What Killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones?

What Killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones? is an insight into the current state of affairs in the city of Detroit. It starts off with the death of Aiyana, an innocent girl shot on May 16, 2011 by the police in their efforts to catch murderer Chauncey Owens. The police broke in and shot without reason. They then attempted covering up the truth. Thus begins Charlie LeDuff’s essay in which he highlights the murders and corruption that take place on a daily basis Detroit. He describes the city’s constant crimes, failing police system, ineffective education system, and the poverty in which most people live in.

Written for Mother Jones magazine, LeDuff proves his credibility through providing facts about the city that he clearly spent time to scrounge around for. Many of LeDuff’s stories and facts are pulled through interviews with police or people who live and work in Detroit. Through illustrating the hopeless state Detroit is in, LeDuff’s purpose is to bring attention to the fact that Detroit and its people need help. Due to the fact that this essay was published in Mother Jones, a political and economic magazine, LeDuff’s target audience is most likely any educated middle class or high class citizen outside of Detroit.

Pathos is the most common rhetorical device that LeDuff utilizes. He does so through quotes of family of those murdered, and other citizens of Detroit. For example, LeDuff includes a quote from Aiyana’s father; he says, “I can accept the shooting was a mistake…but I can’t accept it because they lied about it,” (LeDuff 121). Also, LeDuff goes to great lengths to describe the impact these murders have on the family and the community. He describes Aiyana’s funeral through many details: “Aiyana’s pink-robed body was carried away by a horse-drawn carriage…the same carriage that…had taken the body of Rosa Parks to Woodlawn Cemetary” (LeDuff 122).

His use of pathos is well placed, and achieves its desired effect; thus, LeDuff does achieve his purpose of alerting the people who read this essay of the tragedy that is now the story of Detroit. However, it is doubtful that readers will take more action than just shaking their head and going on about their day.

(source: http://collider.com/detroit-1-8-7-review-abc-michael-imperioli/)

What Broke My Father's Heart

The essay What Broke My Father’s Heart, by Katy Butler, explored her experiences with today’s medical system due to her father’s illness. Butler includes how her father’s dementia came to be, and describes his slow degeneration into his vegetated state. She describes her family’s relationship to the medical system as a result of his illness. The essay includes how Butler and her mother were not well informed in their choice to insert a pacemaker into her father. Butler highlights their regrets in making an uninformed medical decision; and, in the end she includes what her mother did differently when her health began to decline.

What Broke My Father’s Heart is written for any adult who wishes to be informed about Katy Butler’s story. However, her purpose in telling her story also includes informing people of the flaws in the American healthcare system. Although the essay is told through a personal standpoint, Butler includes many facts from medical studies; therefore, making her essay a much more credible source rather than a mere personal account. 

The facts that were incorporated into Butler’s writing are rhetorical devices that played a significant part in achieving her purpose. Through logos, she is able to convey to the reader that doctors can’t always have a patient’s best interest at heart because, “20 to 30 percent of Medicare’s $510 billion budget goes for unnecessary tests and treatment,” (Butler 16). Butler brings to attention that, “only 5 percent of the positive [pacemaker] recommendations were supported by research,” (Butler 19). And, with this information, the reader begins to doubt the system.

Appealing to the reader with pathos, Butler highlights the pain her mother went through during the duration of her father’s last years of life. She describes the struggles mother endured to take care of her father constantly, and for her to see the love of her life slowly fading away. Butler even includes quotes from her mother’s diary to prompt the reader to sympathize. The use of logos and pathos helps Katy Butler to highlight the flaws in the American healthcare system using her personal experiences.

(source: http://www.joinerandjoiner.com/medicare/)