The Bird and the Machine

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Hunter Suggs 4-30-13 Pre 2000 Essay The Bird and the Machine With the increasing use of machines in our world, there has always been controversy over the possibility of having machines replace real life. . In "The Bird and the Machine," Loren Eiseley describes how machines will never be able to do what birds do, because they lack the feeling of emotion. Also, in this essay, Birds are portrayed to be humans. Eiseley uses juxtaposition in order to help show the differences between life and machine. For example, he says that "the machine does not bleed, ache, hang for hours in the empty sky in a torment of hope to learn the fate of another machine, nor does it cry out with joy nor dance in the air with the fierce passion of a bird." The author’s tone throughout this essay is straightforward, explaining how machines will never have the capability of humans. He describes this in the quote, “It’s life I believe in, not machines.” I found this interesting because Eiseley is saying that no matter how “smart” machines become, they will never match the human experience. Eiseley also uses rhetorical devices like ethos in order to convey the emotions that a bird has. He describes the bird to "have been soaring restlessly above us for untold hours" to wait for her mate. He appeal to the emotion of sympathy for the bird as she tirelessly soar and wait for the captured. This shows that the birds have emotion and real connection for each other unlike anything a machine can have. Rhetorical devices like ethos and juxtaposition are used throughout Eiseley's passage to convince the reader that birds and machines are truly different. There is no way that machines can act like birds and there is no way machines can replace

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