Manipulation through Emotion: An Analysis of Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp

Transcription

1 April Weiss ENG 250 FQ 3/5/13 Manipulation through Emotion: An Analysis of Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp If someone accused you of naivety, weakness, and self-absorption, would you change your ways? That is the basic technique in Joy Williams s essay, Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp. In this 2001 essay, Williams takes environmentalism to a new, unique level. Instead of elaborating on a single environmental issue and invoking pity in the audience for poor ducks covered in oil (á la Joe Berlinger in the documentary Crude), she briefly touches on a plethora of problems while utilizing a derogatory tone towards her readers. Williams addresses the general public under the pretense that they have heard of basic ecological issues, like herbicide bans, over-harvesting, and conservation of habitats. She uses strategies in the substance and style of her text to ultimately infuriate her audience and cause them to retaliate by altering their morals and actions for the good of the environment. By accusing her readers of violating the environment due to their self-centeredness, naivety, and helplessness, through the use of references, diction, and phrasing, Williams effectively challenges her audience to prove her wrong by changing their ways in a manner that benefits nature. Two common strategies, references and diction, serve to supplement Williams s most significant stylistic technique evoking anger through directly addressing the audience. Williams uses you repeatedly in her text, making her readers feel involved in her argument and partially to blame for the deterioration of nature. The references Williams incorporates in her essay are relatable to a majority of people, reinforcing the idea that they are not isolated from the

2 environmental issues she is addressing. She alludes to Winston Churchill, Dante s Inferno, realtors, and even Bambi throughout her work, which allows the readers the make a personal connection with her argument. According to Driscoll, when people generate connections from previous knowledge to the information being presented, their thinking shifts from covering the [information] to working with ideas. Thus, as Williams refers to these common, easily relatable subjects, her audience becomes more involved in the argument. She also pulls quotes from Pascal and Joyce Carol Oates (both significant, educated people), which serves to invoke ethos, making her argument seem more credible. Halloran states that ethos is a form of rhetoric that says, in effect, Believe me because I am the sort of person whose word you can believe. Williams is able to exude ethos by using ideas of two notable people to support her argument, which, in turn, validates herself and her claims. So, when she starts accusing her audience of moral turpitude, they are more willing to believe her from her authority and they get angry faster due to their connections and involvement with the argument. Williams s unique diction, joined with her references, effectively frustrates her readers. She uses rich words to emphasize the negativities surrounding modern egocentricity; lavish and incessant are both used in reference to your (the reader s) demands, indicating that they have exceeded acceptable limits (p. 704 & 707). Her word choice also aggravates her readers by depicting the poor conditions in which nature exists today. Harsh descriptions like toxic soup are used in addition to absolute terms like irreplaceable, suggesting that the damage to the environment is permanent (p. 711& 707). Add to this the implication that the reader has contributed to this heinous crime, and Williams has successfully enraged her audience. References and diction are not the only ways Williams angers her audience; the way she frames her statements implies that the readers are incapable of taking care of themselves and are

3 uneducated about the effect their actions have on the environment. Williams spends an entire page elaborating on the concept that people desire and require the tiny masters that create their housing complexes (p. 707). By using master, she suggests that the audience tends to follow developers suggestions without questioning their methods. She also indicates that the readers only take their communities by face value. Williams creates a theme of beauty with lawns, golf course, and artificial lakes in the housing complexes before going behind the scenes and describing the effluent used to treat them (p. 707). She immediately stops this, though, and suggests that the readers do not want to hear about it. This section implies that the audience is only concerned with the pretty surface of their homes, and they are purposefully ignorant to the reality that their lifestyle is damaging the environment. Williams suggests that people accept this fact because they are merely following the suggestions of the tiny masters without question. By implying that her readers are superficial people and that they cannot think logically for themselves, Williams effectively angers her audience. However, Williams is not always as subtle with making unsavory assumptions about her readers; she makes a few blunt statements about her audience s morals, forcing them to harbor frustration throughout her essay. At the very beginning of the essay, Williams states it seems as though far too much attention has been lavished on you lately that your greed and vanities and quest for self-fulfillment have been catered far too much (p. 704). In other words, Williams is implying that the reader is a spoiled person that places themselves above all other beings. Later in the essay, when Williams is describing the confusing nature of housing communities, she says you are lost, you know (p. 708). However, she is not referring to the maze of houses and perfectly trimmed lawns; she is indicating that the reader s moral compass is broken, causing them to make wrong decisions. These outright accusations no doubt anger her audience.

4 There is one more strategy Williams uses to infuriate her audience. She includes phrases and paragraphs from her reader s point of view (or what she suggests is her reader s point of view). Several of these phrases and paragraphs include statements that are clearly wrong or embarrassingly naïve, causing the audience to be offended that Williams implied they would think that. On page 706, Williams writes We re very well informed from the reader s point of view, followed closely by we like those office parks and shopping plazas It s fun. Products are fun. This contrast in adult-like knowledge and child-like simplicity results in an overall feeling of false confidence (they are not well informed) and superficiality (they are only concerned with what is fun ). Another statement on page 708 suggests that the audience is ignorant and uninformed: we ve been at Ventana Canyon. It s in the desert, right? If the speaker has been somewhere, they should know what the environment is like, unless they really did not pay attention to their surroundings. On the next page, another comment hints that the reader is self-oriented: If you really want me to give up my car or my air conditioner, you d better prove to me first that the earth would otherwise be uninhabitable. This statement is perhaps one of the most important in Williams s argument that people put themselves before the environment. Overall, these statements serve to aggravate the reader more than any other technique utilized by Williams. Infuriating the audience with references, diction, and phrasing may seem contradictory to creating support for Williams s argument, but in reality, it is an ingenious, successful technique that fulfills her purpose: convincing her readers to reevaluate their morals in reference to the environment. By angering her readers, Williams spurs them to prove her accusations wrong by acting in a different way a more ecologically friendly way. According to Hofmann and Asmundson s article in Clinical Psychology Review, emotions can be regulated by

5 manipulating the evaluation of the external or internal emotion cues. Williams s repetitive suggestions that her audience is uneducated, naïve, and, most of all, self-centered manipulate her readers to feel angry and defensive, thus regulating their emotions to her advantage. Another psychological article states that reactions are organized by underlying motivational states, including defensive conditions (Bradley et al). By manipulating her readers emotions and making them defensive, Williams ultimately inspires her audience s reaction altering their behavior to prove her wrong. Ultimately, this achieves her desired effect; the readers have now evaluated their morals in reference to the environment and changed their behavior. Williams s appeal to emotion makes this essay a successful though aggravating addition to the volumes of works dedicated to environmentalism.

6 Works Cited 1. Berlinger, Joe, dir. Crude. Entendre Films, Radical Media, Red Envelope Entertainment, Third Eye Motion Picture, First Run Features, Bradley, Margaret M., Codispoti, Maurizio, Cuthbert, Bruce M., and Lang, Peter J. Emotion and motivation I: Defensive and appetitive reactions in picture processing. Emotion. 1.3 (2001): Driscoll, Marcy P. How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have To Do with It) ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology. Web. 25 February Halloran, S. Michael. Aristotle's Concept of Ethos, or If Not His Somebody Else's. Rhetoric Review 1.1 (1982): JSTOR. Web. 25 February Hofmann, Stefan G. and Asmundson, Gordon J. G. Acceptance and mindfulnessbased therapy: New wave or old hat? Clinical Psychology Review (2008): 1-16.