The essay Daddy issues is written by Sandra Tsing Loh who is an American writer, actress, and radio personality. This essay appeared in the March 2012 issue of The Atlantic magazine. The subject of the essay is aging parents and how it affects their children’s life. Tsing Loh presents the essay in an informal and intimate format. Tsing Loh expertly blends several authors of books on aging parents and her own personal experience together to write an essay words that not only is entertaining but also educational. Her use of descriptive and uncommon and phrases such as elderschadenfreude, adds to the uniqueness of Tsing Low’s writing style. The books that are being reviewed in this essay are: The Bill from …show more content…
Tsing Loh uses the tone of the essay to ensure the reader understands the writers’ stance on her aging Father. The tone of the essay is depressing, negative and an almost malicious when discussing her father although Tsing Loh is expecting sympathy and understanding. Tsing Loh starts the essay off making the reader feel like she is upset with her father is living due to being forced to care for her aging parents. She continues throughout the essay to write in a somber view of caring for aging parents. The writer uses comparison when describing her current situation allowing the reader to be fully understand how she feels and gain an emotion response from the reader. She accomplishes this by comparing herself to a Kafka character who kills himself even though he has much to live for. Tsing Loh build on her tone by using various statements that are bold that are not socially acceptable, for example:” I almost don’t know what I envy Bernard Cooper for more—his incomparable literary genius or the fact that his father is dead.” Although the writer in this instance is complementing Bernard Cooper’s writing style the write she adds a negative tone by envying the fact his father has died. ” The Tsing Loh tries to make the situations she is describing seem humorous with the use of sarcasm, however, the humor becomes lost due to the negativity in the statement, as an example: “With a sudden angry snort, my father woke up. I won’t say I …show more content…
Tsing Loh shows logos with the use of statistics, passages from the books she is reviewing and personal anecdotes when discussing aging parents to ensure readers understand why caring for aging parents can be frustrating. Tsing Loh uses statistical information on the aging population including longevity and costs associated with aging. Tsing Loh uses passages from the books she is reviewing to give the reader background information on aging parents. Tsing Loh uses quotes from the three authors and their books to builds up logical appeal in her essay by informing readers about issues they may not have been aware. One good example is by Chides Gross: “Medicaid is a confusing and potentially boring subject, depending on how you feel about numbers and abstruse government policy, but it’s essential for you to understand.” Tsing Loh uses personal anecdotes to educate the reader on the reasons why caring for an aging parent is difficult, for example the abruptness of caring for aging parents, safety issues, sexual and cost of her father’s nursing care. Furthermore, Tsing Loh uses logos effectively to persuade the reader into understanding her point of view on how difficult it is to care for aging