Roush

1 Claire Roush Prof. Domini English 250 9 February 2012

Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

I chose an essay from page 185 of the Aims of Argument text, titled The Paradox of Narcissism. The essay is a selection from In Search of Happiness: Understanding an Endangered State of Mind, a book by clinical psychologist Dr. John F. Schumaker. I chose this essay because I read the book a couple years ago and found it very interesting. There were a few heavy ethical questions raised in the essay. Dr. Schumaker holds that narcissism, as western culture has normalized it, is in many ways immoral. The question of the morality of selfishness and something like Ayn Rands philosophy of objectivism are things that are very closely related to this area of Dr. Schumakers argument. Though I did not explicitly mention these two things in my rhetorical analysis, my knowledge of them definitely influenced my essay. I discussed the ethical questions raised in Dr. Schumakers essay in my conclusion. I argued that while Dr. Schumaker challenges our ideas of morality by asserting that something normalized in our culture narcissism is inherently immoral, this is not the main purpose of the essay. The author instead appeals to our instincts of self-preservation and preservation of society by arguing that narcissism is unhealthy and ultimately destructive (page 4 of my rhetorical analysis). Ethics, however, is closely

Roush 2 related to these sentiments. I now realize that I did not discuss the ethical questions raised in The Paradox of Narcissism as much as I should have in my analysis. The ethical aspects of narcissism carry much more weight than I realized at the time of composition. My thesis was that the authors motivation was one of inquiry into the rise of promotion of narcissism in western culture, and examination of the negative psychological impact associated with it. My major premise was that as a clinical psychologist and academic, Dr. Schumakers motivation was surely one of inquiry, by virtue of his occupation. In hindsight, however, I believe that the essay is one of persuasion as well as inquiry. It would have been more appropriate, then, to examine what the author is trying to persuade readers of as well as analyze the information and how it is delivered. I think that my essay was organized well, though this was difficult for me to accomplish at times. The structure was well-constructed and allowed readers to follow information and arguments easily. My thesis and purpose was clear and well supported, although partially misguided. In the last assignment, I struggled with organization. In this rhetorical analysis assignment, I tried a new technique to guide the initial outline. The outline and draft served as a backbone while I fleshed out the essay. This proved to be much easier and cleaner than attempting to complete the paper on the fly without a firm skeleton. I used index cards with different pieces of information, arguments, and ideas that I would like to include in my analysis. I then moved the index cards into different positions on the floor or desk to try different organization layouts until I found something that I thought worked well. Once the index cards were organized, I created the outline, and then wrote the rough

Roush 3 draft from the outline. I had never gone this route before I tend to just power through the paper and try to complete it mostly in one go and I think that my essay benefited quite a bit from it. Another thing I struggled with while writing my rhetorical analysis was using unnecessarily complex language and big words. In my last assignment, my grade suffered a bit from this problem. It was also mentioned in conference. It is a hard habit to break, as I have written this way for quite some time and it seems to be a natural writing style now. However, I realize the benefits in staying away from such unnecessary complexity or wordiness. In retrospect I see that I didnt stay as far away from this problem as I would have liked. I intend to work on this problem - among others that have come to my attention in this class - in future assignments.