rhetorical analysis
A memoir is a genre that allows the writer to recall the experience of the past and think about it from the present perspective. It is important for us to learn a lesson from it and grow from there. Some people do not like learning history because it is boring and is only all about hard facts. However, memoir is what makes self history interesting to me. When writing a memoir, I am able to go back to the scene of where I was and experience it one more time. However, experiencing the same thing at a different age gives me a different understanding of the event and allows me to learn a deeper lesson from it.
In the memoir that I wrote, the choices that I made in the Starbucks and the rotary gave me a sense of growth, which enabled me to realize that I should step out of the comfort zone and make choices by myself. More importantly, the process of doing so taught me that I needed to be responsible for my own decisions and be more independent as a grown person.
First of the all, the purpose of this memoir is to write about a piece of personal experience in the past to show how a place has impacted self. In my memoir, the choices that I made in the Starbucks and the rotary gave me a sense of growth, which enabled me to realize that I should step out of the comfort zone and make choices by myself. More importantly, the process of doing so taught me that I needed to be responsible for my own decisions and be more independent as a grown person.
The author or the speaker of the memoir is me as it primarily describes my own unique experience and speaks the voice of my own understanding of the experience. However, the speaker of such experience may not be limited to myself. It could be the same experience of many others who have gone through the the same stage. Although the ways that different people learned how to gain responsibility and independence may differ, the fact that everyone has encountered intersections of making decisions and grown from them is common.
The primary audience of this assignment will be Dr. Holt, who is the instructor of the ENG 221RW course and the fellow students in the class since I will deliver a presentation of the memoir in the class. Additionally, given that this memoir will be posted on my personal website, those who read my blog posts are also the audience of the memoir. Generally speaking, the readership of my memoir mainly concerns about place and self.
The short story that I created fits into the requirements of a memoir. First of all, a memoir is a piece of writing of an event that the author personally experienced. In my case, I wrote my city walking tour in a Sunday afternoon. This was what I personally did and all of the things in the memoir were my own actions and thoughts. More importantly, it is was not just a simple representation of the past event, but a re-experience of the event from today’s perspective, with deeper understanding of what that experience means to my life and how it has made me a stronger person. To satisfy the requirement of this specific assignment — place and self, the memoir clearly described two places, the Starbucks and the rotary which are symbols of places where I needed to make decisions independently. And these decisions infer that there would be thousands of similar or even harder situations in the future where I would have to make choices and take up the responsibility.
To be specific, the three different drinks in Starbucks -- Cafe Americano, Cafe Latte and Caramel Frappuccino symbolized three different types of future life. Cafe Americano meant to work very hard and never give up even if it is bitter. But, the taste would be more enjoyable after the bitterness. On the other hand, Caramel Frappuccino was a very sweat and creamy drink, inferring to a lazy and luxurious life without much hard work. Well, for the ambitious me, I would not be satisfied with what I had but move forward by working harder. Although Cafe Latte was a good balance between hard work and leisure, putting all the effort into studying, I believed, was what I were supposed to do as a teenager.
In addition, the rotary sounded to be a better visualization of deciding a path of life. The road to the train station meant to escape from the reality, the road to the shopping mall symbolized a lavish and luxurious life, the road to the park meant to take a break, and the road to the library means to work hard. Turning around and going back home meant to go backwards in life, which was something definitely not in my consideration. Although I did not know what to do at first, the pedestrians who passed by quickly reminded me that determination and decisiveness were important. Wasting too much time not only hold back the way forward, but also may miss the timing of doing the right thing.
At last, I chose to go to the park because I thought I needed to take a break before I could study harder later. It was not the best choice since I did not have enough time to study later. However, the fact that I returned to the rotary and went to the library to study until late at night meant that I took up the responsibility of my own decision. In another word, I could have just stayed in the park as long as I wished, but the change to another path meant that I had grown up from the rotary experience and understood that I needed to make necessary changes if I sometimes went off-track. Additionally, I may need to do extra things to make up my mistakes, such as studying later than expected.
In general, the Starbucks and rotary experience were not just a simple city tour, but more importantly a lesson that I learned. Here, these two places deeply impacted my understanding of making decisions and being responsible for myself. To put the memoir into a broader context of Tuan and Price’s pieces of writing, they discussed how human beings interact with the space and turn it into place with meanings and values, and at the same time through different senses, people experience the place. My memoir would be good extension of their discussion. As people interact with place and develop a bond with the place, more than basic needs of food and water, there will emotional needs and spiritual needs that people require from place. So, place gives us inspiration and motivation to move forward and become better people.
In the memoir that I wrote, the choices that I made in the Starbucks and the rotary gave me a sense of growth, which enabled me to realize that I should step out of the comfort zone and make choices by myself. More importantly, the process of doing so taught me that I needed to be responsible for my own decisions and be more independent as a grown person.
First of the all, the purpose of this memoir is to write about a piece of personal experience in the past to show how a place has impacted self. In my memoir, the choices that I made in the Starbucks and the rotary gave me a sense of growth, which enabled me to realize that I should step out of the comfort zone and make choices by myself. More importantly, the process of doing so taught me that I needed to be responsible for my own decisions and be more independent as a grown person.
The author or the speaker of the memoir is me as it primarily describes my own unique experience and speaks the voice of my own understanding of the experience. However, the speaker of such experience may not be limited to myself. It could be the same experience of many others who have gone through the the same stage. Although the ways that different people learned how to gain responsibility and independence may differ, the fact that everyone has encountered intersections of making decisions and grown from them is common.
The primary audience of this assignment will be Dr. Holt, who is the instructor of the ENG 221RW course and the fellow students in the class since I will deliver a presentation of the memoir in the class. Additionally, given that this memoir will be posted on my personal website, those who read my blog posts are also the audience of the memoir. Generally speaking, the readership of my memoir mainly concerns about place and self.
The short story that I created fits into the requirements of a memoir. First of all, a memoir is a piece of writing of an event that the author personally experienced. In my case, I wrote my city walking tour in a Sunday afternoon. This was what I personally did and all of the things in the memoir were my own actions and thoughts. More importantly, it is was not just a simple representation of the past event, but a re-experience of the event from today’s perspective, with deeper understanding of what that experience means to my life and how it has made me a stronger person. To satisfy the requirement of this specific assignment — place and self, the memoir clearly described two places, the Starbucks and the rotary which are symbols of places where I needed to make decisions independently. And these decisions infer that there would be thousands of similar or even harder situations in the future where I would have to make choices and take up the responsibility.
To be specific, the three different drinks in Starbucks -- Cafe Americano, Cafe Latte and Caramel Frappuccino symbolized three different types of future life. Cafe Americano meant to work very hard and never give up even if it is bitter. But, the taste would be more enjoyable after the bitterness. On the other hand, Caramel Frappuccino was a very sweat and creamy drink, inferring to a lazy and luxurious life without much hard work. Well, for the ambitious me, I would not be satisfied with what I had but move forward by working harder. Although Cafe Latte was a good balance between hard work and leisure, putting all the effort into studying, I believed, was what I were supposed to do as a teenager.
In addition, the rotary sounded to be a better visualization of deciding a path of life. The road to the train station meant to escape from the reality, the road to the shopping mall symbolized a lavish and luxurious life, the road to the park meant to take a break, and the road to the library means to work hard. Turning around and going back home meant to go backwards in life, which was something definitely not in my consideration. Although I did not know what to do at first, the pedestrians who passed by quickly reminded me that determination and decisiveness were important. Wasting too much time not only hold back the way forward, but also may miss the timing of doing the right thing.
At last, I chose to go to the park because I thought I needed to take a break before I could study harder later. It was not the best choice since I did not have enough time to study later. However, the fact that I returned to the rotary and went to the library to study until late at night meant that I took up the responsibility of my own decision. In another word, I could have just stayed in the park as long as I wished, but the change to another path meant that I had grown up from the rotary experience and understood that I needed to make necessary changes if I sometimes went off-track. Additionally, I may need to do extra things to make up my mistakes, such as studying later than expected.
In general, the Starbucks and rotary experience were not just a simple city tour, but more importantly a lesson that I learned. Here, these two places deeply impacted my understanding of making decisions and being responsible for myself. To put the memoir into a broader context of Tuan and Price’s pieces of writing, they discussed how human beings interact with the space and turn it into place with meanings and values, and at the same time through different senses, people experience the place. My memoir would be good extension of their discussion. As people interact with place and develop a bond with the place, more than basic needs of food and water, there will emotional needs and spiritual needs that people require from place. So, place gives us inspiration and motivation to move forward and become better people.