Analysis Of Bob Hicok's Calling Him Back From Layoff

“Get back to work or you’re fired!” is what Benson from Regular Show finds himself saying to Mordecai and Rigby on a daily basis. While this phrase adds a comedic effect to the show, it has a completely different dynamic once applied to the real world. In actuality, being dismissed is a serious situation, and Bob Hicok addresses this pressing process in his poem “Calling Him Back from Layoff.” Through Hicok’s creative use of logos, conspicuous use of pathos, and ambiguous utilization of ethos, he demonstrates that being fired is difficult on both the employer and the employee.
The author chooses a rather artistic approach to applying logical appeal to convey the message that firing someone is a grueling decision. The facts are not explicitly stated; the reader has to use deductive reasoning to come to a couple of significant …show more content…
Both points of view are illustrated in the poem, so the reader is unable to determine how he is connected to the topic of being let go. For example, in the middle of the poem, the employee confesses his “fear and poverty” (Hicok 397) that resulted from his initial termination. This alone can imply a few circumstances. The obvious one is that Hicok himself could have been fired at one time in his life, and perhaps he resorted to writing to temporarily earn some money until he can get back on his feet. However, Hicok might know a close relative that has been through this process, and as a result he was a firsthand witness to the whole ordeal. On the other hand, throughout the poem, the employer attempts to ease his guilty conscience regarding his moral dilemma. Though highly improbable, this suggests that Hicok might have a side job that involves owning a small business, and he had to let some people go. Thus, his plausibility on the subject of being fired is dubious. Nevertheless, by presenting the two sides of the layoff equation, Hicok still manages to effectively get his point