Humor as a Rhetorical Startagy

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English 101 Essay #1 Humor as a Rhetorical Startagy Known for her award winning novel "Shell Shaker" a book with a collection of Native American Poems and short stories, Leanne Howe uses a couple of her poems from her book to address cultural, racial, historical, emotional and political problems surrounding Native American mascots and perceptions. Howe’s purpose is to reveal to readers how many people have come to view Native Americans and Native American mascots. She adopts a humerous tone in order to appeal to the emotions and experiences of her readers. Using humor as a rhetorical strategy has huge disadvantages, one of which is the point the author is trying to make getting lost in the humor of the publishing. In the comics from the book The World is a Text they use humor to let the audience or reader see a lighter side of sterotyping Native Americans. In Howe’s poem “Noble Savage Confronts Indian Mascot”, she illustrates that a mascot dressed as a Native American is in a Noble Savage's closet riffling through his clothes. The mascot is searching for garments to complete it's costume for the big game that night, when the Noble Savage sees this, he/she ask “What are you doing in my Closet?” In which the mascot responds “Sugar, can I wear your loin cloth to the big game tonight?” (Howe 305) This shows how the mascot is mocking the Noble Savage. By calling him or her sugar as if they we were romantically involved with one another. Asking to borrow the Noble Savage's personal loin cloth to complete his/her costume shows that the mascot believes wearing the Noble Savage’s belongings will make him a Native American in the eyes of the crowd, when the fact is the crowd would have no idea of the difference between a loin cloth bought from a store or if the loin cloth belonged to an actual Native American. The mascot and the noble savage converse back and forth
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