Kevin Sung
Period 1
1/26/10
REHUGO- Essay


A. The article, “In search of a good family,” is written by Jane Howard

B. Jane Howard supports the position that we need to live by families or clans to function in society, and there are ways to live effectively through a clan. In essence, we seek these clans and to live effectively through them.


C. The author provides much evidence to support her claim. Her evidence mainly enforces the use of ethos to establish credibility. For example, the author includes a quote from Susanne Langer (an author), “most people have no home that is a symbol of their childhood, not even a definite memory of one place to serve that purpose, all the old symbols are gone.” (287). The author uses this quote as evidence to support her claim that there are ways to live effectively in a clan. Right before the quote, the author asserts that one way in which clans must live effectively is that they must have a sense of place. The author uses this quote to imply that it is getting harder and harder for us to find our own sense of place. There is no definite memory that lives within us. This creates a pathway for the author to state clearly that: therefore, we need clans and families so that we can work together and find this sense of place.

Furthermore, the author also includes a quote from Helen, a social scientist. “ If you are voluntarily childless and alone, it gets harder and harder with the passage of time. Its stressful, that’s why you need support systems.” (284) The author uses this quote to support her claim that we need clans and families to function in society. The quote directly states that we need some type of support system. This also provides a gateway for the author to explicitly state that this support system
is seen through families and clans.

D. Rhetorical Questions: Howard uses rhetorical questions in order to imply the need for support systems and families. For example he poses questions like: “are there not thriving mega-families of as many as three hundred people in Scandinavia? Have not the Japanese for years had an honored, enduring custom of adopting nonrelatives to fill gaps in their families? Should we not applaud and maybe imitate such ingenuity.” The author is implying that even Japan and Scandinavia have been functioning through big families. In this context, Japan and Scandinavia are being used as sources of credibility. Ultimately, the author poses these questions to support his claim that we need families to function, just like Japan and Scandinavia.

Ethos: The author uses ethos mainly to establish her credibility. For example, the author includes an ideology from a prominent philosopher named Aristotle. “wishing to be friends, as Aristotle wrote, is quick work, but friendship is a slowly ripening fruit. An ancient proverb he quotes in his Ethics had it that you cannot know a man until you and he together have eaten a peck of salt.” (284). Through this quote, the author implies that true friendship comes from enduring hardships together and profoundly understanding each other. This provides a transition for the author to state that this is what clans must and seek to do. The entities within a certain clan seek to understand each other. By quoting Aristotle, the author makes her argument credible.

Sources:

Shea, Renee Hausmann., Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin. Aufses. The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing and Rhetoric. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. Print.