Rhetorical Analysis of Kingsolver

In Barbara Kingsolver’s writing, she uses many different techniques to get her point across. By the end of the piece of work, Kingsolver wants the reader to feel like they are able to do the same thing that she was able to do. One of the main things that Barbara Kingsolver does in her writing is that she uses a lot of humor in her pieces and books. In Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the beginning of the book starts out with an anecdote, describing her and her families first steps to the year they were about to embark on. She uses humor as she describes that their first stop was at a gas station to get some fossil fuels and junk food, just to through a little bit of irony to what they were about to do for a year. In Lily’s Chickens, Barbara Kingsolver also uses humor in the beginning, and throughout the essay. One part of her humor is this “To be five years old and have some other life form entirely under your control- not counting goldfish or parents- is a majestic state of affairs”. This adds humor because it is saying that the five year old has control of her parents. Another thing that Kingsolver does is that she does not scare off her audience, she makes herself relatable. The same thing that was comical in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle also shows that Kingsolver is relatable. She is showing that even though she was able to finish this amazing task of living off of the land for a year, she, and her family, still like these junk foods, and that way she is just like us and our families. This also allows Kingsolver to gain credibility because she is not attacking the audience, and making them feel bad for it, but she is making herself seem more like us, which readers like to hear. Kingsolver also does not separate herself from the audience, she saws things that include her and the audience in one big group instead of blaming and telling the audience that they did something wrong. Instead of doing that she includes herself with the audience which also helps her gain her credibility and makes her more relatable. Kingsolver also uses a lot of pathos, ethos and logos to create more effective writing. The logos in her writing also gives her more credibility by stating true and correct statistics and facts, while the pathos of her writing appeals to the emotions of the reader, and the ethos of the writing gives it a more real, and personal touch. Kingsolver uses all of these different techniques to make her writing effective and really reach out to the reader, and truly getting her final message to the reader.