Michael Cox Assignment 1B Rhetorical Reflection Section HAMcGough September 16, 2013 Comment Society has been on a downward

literary spiral for close to seventy years. Rising educational technology use coupled with television and computer availability in almost every household has almost directly led to this decline. In Comment, an article from The New Yorker, E.B. White is venting his frustrations about the inevitable, rising use of audio-visual technological devices by people in everyday society. Living during the early and mid-20th century, White was an author most well-known for his childrens novels Charlottes Web and Stuart Little. During his lifetime, White also contributed several articles to The New Yorker. Comment is one of several such contributions, and it is one that is especially important to the time in which it was written the early 1940s because of the emerging trend of commercial technology. Comment by E.B. White is an observation of the deteriorating human desire for written literature as an expense of increased usage of technological devices, succinctly stated in a magazine article. The effectiveness of this article is increased by its reprinting in Convergences due to the immense reliance on technology by the younger generation, especially college students. In this article, White is trying to appeal to the parents and caretakers of the days youth. By emphasizing the idea of a hierarchy in which the illiterate are subservient to the literate, White is attempting to reach directly into the adults desire for their children to have a better life. As an author who regularly contributed The New Yorker, White was well informed as to who his regular audience was: upper-class, highly educated adults, most likely with children and possible grandchildren. With these people in mind, White was able to tailor his writing style towards this particular focus group. Using phrasing that indicates a centrality of civilization around this single, literate human being satiates the desire of most parents for their child to become someone great. When trying to convey his belief that technology will ruin the literary nature of human beings, Whites phrasing and writing style are vitally important. During the writing process for this particular article, he is presented with two possible paths: one criticizing the technological age and condemning any who allow themselves to succumb to the siren song, and one praising those who choose to continue on the path of reading and literacy. For Comment, White decides on the path which allows him to effectively communicate his point to the largest possible group of people: he takes the path of praise. By describing the literate as individuals to whom the rest of the world will be a lower class, White is telling the audience that becoming literate and maintaining the literacy throughout life will result in advancements not available to the rest of the world.

The audience targeted directly by Comments is that of the youth. Instead of using an adult as the link between the author and the subject of the article, White is able to convey his idea directly to the younger generation. As time has progressed, reliance on technology in order to get through daily life has increased tremendously. People are coming to rely on technology more and more for simple tasks and entertainment. The time frame referenced in the article may have expired, but the core idea is still relevant: people in society have become so engrossed in technology that recreational reading has become an almost extinct hobby. The reprinting of E.B. Whites Comment in the Convergences textbook strengthens the original meaning of the article. Whites topic of discussion chosen for Comment is something that is becoming much more common as time progresses. The young generation is trading leisurely novels for technological distractions every day. White, through his article, seeks to reverse this phenomenon. White provides an incentive for people to renew the pursuit of recreational reading and literate mastery, and it is because of this that his article Comment transcends the restrictions of time to become a revelation that every person in todays society, whether young or old, should realize.