REHUGO

Waleed Ahmed

Mr. Soeth

English 3 AP

January 26, 2011

REHUGO Analysis – Essay

A. "In Search of the Good Family"- author: Jane Howard

B. In the article, Jane Howard states how, as a human, one cannot live without the company of a clan or tribe. Mankind seeks relationships and also seeks to create meaningful families.

C. “Wishing to be friends, as Aristotle wrote, is quick work, but friendship is a slowly ripening fruit.” Using ethos, Howard references an allusion to an ancient proverb by Aristotle in order to describe how the strongest relationships are formed through time. Effectiveness from this example comes from how the reader can draw a correlation between the given example and that of a long-lasting marriage. A marriage, for example, is a relationship through which much time is spent between partners and many difficulties have been overcome. Since the author’s point was to prove that friendships grow slowly, the valid example of marriage helps the Howard’s argument.

Ethos was used once again as Howard referenced Kurt Vonnegut, Jr’s Slapstick in order to emphasize the concept of “extended families,” or how we as humans form relationships with those other than relatives. Vonnegut’s book described how a newborn would be assigned a random middle along with a number to signify that they belong to a family other than their own. The concept from the book explains how “human beings need all the relatives they can get – as possible donors or receivers not of love but of common decency.” The reference and how humans recognize others besides kin to be part of a family draws a comparison that strengthens Howard’s argument.

D. Juxtaposition occurs as Howard goes into describing how humans hold “support systems.” However, the author does not define what “support systems” are to the reader. Instead, Howard goes into comparing how Scandinavia and Japan hold different and more ingenious views of family, or “support systems,” than America with the use of a rhetorical question. By providing the reader with the question and a comparison between the families of other countries and America, the author wishes to urge the reader to imitate the practices of the example nations.

As Howard states her 10 observations on what make good families, her similar organization of sentences in the paragraphs is repeated. Using deduction, the author states a brief, general statement and proceeds into giving examples from not only history, but personal experiences, as well. For example, in the sixth observed characteristic of good families, Howard first states that “Good families prize their rituals.” She then proceeds into stating that “a clan becomes more of a clan each time it gathers to observe a fixed ritual.” Finally she concludes her paragraph by stating “I used to meet for lunch every Pearl Harbor Day…to ‘forgive’ our only ancestrally Japanese friend, Irene Kubota Neves.” Since all of Howard’s observation paragraphs follow this pattern, the reader can infer that the author is trying to emphasize the effectiveness of families and situations in which they occur.

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.