For Critical Essay number two, I plan on using the Broadway musical, Dear Evan Hansen. It’s one of my favorites, coming in at a close second to Hamilton. This musical is about teen suicide and the effect of social media on today’s society. Evan, the main character, accidentally gets looped in Connor’s friend after Connor commits suicide, even when they didn’t know each other. When his memorial speech of Connor goes viral, Evan realizes that he’s too far into the lie to fix it, and everything blows up in his face. This musical is primarily aimed towards teenagers and their parents but is not meant at all for small children. It uses music as a method of getting the message across and invoking emotions in the audience.
Rhetorical Situation:
This song takes place at the end of Act One of the Musical Dear Evan Hansen. In Act One, Evan prints off his therapy assignment at the school printers (Dear Evan Hansen, Today is going to be a good day, and here’s why…) and it accidentally gets picked up by Connor, who steals the letter and puts it in his pocket. That night, Connor commits suicide, and they find his body with Evan’s letter in the coat pocket. The next day, the school calls Evan to the office to break the news, thinking that Connor was his friend. Evan, instead of telling the truth, uses Connors death as a way to make friends and gives a speech on suicide awareness and mental health to the school, which goes viral. This is the point at which this song begins.
Metaphors:
“you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again”
“Even when the dark comes crashing through
When you need someone to carry you
When you’re broken on the ground”
“You will be found”
Patterns:
Loneliness, mental health awareness, reaching out for help, helping your peers, Friends willing to help even if the person doesn’t realize, banding together
Implications:
This song is about mental health awareness and reaching out for help if you need it. It’s also a reminder for friends to help each other out and be there for each other in tough times. Ultimately, this song it’s about using the help of others to pull yourself out of a dark place, and how your current situation isn’t your forever situation.
The rhetor of this comic strip is Charles Schulz. It is a comedic piece used primarily for entertainment purposes. The audience is the general public, as this was published in newspapers. Anyone who bought a newspaper would have been able to see it, and now that it’s on the internet, anyone who googles Peanuts cartoons would be able to find it.
Presented Elements: Woodstock sleeping, Snoopy pulling on the branch, the brach recoiling with Woodstock still in his nest, Snoopy laughing and thinking about not being able to resist
Suggested Elements: Woodstock getting disoriented, Snoopy’s inability to talk (suggested by the use of a thought bubble instead of a speech bubble), Snoopy’s amusement at Woodstock’s alarm, Woodstock being woken up by Snoopy’s shenanigans, Snoopy harassing Woodstock being normal (suggested by Woodstock not flying away)
This artifact suggests that sometimes things can’t be resisted for the purpose of personal amusement. Snoopy knows he could injure Woodstock, but he thinks it’ll be too funny to not pull on the branch. He can’t resist because he thinks it’ll be funny, so he does it anyway.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero have a lot of similarities in the way they’re played, the types of controllers, and the game style.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero are both played by matching up the colors on the screen to the colors on the controller. If the color scrolling on the screen is red, you have to hit the red button and strum the controller as the graphics on the screen light up. Both of these games are set to music that most people know and songs that have been popular on the radio in the years that the game came out. Although both games don’t often use the same songs, they both use songs that most people know and songs from the same genre, rock.
The controllers used by the games are also similar. The both use guitar-shaped controllers. In Rock Band, the neck of the guitar has two different sets of buttons. A larger set on the top of the guitar neck and a smaller set further down. Guitar Hero, on the other hand, has only one set of buttons at the top of the guitar neck. Both controllers have a bar to strum and a whammy bar, along with other various buttons on the face of the guitar that is necessary to work the video game system.
The game style is also similar. It’s designed to make you feel like you’re playing an instrument along with a band to some of your favorite songs. You chose the song, your level of difficulty, and then play the song along with the music. Both games also offer the option to connect a second guitar, a drum set, and a microphone, although the instruments don’t work with their opposite games. If someone wanted to play both games, they’d have to buy both sets of instruments.
In this situation, the rhetor is Herb Brooks, The coach of the 1980 Lake Placid USA Ice Hockey team. It’s meant to be a motivational speech to get the players mentally prepared for their game. This speech was given right before team USA had to play against the Soviet Union in the first medal round game. It was given in the locker room to the hockey team as a means of motivation, as the likelihood of them beating the Soviets was slim.
Team USA, in this game especially, is considered the underdogs and not expected to win. The audience, being a bunch of hockey players, gets riled up enough to win the game, and win the gold medal two days later. Without winning that game against the Soviets, the team wouldn’t have moved on to the medal rounds.
Hi everyone! My name is Meghan Hogan and I’m a senior English Major with a concentration in Rhetoric and Professional Writing at Longwood University. I have two dogs and a cat. I’ve played a variety of sports throughout my life, but my favorite will always be hockey (Go Penguins!). Someday I’d love to be able to go into Publishing or some other form of Journalism.
Before this class, I took a course in Professional Writing. The purpose of this blog is to have it work alongside my current Rhetorical Criticism class and for it to hopefully be accessible by future employers. I will be following prompts given by our professor, Dr. Guler, and using those prompts to further expand my understanding of Rhetoric. This blog is primarily aimed at other Longwood students, but hopefully it can be understood by anyone who comes across it.
Six-year-old me and one of the Richmond Riverdogs.
My 9 year old sister and I. She’s wearing my Penguins jersey and shin guards. I attempted teaching her how to skate.
