Often times essayists take advantage of the nine modes of rhetoric in order to further their central theme. Maxine Hong Kingston, author of No Name Woman, and George Orwell, author of Shooting an Elephant, both commonly make use of narration, extended definition, and cause and effect throughout their works. Kingston and Orwell use these three rhetorical modes to illustrate that crowd impulse takes away individualism. By analyzing and evaluating quotes from both works, I hope to further prove how crowd impulse is a central theme, necessary to both storylines of the essays.
Narration is prominent in both No Name Woman and Shooting an Elephant. Both authors utilize storytelling, a type of narration, throughout the entire story. In No Name…show more content… They had to ignore their morals and stick to their ethics, a commonality between both works of literature. The raiders also covered their faces with white masks, making the raid more spiritualistic, as well as hiding their true identities. By masking themselves both literally and figuratively, by being one of many in a crowd, they allowed their individuality to give way to the crowd impulse. The power of the crowd changes individual's identity and creates a group identity. In Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, this phenomenon of taking on a group identity is also present. The essay begins with Orwell retelling the story of how an elephant was rampaging through town, and eventually killed someone. Being a European officer in India, it was his duty to solve this conflict. Orwell grabs a gun and hunts for the elephant, which has now killed a Burmese man. Once Orwell reaches the elephant he is stuck in a predicament. Does he kill the now harmless elephant or does he leave it be until it can be contained? This is where the problem of morals versus ethics comes into play in Shooting an Elephant. Orwell mentions that "I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me
