Analyzing "Men Are From Vengeance"

The essay I have chosen to analyze is "Men Are From Vengeance." I read several others before stumbling upon this one. The other essays were well written, but they did not interest me very deeply, whereas this essay won me over within the first two paragraphs. The author's purpose is to express, through statistics and his own rhetorical strategies, the difference between men and women in regards to justice and vengeance. Saletan also conveys which circumstances will most affect each gender's tolerance for bloodshed. The title itself is a parody, which struck my interest from the start, though it doesn't prove to be one of the more predominant strategies throughout the essay. The use of diction within the first two paragraphs is what won me over.

At the end of the second paragraph, the author introduces a new word to the audience, shadenfreude--"the joy of watching the suffering of someone you dislike." This word communicates an emotion known by all, but not expressed publicly without a bit of shame. He then uses convicting words, delivered in sets; three times, the words are given in sets of three. "More judgment, less empathy, more shadenfreude" is how William Saleten defines men. This rapid-fire of evocative language is especially powerful considering he is speaking for his own gender. He also uses the cliche, "eye for an eye", twice in one paragraph. Through such uses of diction, the author adds a level of emotion and sentiment to an article that would otherwise be too statistical. However, by the end of the article, the author outdoes his use of diction with of the general tone of his paper. 

In delivering his purpose, the author's tone is the most dominant rhetorical strategy. Saleton's essay is controlled and statistical, making the message easier for the audience to accept. With all of the author's sources, ranging from studies to polls to experiments, he makes it very difficult for his audience to disagree with him. He also gains respect from his audience by summarizing the tests and their results without sounding bias. Not until the end can a reader confidently assume that the author is indeed a man.

In the time that I have invested in analyzing this paper, much of it has been trying to organize and separate the excessive examples of rhetorical strategy. So many examples are intertwined between the different strategies and the essay is so saturated in them. My copy of the essay is a mess with a distorted rainbow of highlighter streaks and black and blue scribbles. It will be interesting trying to clean it all up and form it in to an organized, comprehendible final paper!