In the satirical essay “The Company Man,” Ellen Goodman criticizes the lifestyle of Phil, dehumanizing the “American Dream” through the use of contradictory repetition, pathetic persuasive techniques, and sterile diction. Using repetition Goodman emphasizes the importance of Phil dying on a Sunday at three in the morning because he was still worrying about work, even on the one time and day he was off. This is where she points out that work killed him. This highlights that he died striving for the “American Dream. ” He was so focused on gaining everything that he thought would make him happy; he never got to experience his own life.
Goodman stresses this point because it accentuates that the “American Dream” might be an “American Nightmare. ” Through the use of pathos Goodman shows the cost of a life striving for the “American Dream”; no relationships with his family or anybody for that matter except for with his work. She goes on to emphasize this through describing his family, a typical suburbia family. The oldest was just like him, a workaholic Type A person, the middle child was a girl and just like her mother, finally the youngest child was a troublemaker and was always trying to gain dad’s attention.
At this point she puts an emphasis on how after he died the oldest had nothing to say about his father, so he went around asking neighbors about him, at this point she shows that he had no relation with them either. This draws attention to the fact that he was close to nobody and the cause was him striving for an “American Dream” that might not be as appealing as what it is cracked up to be. Goodman uses diction to dehumanize people and make them seem more like statistics than people; in an essence bringing a generic quality to the people of this story, making them easier to replace.
The Term Paper on American Cultural Influences on Young People of Romania
The Abstract The present study aims to present the phenomenon which affects the Romanian tradition. I speak here of pronounced dissemination of cultural elements from overseas in Romania. Thus, although it is well documented that the language, film, music, food and dresscode of Americans are well established in current practice, my research purpose is to analyze the frequency with which those ...
