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Touching the earth edited

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Central Michigan University
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Surname 1
Nyree Roberts 0514127
Professor John Partida
English 1302
September 10, 2021
Touching the Earth
Professor and author Bell Hooks share her piece, Touching the Earth. In her opening,
Hooks expresses that we can love ourselves more fully when we can love the earth. Hooks is
implying that we are one with the earth. To love the earth is to love yourself. Hooks reaches out
to an older African American audience as she challenges them to remember how peaceful and
harmonious living in the agrarian South was, despite racial prejudices. Hooks persuade her
audience that healing the psyche is about restoring connections to the natural world, nature
(Lunsford & Andrea, pp.967). Predominantly, emotional appeals are employed by the author to
cultivate her audience through a passionate expression of her life experiences. Besides, Hooks
uses ethos where she cites several testimonies from widely-recognized authors. Hooks deems
that reconnecting with the earth is a necessary dimension of healing. Markedly, Hooks employs
various rhetorical devices in conveying her message to the audience. Throughout Touching the
Earth, Hooks uses pathos, logos, imagery, and ethos, among other critical ornamental features.
Therefore, the paper will unequivocally illuminate the rhetorical analysis of the article; Touching
the Earth.
Hooks portray imagery in most section of the article. She recalls standing out with her
grandfather focusing on fields of produce he’d planted while misunderstanding the pain and
exploitation from the sharecrop owner. She is reconnecting to the earth as a child, employing

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guided imagery to describe the vegetables her grandparents planted. Sharecropping was work
exchanged for housing, land, or equipment. The land tiller would give the landowners half or
more of their crops (Shi, pp.106). Besides, Hook extensively and intensively employs the
rhetorical feature of logos where she provides logical examples obtained from the historical
occurrences and vivid imagery of her life experiences. Hooks provide positive childhood
memories about living in Southern Alabama. She exclaimed how cruel American life was for
blacks in the 1800s. During the Gilded Age after the Civil War, the South was devastated
economically. Poverty, corruption, and unemployment were troublesome issues in the South as
the Southern whites wanted to continue with their "peculiar institution."
Moreover, Hooks uses the rhetorical feature of pathos throughout the article, where she
uses emotional appeals to attract the audience's attention and effectively convey her arguments
(Shi, pp.106). In her article, Hooks offers emotion when she verifies that Afro-Americans could
find comfort and feel at peace by having a relationship with the earth. Hooks argues that no one
can buy or sell the sky nor the warmth of the land. The latter argument suggests that it belongs
to no one, and we are part of the earth, and it is part of us. Furthermore, Hooks goes father to
narrate that the perfumed flowers are our sisters, the animals and eagles are our brothers, and the
rocky crests and juices in the meadows all belong to the same family. The latter defines how she
perfectly uses pathos in connecting the audience's feelings to the context of the book. She
described an enticing relationship with the earth. Hooks is described the irresistible pure forms
of nature. She attempts to bring her audience to a place of solace. Another use of logos is
evidenced by comparing the industrial North as the harsh new world to the agrarian South with
union and harmony. Hooks deters her audience from the thoughts of the rugged North. Hooks
included Midwife Onnie Lee Logan’s support of Alabama’s rich farm life, harvesting vegetables.

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Surname 1 Nyree Roberts 0514127 Professor John Partida English 1302 September 10, 2021 Touching the Earth Professor and author Bell Hooks share her piece, Touching the Earth. In her opening, Hooks expresses that we can love ourselves more fully when we can love the earth. Hooks is implying that we are one with the earth. To love the earth is to love yourself. Hooks reaches out to an older African American audience as she challenges them to remember how peaceful and harmonious living in the agrarian South was, despite racial prejudices. Hooks persuade her audience that healing the psyche is about restoring connections to the natural world, nature (Lunsford & Andrea, pp.967). Predominantly, emotional appeals are employed by the author to cultivate her audience through a passionate expression of her life experiences. Besides, Hooks uses ethos where she cites several testimonies from widely-recognized authors. Hooks deems that reconnecting with the earth is a necessary dimension of healing. Markedly, Hooks employs various rhetorical devices in conveying her message to the audience. Throughout Touching the Earth, Hooks uses pathos, logos, imagery, and ethos, among other critical ornamen ...
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