Rock And Roll
In the essay "Raised on Rock-and-Roll", Anna Quindlen talks about the effects of rock-and-roll on peoples lives. Quindlen uses logic, character, and emotion to help her in the argument about rock-and-roll. She uses these in a few different ways and now they will be explained.
Quindlen uses logic by talking about the past. How television shows that are old are still being played today. She didn't watch those shows. She watched American Bandstand. Quindlen states, "My earliest television memory is of American Bandstand, and the central question of my childhood was: Can you dance to it?". She telling us that everyone has seen these old shows, just like everyone has listened to rock-and-roll. Quindlen feels the same about rock-and-roll as the viewers feel about the old shows. Another thing that she touches on is the lyrics. She believes that the lyrics are not the point of rock-and-roll, that feeling is. At one point Quindlen says, "Some of them don't understand it, like the Senate wives who said that records should have rating stickers on them so that you would know whether the lyrics were dirty." When Quindlen knows that the kids in the neighbor don't care about the stickers.
Quindlen moves into character by talking like you are in front of her. She starts the essay off by saying, "Mister Ed is back on television, indicating that, as most middle-of-the-road antique shops suggestsÂ…". This shows that she is talking directly to someone ,like being in a conversation with you. Quindlen also takes it back to growing up on rock-and-roll. She states, "I was born in Philadelphia, a city where if you can't dance you might as well stay home, and I was raised on rock-and-roll."
Throughout the essay Quindlen also argues with emotion. "I love rock-and-roll because in a time of talk, talk, talk, it's about action."(Anna Quindlen 242). She knows what she feels. She says, "I feel the way I felt when I first heard it. I feel good, as James Brown says."...
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