Introduction
Mike Rose’s piece is titled “Blue Collar Brilliance.” Author and academic Rose aspires to influence his readers’ worldviews via his writing. The book “Blue Collar Brilliance” was created to dispel the stereotypes that surround manual labor. His own family, he says, exemplifies the kind of intelligence and diligence seen in white-collar workers. Rose successfully persuades his audience in “Blue Collar Brilliance” by appealing to their emotions, logic, and ethics with the use of the rhetorical devices of logos, pathos, and ethos (Rose 272-83).
Thesis Statement: Mike Rose combines logos, pathos, and ethos to persuade his readers that “Blue Collar Brilliance” debunks the stigma associated with physical work.
Rhetorical Analysis
The author makes heavy and direct use of pathos throughout the piece. The author’s use of his mother and other members of his family as examples helps to humanize and impart a feeling of nostalgia to the piece as a whole, which is the basis for this claim. The author utilizes pathos in his writing because it allows him to appeal to his readers’ emotional responses and, in effect, “steal” those responses from the audience. Throughout the piece, Rose employs pathos by introducing members of his family and providing personal experiences to evoke a nostalgic feeling and approachability. The appeal to pathos appeals to the audience’s inherent human sentimentality. While introducing his mom to us, Rose talks about where she works and what she does all day as a waitress. His description of himself as a little boy observing his mother at work resonates with listeners because of the similarities between their own experiences and his. This prompts reflection on their childhoods when they could have seen their parents at work. It’s simple to have a viewpoint on a topic that already interests you; a successful writer, though, can get you interested in something you’d never considered before. Blue-collar employees are the focus of “Blue Collar Radiance,” Mike Rose’s book about people who succeed in their jobs despite having a low level of formal education. The emotional appeal of his writing was its driving force. In the next paragraph, he describes himself as a student. ‘I didn’t perform well in school either,’ he admits in his letter. I had a shaky academic record and a lot of time spent feeling disinterested by the time I was a senior in high school (Rose 275). The audience can’t help but reflect on their school days when reading this statement.
The majority of readers will recognize their own school experiences in the writers’. It will bring up memories of school for everyone, whether they fared miserably like the author or very well. Sometime later, Rose presents his uncle Joe, a man who has had several different occupations. Whether it was in the railroad, the Navy, or General Motors, Uncle Joe always had to start at the bottom and work his way up. Some individuals may have the most difficulty relating to this scenario. In contrast, this may be the most convincing illustration for ex-service members and other persons who have built themselves up from nothing. Those who have experienced working through difficult circumstances have a vivid recall of the toil involved. When writing for an audience, Rose’s ability to add tragedy to his piece is a winning strategy.
Rose makes use of logos by outlining the many abilities needed to do blue-collar work. Logos makes use of proof to appeal to the hearer’s rationality. Rose provides many lists of abilities used by blue-collar professions that are also important for his audience’s white-collar employment. Rose began by enumerating and elaborating on the set of talents she would need to fulfill her role as his mother. Some readers, who may never have dealt with a customer service representative like his mother, may be surprised by his in-depth description of her unconventional methods. Then, Rose describes the abilities that helped his uncle Joe rise from an assembly line job to a management position in GM’s paint and body shop. According to Rose, “As a foreman, Joe frequently confronted additional challenges and became a highly accomplished multi-tasker, assessing a flurry of likely to be presented, allocating mental and physical reserves, maintaining number of events happening in his imagination, bringing it back to whichever assignment had been disrupted, and preserving a calm head under the tension of strenuous production schedules” (277). Working hard and making an effort to expand his knowledge on the job, he helped himself and the teams he was a part of succeed. It would be impossible to claim that any white-collar work is tougher or requires more skill than Joe’s without understanding what happens in a career like his, but the author provides a comprehensive enough account of the abilities he exhibits that this is unlikely. Rose continues by describing the blue-collar job using terms from the white-collar world. By using this language, he may better appeal to the reasoning abilities of his white-collar listeners. Rose’s meticulous description of the variety of abilities required for blue-collar work provides strong support for the article’s usage of logos.
Rose employs ethos by relating the events and experiences that led up to the creation of this piece and by calling into question the credibility of the readership. Ethos is a persuasive argument that emphasizes integrity, honesty, and reliability. To elaborate, Rose says, “Eight years ago I started a study of the cognitive processes engaged in helping including that of my uncle and mother.” I made a list of every blue-collar and service industry job’s mental requirements, from plumbing and welding to waitressing and hairstyling (278). He gains the reader’s trust by providing context for his findings. Readers would have reason to doubt the article’s veracity if they were not provided with this background. By questioning the morals and character of the reader by articulating the hypotheses society makes about blue-collar tasks, he raises some interesting issues. In this passage, Rose alludes to widespread presumptions regarding the IQ of blue-collar employees. After these presumptions, the prerequisite abilities for some of these positions are listed. It makes the readers wonder why they assumed that, to begin with. Rose makes good use of ethos to make his argument, which is especially impressive given the context of the story.
Conclusion
Mike Rose successfully persuades his readers of “Blue Collar Brilliance” by appealing to their emotions, logic, and ethics through his use of the rhetorical devices of logos, pathos, and ethos. The article’s goal is to persuade readers to see things from a different perspective. Some office professionals do not look down on those who work in the trades. Each camp makes assumptions about the other’s beliefs and actions. There isn’t always a prevailing viewpoint. Readers should reflect on their preconceptions regarding white-collar and blue-collar professions after reading this article and empathizing with the character’s perspectives. As people begin to think differently about their work environment, cooperation and productivity should increase.
Work Cited
Rose, Mike. “Blue-Collar Brilliance.” They Say, I Say with Readings, edited by Gerald Graff et al., W.W Norton, 2008, pp. 272-83.
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