rhetorical analysis of The Clan of the One-Breasted Women
... a borderline malignancy.” The essay appeared in Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and place (1991). Williams gives examples of many wrongdoings to her and her Utahan family in her argument. The Atomic Energy Commissioner, Thomas Murray, said, “Gentlemen, we must not let anything interfere with this series of tests, nothing.” Terry Tempest Williams commences strongly in this essay forcing one to think hard. She pinpoints exactly who she is writing about along with providing factual examples that coincide with the argument. Williams speaks of how the government was at fault for her families cancer, but that the “government is immune” and untouchable. She could have just accepted it like she was taught as a young girl “don’t rock the boat” or “make waves”, “Just let it go, you know how you feel and that’s all that matters” her mother would say. She could have just accepted that careless people will always be a part of society, but instead the author can be given a name such as a martyr for standing up and protesting. Williams was arrested along with nine other women for crossing into military land illegally. The language in this essay was heavy with imagery and figurative speech. The author successfully used colorful phrases that could be taken literally or figuratively depending on the reader’s view of the meaning. One of the most effective examples in paragraph 32: “ I witnessed their last peaceful breaths, becoming a midwife to the rebirth of their souls” following her description of watching beautiful women die. In...