The Great Influenza Rhetorical Analysis Essay

In this passage from John M. Barry’s book, The Great Influenza, an account of the 1918 flu epidemic, he writes about scientists and their research. Barry’s purpose is to have his reader question everything so that reality can be found in the end. He utilizes the use of anaphora, imagery, extended metaphor, and rhetorical questions to make the reader reflect in a scientific way. To set the stage, Barry starts off by structuring his first paragraph anaphorically to give the reader two choices: the path of “certainty” or the path of “uncertainty.” By doing this Barry creates a contradicting statement forcing the reader to think which path they belong to. As the reader reflect upon that Barry leads into the next paragraph describing …show more content…
Now the reader doesn’t know what to think and questions what Barry is saying. As the reader is confused Barry rebuilds his credibility, as a scientific author, by quoting great French physiologist Claude Bernard and references to awarded scientist Albert Einstein. Now that the reader has been told even professional, famous, scientist rely on uncertainty they can trust what is going to be written throughout the rest of the passage. In the succeeding paragraphs Barry continues to explain to the reader uncertainty and why one should question everything through the use of imagery and extended metaphors. Within the first few sentences, Barry constructs a strong image of how scientists and uncertainty interact. By using the term “frontier” the reader is draw a picture of a vast, open, unexplored landscape that is their waiting to be explored. Barry does this to reference how all kinds of scientists are faced with something similar to the unknown within their field of study. From exploring the jungle of the Amazon to bisecting a cell in a lab these are a