Rhetorical Presic Welcome to Canerland

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Chialuka Odukwu S. Loftin AP Language/ 2A 15 November 2014 “Welcome to Cancerland” by Barbara Ehrenreich Rhetorical Précis Barbara Ehrenreich’s (an American writer and political activist) essay, “Welcome to Cancerland” (2001) express her own personal battle against breast cancer, and how there is more to cancer than shirts, ribbons, and teddy bears. Ehrenereich achieves this by including ethos, about her feelings towards the mammograms she has to do, and how big time companies are taking advantage of cancer. Furthermore, Ehrenreich informs readers that she “will not go into that last good night with a teddy bear tucked under my arm”, (Ehrenreich 323) this show that no matter what, when her time comes it is not going to be in a childish or lovable way. From describing her sense of losing her individuality, and to some extent, her own voice, immediately after a diagnosis had been made; being lost is Ehrenreich’s fear that far too many women succumb to the fear of giving up on personal choice and discretion after being “replaces” by cancer, as it noted in the essay “there is a cancer. I have been replaced by it.” (Ehrenreich 47) Giving the empowering, but also criticizing tone, the essay was not necessary limited to those have or had breast cancer, but extends those who might be at risk to some point in their life, but also to the discerning citizen, who may be wondering just how the hundreds of thousands of supports of breast cancer awareness, are supporting woman’s health in reality.
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