Rhetorical Strategies Essay

703 Words3 Pages
“Miss Evers’ Boys” Analysis Essay The play “Miss Evers’ Boys” is based on the Tuskegee experiment. Briefly, the Tuskegee experiment was a study of the progression of syphilis in black male, conducted in Tuskegee, Alabama. The main character of the play “Miss Evers’ Boys” is Ms.Evers who is a public health nurse. In the play, she is portrayed as a caring and loving nurse, who is willing to do anything for her patients. Throughout the play, the audience is able to witness the complexity of her characters and the moral dilemma she faces. David Feldshih, the author of the play uses her childhood story and history during the time period of 1930s to 1940s in order to reveal the conflicts. In the first passage, Feldshih introduces the audience to Ms.Evers and her father. This passage reveals the true reason why Ms.Evers wanted to become a nurse. Feldshih describes her father’s death as her inspiration of becoming a nurse. “As a little girl, I would run Sunday mornings to watch him raise his arm high up over his head so that he could reach a tin can that he had hidden behind an oak crossbeam above the entranceway to our kitchen.” This shows the audience the relationship between Ms.Evers and her father, how they were really close to each other, and how they both loved each other. However, this strong and healthy father died in just a few days. “Pneumonia” took away his life. “Something I hated. ‘Pneumonia,’ they called it. I hated that ‘Pneumonia’ and I held that hate in the back of my mind waiting for the day when something would come along to destroy that ‘Pneumonia’ as easily as my father had swung me up in his arms the Sunday of my fifth birthday.” Ms.Evers knew that it was wrong to continue on the study. Yet she couldn’t just leave these men. She wanted to stay with the men and believe that there is still hope because she couldn’t help her father years ago.
Open Document