Author, Lars Eighner, in his personal narrative essay, “On Dumpster Diving”, expresses his personal experiences from the streets, and described how the gracious art of dumpster diving carried him through a difficult time in his life. Eighner’s purpose was to enlighten our society on the repression brought upon by ourselves. He adopts a didactic tone, in order to appeal to his beliefs as a scavenger in his generalized audience, especially those who do not understand the life of a scavenger.
Eighner establishes his credibility from the first sentence; “long before I began Dumpster diving” which shows us that this essay comes from personal experience. He then goes on to tell the audience in paragraph 3 that he “began Dumpster diving about a year …show more content…
Logos refers to the appealing of judgement, reason, and logic toward the targeted audience. Throughout the essay, Eighner uses his special knowledge on this subject to supply the reader with a clearer argument. He clearly shows that he knows the subject of dumpster diving well which also lends itself to his credibility (ethos). An example of this is found right in the first sentences of his essay where he states “ I learned from them that it is a proprietary word belonging to the Dempsey Dumpster company. Since then I have dutifully capitalized the word, although it was lowercased in almost all the citations Merriam-Webster photocopied for me.”. By showing his knowledge of terminology he asserts his logical reasoning. Dumpster diving isn’t something we really go out of our way to study. There is a whole world in relation to dumpster diving. Their brains are wired differently. They are in survival mode at all times, and are adaptive to situations. Eighner helps us to see the art behind diving, which is his purpose. They are the recyclers, the scavengers, the foragers. I honestly wasn’t expecting someone with a title such as On Dumpster Diving to produce the logistics he has in this manner, which definitely implies that his logical rhetoric is effectively
Eighner establishes his credibility from the first sentence; “long before I began Dumpster diving” which shows us that this essay comes from personal experience. He then goes on to tell the audience in paragraph 3 that he “began Dumpster diving about a year …show more content…
Logos refers to the appealing of judgement, reason, and logic toward the targeted audience. Throughout the essay, Eighner uses his special knowledge on this subject to supply the reader with a clearer argument. He clearly shows that he knows the subject of dumpster diving well which also lends itself to his credibility (ethos). An example of this is found right in the first sentences of his essay where he states “ I learned from them that it is a proprietary word belonging to the Dempsey Dumpster company. Since then I have dutifully capitalized the word, although it was lowercased in almost all the citations Merriam-Webster photocopied for me.”. By showing his knowledge of terminology he asserts his logical reasoning. Dumpster diving isn’t something we really go out of our way to study. There is a whole world in relation to dumpster diving. Their brains are wired differently. They are in survival mode at all times, and are adaptive to situations. Eighner helps us to see the art behind diving, which is his purpose. They are the recyclers, the scavengers, the foragers. I honestly wasn’t expecting someone with a title such as On Dumpster Diving to produce the logistics he has in this manner, which definitely implies that his logical rhetoric is effectively