Rhetorical Criticism

Narrative Rhetorical Criticism in Fiction Using the narrative in rhetoric is a great way to convince your readers of an event that is happening. Being a fiction writer, I do this quite often. The story that I have written that does the most of swaying the reader is my story called “Jake.” I’m going to insert pieces of my story to help you better understand how the narrative can be used to sway readers one way of the other. The first part of my story that I think is important is the very first paragraph: All you know is what a hot summer day it is. The sun scorches down on you and Jake as you two walk to the creek. There is an empty house in your subdivision with a pool in the backyard. The liner on the pool is black, and algae floats through the water. The carcasses of chipmunks and squirrels fill the murky bottom, but you and Jake don’t mind. It is the summer you turn five and he twelve. Jake tries to teach you how to swim that summer. He grips his hands around your waist and makes sure you don’t sink. I gotcha don’t worry, he would always say. I chose this section because it sets the foundation for the friendship between the little girl and the boy. Knowing the in’s and out’s of their relationship is crucial to knowing what happens or does not happen later. It also gives the reader a visual of what to expect from the beginning to the end of the story. It sets the picture in their mind so they can determine what is happening. The next section that I have chosen is more towards the middle of the story. It shows exactly how close these two individuals get over the summer, which is important for what is claimed to have happened at the end. So it’s bike riding one day, jump roping the next, Jake teaching you how ride a bike on one wheel. There’s a split second from when your front tire leaves the ground that makes you feel on top of the world. You and Jake go everywhere together. Some days you spend hours at the community center, learning about the history of the town. You two sit on the floor, and your head always manages to fall on his shoulder. The workers know Jake really well. Jake flips through books about town, old newspaper articles, and even old pictures. You both imagine yourselves living in a time long ago. You wonder what it would be like to harvest farms and raise cattle. He says that would be hard work, but completely worth it, and he gets up off the floor to start walking you home. Wouldn’t want your mom to worry about you, he says. The reason this passage is so important is because it shows the closeness of their friendship and how much the little girl trusts him. It shows that they do everything together and that he is somewhat a protector over her. The next passage that I have chosen does things a little differently: And years later, you’re still not sure about your friendship with Jake. Even now, you have an uneasy feeling as water engulfs around you. Even now you tell yourself that it’s absolutely nothing. Just a socially awkward boy in need of a friend. A friendless boy, a friendless girl, the air so hot you can barely breathe, the stickiness you feel after getting out of the creek for the trek home, this small child crossing the street as naked as a jay bird, dragging her clothes behind her, feeling something is wrong, something about the smirk on Jake’s face, this innocent little girl sprinting across the yard on the balls of her feet. This passage is completely important for what happens next in the story. The little girl is questioning her friendship with Jake years after she stopped playing with him. She is uncertain of what the extent of their relationship was. This last passage is the determining factor that I have chosen: And you, Jake never told anyone what happened, and neither did you, but maybe that’s because nothing happened. All you can remember is your mom calling him a retarded freak, your drunken dad passed out in the living room, your mom asking you where Jake hurt you, what he made you do. And the rest of your days, it feels like, you never notice that now old man sitting on the front porch. Jake yelling at you to come over, you pretend to not hear him, acting as if no one lives in that house anymore, acting as if you don’t know the feeling of his hands on your waist, , the tingling feeling you get when he rubs his finger along your side. No one has to see that poor girl lying in bed like this, no one else has to know the sleepless nights, the nightmares, your mom asking your what happened, and maybe you don’t even know, because maybe there wasn’t anything that happened, but you’re not sure. This story was imitated as an assignment. The original author left the ending ambiguous and wanted the reader to decide what happened. I took this story and imitated it to what I thought had happened. With this ending, I implied the molestation that I thought happened in the original story. I took away the decision for the reader and I gave them the answer. While the little girl is still unsure of what may or may not happened to her, the reader is very much aware. Through second person narrative told in present tense, I was able to make the story feel more personal. Doing so gave it more of a shock and wow factor towards the end when the reader was surprised with the outcome. This is how narrative rhetorical criticism works. The author manipulates his or her words in order to get a main meaning across to the audience. This story was actually published in UALR’s Equinox Literary Magazine this spring. Because I’m a fiction writer, I have had much practice writing narratives and making my reader think one way or the other. This is just one example of how an author, or any individual, can manipulate words on the page. That is the beauty of fiction, or just writing in general. You have the power to decide what your audience thinks or knows about the situation at hand.