Farm Girl
Christina Anderson
Mr. Kingsley
Eng105
1 February 2012
Life Lessons from the Farm
Jessica Hemauer’s essay, “Farm Girl,” tells her life story of living on a farm through her eyes as ten-year-old child to the time of her early adulthood. The purpose of this piece is to teach the importance of life's responsibilities to children, mainly female, and young adults who may not be familiar with the challenges life can bring and to promote the benefits you can gain by overcoming those obstacles. Hemauer uses pathos, which appeals to emotion, logos, designed to engage our logic, and ethos, to prove its credibility, to convey that though growing up on a family farm was a struggle day-to-day, it was valuable life lesson because it shaped her into the well-rounded and hard working person she is today.
The essay opens with Hemauer’s with the immediate use of pathos to capture the audience’s emotions and to gain their sympathy towards Jessica. This is seen in the first sentence, when she is begrudgingly awakened by her alarm clock, “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It’s 5:00 a.m. My eyes are heavy with sleep and struggle to open”(83). Hemauer uses specific words to achieve ethos, such as, “heavy” and “struggle” to convey that, at age ten, she was already faced with tremendous responsibility and commitment everyday, when she heard the sound of her alarm clock. The use of “5:00 a.m.” also is used to attain sympathy because, in most cases, five in the morning would bring about a sense of disdain at any age, which can then relate back to Hemauer’s audience. Hemauer wants the young readers to attain that sympathy while reading the story so that they may reflect on their own lives and recognize the privileges they have, such as, not having to wake up at five in the morning everyday, and be grateful for them.
Hamauer continues with her use of pathos to awaken the readers of the true struggle and difficulty that is attached to being a young person with responsibilities. While walking down the
Mr. Kingsley
Eng105
1 February 2012
Life Lessons from the Farm
Jessica Hemauer’s essay, “Farm Girl,” tells her life story of living on a farm through her eyes as ten-year-old child to the time of her early adulthood. The purpose of this piece is to teach the importance of life's responsibilities to children, mainly female, and young adults who may not be familiar with the challenges life can bring and to promote the benefits you can gain by overcoming those obstacles. Hemauer uses pathos, which appeals to emotion, logos, designed to engage our logic, and ethos, to prove its credibility, to convey that though growing up on a family farm was a struggle day-to-day, it was valuable life lesson because it shaped her into the well-rounded and hard working person she is today.
The essay opens with Hemauer’s with the immediate use of pathos to capture the audience’s emotions and to gain their sympathy towards Jessica. This is seen in the first sentence, when she is begrudgingly awakened by her alarm clock, “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It’s 5:00 a.m. My eyes are heavy with sleep and struggle to open”(83). Hemauer uses specific words to achieve ethos, such as, “heavy” and “struggle” to convey that, at age ten, she was already faced with tremendous responsibility and commitment everyday, when she heard the sound of her alarm clock. The use of “5:00 a.m.” also is used to attain sympathy because, in most cases, five in the morning would bring about a sense of disdain at any age, which can then relate back to Hemauer’s audience. Hemauer wants the young readers to attain that sympathy while reading the story so that they may reflect on their own lives and recognize the privileges they have, such as, not having to wake up at five in the morning everyday, and be grateful for them.
Hamauer continues with her use of pathos to awaken the readers of the true struggle and difficulty that is attached to being a young person with responsibilities. While walking down the