The Cult Of Busyness Rhetorical Analysis

One of the greatest struggles that modern society has come to face is the balancing and dealing with the issue of busyness and this the crux of Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay, “The Cult of Busyness.” Ehrenreich’s arguments are based on the premise that society has adopted this social contagion that busyness is related to success. She argues that this misconception has lead many people to suffer from the consequences of busyness which influence many aspects of their life. Barbara develops her argument’s through appeals, directed to modern society, to ethos and logos, to stress how there are many problems and consequences of busyness. Ehrenreich’s appeal to ethos is directed to those working individuals that are being pressurized to be busy to attain success, and as result suffer from the consequences. In paragraph eight she speaks to her own experiences working as a waitress, allowing her to have the credibility to attest to how some of “the busiest people will never be successful”(Ehrenreich …show more content…
In the first paragraphs of the essay it is almost unidentifiable if she is making a mockery of busyness or appreciating the struggle made by these people. It is only through the development of her essay that it begins to become clear, that she is attempting to shed light onto those that claim to be busy. She pokes fun at how people have made it a necessity for one to be busy, appealing to pathos. The readers began to see how pointless it is to be busy if the stress is so sickening to one that it calls for the “abusing of whit wine” and the leading of “less time for worthwhile activities”(para 1, 9). This leads the audience to conclude that to be busy we have begun to distract ourselves from the meaningful elements of life, and instead have diverted our attention to activities that give back to us no