Rhetorical Analysis

1060 Words5 Pages
Nothing But Nets by Rick Reilly We see nets everywhere in the course of a day: basketball nets, fishnets, ping pong nets-the list goes on. It is such a common sight that we do not even care about it; there are things more important and interesting like sports, business, and music. It is hard to imagine a life in which something as simple and plain as a net could be the difference between life and death. It is unbelievable, but this is a reality in Africa where kids die every day because they are not being protected from bugs by this plain thing: a mosquito net. This is the subject Rick Reilly discusses in his article "Nothing but Nets." Throughout this article, Reilly successfully makes his thesis real; engaging the reader by using imagery and analogies; clear by using repetition and tone; and effective by using logical statements. To provide the reader a real idea of the thesis, Reilly uses imagery and descriptive analogies. To apply these devices the author mainly relates his thesis with one central idea: the image of death. This image - the most important, overreaching idea in this section - concerns each person differently; some people do not get the image of how big those numbers are, so relating the image of the Malaria issue with something more familiar, like "nearly 3,000 kids die every day in Africa from malaria.that's a 9/11 every day!" (Reilly 9). Reilly strengthens his thesis by comparing the foreign disease to a terrorist attack that is close to the hearts of many Americans. The author also maintains this connection by giving descriptive analogies that fall close to home. "Put it this way," Reilly muses. "Let's say your little Justin's Kickin' Kangaroos have a big youth soccer tournament . Suddenly, every one of these kids gets chills and fever, then starts throwing up and then gets short of breath. And in seven to 10 days, they're all dead of
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