Prestigious Kate Middleton?

In chapter five of “Thank You For Arguing” Heinricks touches a very interesting topic of rhetoric and social power: Decorum. After I read what decorum was and how it is used I realized how much public figures use decorum to appeal their audience.

In this chapter Henricks gives a very interesting example of how Eminem’s success is related to his use of decorum. Normally rappers are balck, and Eminem is white which made him lose respect. But he used decorum to make him gain respect of the dance club crowd, and make them forget his skin color. By using “proper attire:  a stupid skull cap, clothes a few too big and as much blings as he can afford,” he made people treat him equally. If he hadn’t used decorum, he probably woudnt have been the person that he is today.

Decorum is what people use to “match the audience’s expectations for a leader’s tone, appearance, and manners,” (46) and this reminds me what Kate Middleton has done to appeal to the public. When she arrived to the royal family, many didn’t like her because she wasn’t pure blue blood. But this didn’t make Kate quit. She used decorum to appeal to the audience by dressing appropriately and conservatively. Also, she was always very nice and worked with the community, and doing so made her one of the most loved by the public of the Royal family. By her decorum, she was able to make people set aside her background, and instead focus on her as a person.

If Kate hadn’t used deocurm appropriately she woudnt have gained the love of the public. She wouldn’t have been able to persuade the public that she was capable of her role. If it hadn’t been for decorum, she wouldn’t be the prestigious Kate Middleton we  know today. 

The Feeling

As I advance Joan Didion’s memoir I communicate with her. Her writing isn’t trying to prove that she is all that, instead she speaks about her weaknesses as she experienced a moment in her life that marked her forever. As I was reading, something that impacted me was how she believed that she could “bring him back.” (37) All I kept saying to myself was that this couldn’t happen, it isn’t fiction. He’s dead. But I couldn’t stop to think that this is something common in most grieves, and I have presenced it.

Although death is a part of life, it will always be something that we don’t want to accept, or at least that’s what I believe. Questions that will always be on my mind are: what does it feel to die? When are we ready to die? Is there a chance that we know when we are going to die? Joan Didion demonstrates that we do wonder about these things when she talks about how weeks before he died, he gave all his ideas to Joan so that she would write about them. He knew that he wasn’t going to write another book. I do not know if these are just things that we start paying attention to because we analyze the events before the tragedy. But it is definitely something that made me think about the power of knowing or controlling death. For instance when my grandfather was dying he only died after my aunt arrived from the states. He was able to hold on for a little longer. How powerful are we as human beings?

Grief is the worst part about death. The people that are left behind are the ones that miss that person most, and never want to let them go. It is until we let them go, that we can start recovering, because as Joan said, grief is an illness. When Joan says that she didn’t want to give Johns shoes away because “he would need his shoes if he were to return” (37) demonstrated how Joan was in denial when her husband died. This was the same case with my grandfather’s death. My mother was in denial. When her friends called her to see how she was doing she always seemed fine, she didn’t understand why they would need to give her father’s clothes away. There were even times when she called him automatically. But it was an year later when she realized he was gone, got sad, but was able to let go.

I admire how Joan Didion published this memoir. She talks about her difficulties not only with her husband’s death, but as well dealing with her daughter’s illness. She doesn’t make herself seem heroic, instead she expresses what she was feeling, and slow and unconsciously she lets go. 

Ordinary Instant

After reading the first couple of pages of Joan Didion’s “Magical Thinking” I felt kind of light headed. She narrated everything with great detail that made me feel as if I was with her precensing her husband’s death.  As I was reading how her husband had died I couldn’t stop to think about the things that have happened in my life that have come to me as a shock. As it did for her.

Joan Didion was having an ordinary dinner with her husband and in an “ordinary instant… he was gone.”(4) Joan Didion expressed John’s death in an honest and detailed way that reminded me to those “ordinary instants” that have changed the lives of people I know. Recently, one of my good friends was riding his motorcycle in the track. It was an “ordinary” activity he did on weekends, and a fall turned into one that changed his life in an “ordinary instant.” Now he isn’t able to walk, and his life transformed in a matter of seconds. When I was told about this tragedy I didn’t believe it, or at least I didn’t want to. It came to me as a shock, as it did for Joan Didion. Although I wasn’t there to presence it, I presenced the outcome later on, and never had I experienced something so unreal but real at the same time. At first I couldn’t accept the fact of my friends reality. Neither could Joan. But as time has passed, and we have all faced his reality I can process easier this tragedy.

What I have learned from my own experience as well as from others, is that there are many different types of pain, grief and also different ways to approach it. I know of many people that ignore the new reality that they are living as a mechanism of defense so that they don’t suffer. Others are very open about it, do some sort of activity, or others write about it like in Joan Didion’s case. And that is what has made me reflect about how I’ve dealt with the hard things in life. I realized that many times I have written down my frustrations, pain and grief. It is a way to let out what I am feeling without others realizing it, as I am doing now. This doesn’t mean I don’t talk about what I feel, but I can understand why Joan Didion sometimes goes around in circles and includes so many details. It’s a therapy.

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” –Joan Didion

Not Anymore Dad

After reading chapters one and two of Thank You for Arguing I realized how much rhetoric is in my life and how much I can learn from this book to implement it better. Jay Heinricks begins his first chapter by narrating a time where he argued with his son, and used rhetoric to win the argument without his son actually knowing. After I read this part I couldn’t stop thinking how my father does this to me every time.

My father is one of the most forgetful people I know, or at least he pretends to be. Every time he is going for work he forgets his car keys and its so irritating because he always asks me to go to the parking lot and give them to him. When I am getting ready for school, and my Dad shuts the door its only a matter of seconds to receive a phone call instructing me to go to his closet, open the drawer and take his car keys. It doesn’t only frustrate me that he does this almost everyday, but also that he keeps on promising that he wont do it again.  He is very  

When my cell phone rings around 6:10 I always do the same thing. I speak with an irritated voice to my Dad and he manipulates the situation so that I seem as if I were the bad guy. He uses the future tense, which as Aristotle says is what guarantees peace. He always says “I’m sorry honey, it wont happen again I promise, its just that I have a lot of things on my mind”. This makes me feel sorry for him, so I leave my frustration aside and give him his keys with a smile. But next time it won’t be the same. I’m not sure how it is that I will respond, but Ill keep on reading this book so I know how to win the argument. I’m tired of starting my day by going to the parking lot. 

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