A Prryhic Victory Analysis

ENGL 2, MWF 1210 Jordan Morgan November 9, 2012 A pyrrhic Victory Analysis For old age thither has been the never-ending controversial present field regarding pencil eraser being distri yeted within the unify States high schools. January 8, 1994, Anna Quindlen publishes her member, A Pyrrhic Victory, in the New York Times, where she states that non allowing safety devices to be distributed in high schools is self-defeating, harmful to pupils, and inconvenient for pargonnts.Quindlen onsets to sway indorsers, but is non completely successful. Quindlen provides a rhetorical case that is mean to exhibit a indispensableness for condom diffusion within the schools. She, thence, introduces Dr. Cohall as an authority meet and explains that the opt- discover idea, from the previous example, is likely to be used. Quindlen provides barren human bodys ab kayoed genderually transmit diseases and gives specific examples that atomic number 18 intended to debate that pro ves are not adequately education their children.Further more(prenominal)(prenominal), she claims that many of her opponents live in Fantasyland and then provides a specific example that is intended to demonstrate this. Finally, Quindlen claims that condoms are not the authoritative issue, but deeper parent-child difficulties are. Quindlen was aiming for a specific reception from the reader. Her main goal is to persuade the reader enough that they will end up viewing her opinion on condom dispersion as if it were their own. Because her article r all(prenominal)es come stunned to readers of all ages, she is hoping that it would move her readers into taking satisfy upon this issue.She wants students in high school to beginning demanding that their schools provide them with condoms, and she hopes that those who are faculty at schools stand up and start distributing them. As a result of her article, Quindlen is hoping to make a difference mediocre by make her article. In the very set-back time of Quindlens article she says, Pop quiz. By using his disputation she is identifying roles. In school, the tutorer is the person who would give a depart quiz afterwards educateing some matter. So by saying this she creates a subject berth that makes her the teacher, and the readers are the students.By stating this phase she is naming the responsibilities of the teacher and student. Quindlen, as the teacher, has the right to teach that condom distribution is the right thing to do, while the readers are expected to just intake this information as if there are no other options. She provides a scenario of a high school male child who was denied a condom from the school nourish and in result, he got a sexually transmitted disease. After this scenario, she provides a five-fold choice question that implies that there is still one correct answer, hers.Although Quindlen has identified who the student and teacher are, her implement fails because students, qui te frequently, nauseate their teachers. By immediately springing a bulk quiz on the reader, she has irritated the readers by making them emotionally inferior to her. This in any casel is inefficient because Quindlen blindsides her readers with unexpected emotion. Quindlen introduces Dr. Cohall, a paediatrician into her article where she refers to him as a fighter aircraft of condom distribution. Just because Dr. Cohall is a pediatrician does not make him a stomach of condom distribution, let alone a champion at all.Pediatricians work with newborn children who are not sexually active, hence sexually transmitted diseases would not be present and there would be no reason to be distributing condoms in that profession. Dr. Cohall subsequent states that there were one cardinal and cubic decimeter graphemes of sexually transmitted diseases within the tether high school clinics that he establish on in 1992. Quindlen rephrases Cohalls statement and writes it as 150 cases to purposely set out the readers attention and to make them react as if that is a large number of cases. Also, these cases could by chance be a repeated case for the same person.For example, one student brush aside pay five cases, another could suck up three, and so forth. This number misrepresents how many students are reporting sexually transmitted diseases. Also, Dr. Cohall does not state the total number of students at each of the three schools. There could be two hundred students and one hundred and fifty cases could have a sexually transmitted disease, or there could be one hundred and fifty cases out of two thousand students. The total number is not explained which weakens her credit line. She also represents the number of cases feature within three schools, which means that each school has approximately fifty cases.That does not sound nearly as large(p) as what she stated. Dr. Cohall is simply providing raw numbers, which leaves a lot of uncertainty. If Dr. Coholl had r eported his numbers as a general population he would have a much higher(prenominal) authority. Therefore, Dr. Coholl has little creditability and is not much of a resource for Quindlen. Quindlen refers to Dr. Cohall, again, and tells the romance of what happened to a little missy whose draw nominate out that she is sexually active. According to the teenage girlfriend, her mother found her birth control pills, seized her by the pharynx and said, I brought you into this world I croup take you out of it. After this threat, the girl squeezed out of her mothers grasp and jumped out her window to escape her mother and in result, broke her leg. Quindlen uses this story as an example of her idea of parent-child sex talks. This example is not logical. The reason the girl was attempt to escape her mother in the first place is because she feared for her life, so it would make no sense for her to turn around and risk of exposure her life by jumping out of the window. Again, this sour ce is not liable. The typical parent approaches this subject in a very sensitive matter and avoids attacking their child.Due to the circumstance that her source in not credible and her example is too extreme, Quindlens melodic line is flawed and ineffective. Quindlen explains the problems she has with ABC Network because they have removed the commercials about condoms during primetime tv. ABC complained that condoms were too inappropriate for family-oriented television, when in fact, the condom commercials were pocket-size and informative. Quindlen provides an analogy between condom commercials and the primetime television provide Roseanne. She states that the show is much more bunsdid about sexual action mechanism than the condom commercials.Roseanne shows the indiscrete sexual birth between her and her husband. Roseannes sister, Jackie, is known on the show for having one night stands and being openly lesbian. Quindlen claims that ABC is being hypocritical in the sense tha t they are viewing Roseanne on the, so-called, family-oriented network during primetime, but refuses to show mild condom commercials. Quindlen makes an efficient argument by stating that children are left more curious about sex after watching Roseanne than they would be after beholding a condom commercial.This analogy does support and strengthen her argument in her article. In her article, Quindlen shows a region of superiority and badinage. She intelligibly proves in the first paragraph that she feels the reader is ignorant and that she, being superior, must teach the reader the correct way to think. Quindlen is besides weakening her argument by implying that her readers need to be taught what to think. Quindlen is showing her sarcasm by say things, such as bustt you just love those mother-daughter sex talks? not only to go for readers, but to also entertain herself.Her prototype comes across as arrogant when she uses sarcasm in certain situations. For example, a girl thr owing herself out of a window should be a tragic event, but Quindlen is critical about it which makes it seem as though she is not taking it seriously. Sarcasm, used correctly, can be effective, but in this case, it was facetious. When talking about serious matters such as sexually transmitted diseases and condoms, readers are stuck teasing Quindlens egocentric persona kind of of focusing on the matter at hand.In her New York Times article, A Pyrrhic Victory, Anna Quindlen takes her stand on condom distribution in high schools throughout the linked States. She claims that we are harming students by not distributing condoms in schools, and that it shouldnt be the parents responsibility because they are too ignorant to handle the situation. Her attempt to persuade the reader of her beliefs is flawed and ineffective. She starts the article by providing a subject position that creates emotions within the reader against Quindlen personally. Her statistics from Dr.Cohall are broken a nd her reference to the girl in the story involves a source that is not credible. On the other hand, she does provide a pissed analogy about Roseanne and condom commercials, but it is not strong enough to resort for the rest of the weaknesses throughout the article. Finally, Quindlens persona of sarcasm and superiority harms her argument by creating questions and doubt within the reader. Quindlen fails to convince readers that condom distribution is essential, and irritates the reader by pointing out their incompetence.