to express how researchers work in uncertain conditions and that the courage it takes to do this is immense. In the fifth paragraph Barry questions how a researcher chooses their means of excavation and analyzation. This paragraph is focused on the use of questions in order to show the number of possible decisions that can be made and that must be made in order to gain results. Barry uses this to show how researchers must make decisions on how to do something while not having a very structured knowledge foundation for that specific topic of interest. Together, the uses of these similar structures allows for a more cohesive train of thought about the characteristics of scientific