Student Writing

Rhetorical Analysis: Comparing Strategies

Following is a prompt that asks the writer to compare two passages describing similar events:

Read William Faulkner’s “An Innocent at Rinkside” (p. 619) and Lars Anderson’s “The Sound and the Glory” from Sports Illustrated. Both recount the writers’ first experiences at particular sporting events. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast how each writer describes the event and conveys its effect on the writer as an observer.

Daniela Suarez, an eleventh-grade AP student, has written a response to this prompt. As you read her essay, consider the approach she takes in her comparison. Then answer the questions that follow about how she organized and developed it.

The following article appeared in Sports Illustrated on April 14, 2011.

The Sound and the Glory

Lars Anderson

You never forget your first time. Mine was in 2003, but it could have been five minutes ago, the way it still lives and rises in my memory. On that last Sunday in May eight years ago in Indianapolis, I drove my rental car through the predawn darkness to the corner of 16th and Georgetown, which, to the true race fan, is the nexus of the universe. By 7 a.m. a crush of humanity had already gathered in the shadow of the grandstands of the Brickyard, the sense of anticipation crackling in the cool morning air like an electrical current.

A few hours later I rolled through the tunnel between Turns 1 and 2, parked in the speedway’s infield and made my way to pit road to cover the race for SI. Once the command to start your engines was issued, I immediately felt the roar of horsepower thump, thump, thump in my chest. This was a far different feeling than one experiences when the stock cars of NASCAR fire their engines. This was more penetrating, more powerful, more soul-rattling, like standing on an aircraft carrier next to a fighter jet that is about to blast off.

After three warmup laps the green flag waved. With 300,000 fans yelling in full throat—the Indy 500 is still the largest single-day sporting event every year in America—the field of open-wheel cars flew along the frontstretch at 225 mph, barreling through the canyon of fans, over the red bricks at the start-finish line, past the 153-foot-tall Pagoda tower. I always take a mental snapshot of this first-lap moment because it’s the most picturesque scene in motor sports, the equivalent of a Van Gogh still life for those addicted to speed.

Just then, your senses are overwhelmed. There’s the high pitch of the engines, the raw speed of the cars, the smell of burning rubber and—never forget—the specter of danger. The assault on your senses is all-encompassing, unmatched in motor sports, and it’s precisely why the Indianapolis 500 is my favorite race of the year. Actually, it’s more than that: Indy is my favorite sporting event of the year. “You have to come to the track and feel the power of the cars and smell the fuel to really appreciate what makes Indy so special,” says Danica Patrick, who ran in her first Indy 500 in 2005. “I tell people, ‘If you come, you’ll be hooked for life.’ And I’ve never been proven wrong.”

Even NASCAR drivers such as Robby Gordon, Juan Pablo Montoya and Tony Stewart who have raced in the Indy 500 will say that it’s the world’s greatest race. Stewart is from Columbus, Ind., and he first journeyed to the Brickyard at age five. Riding 45 minutes on a bus with his father, Nelson, before the sun had risen over the cornfields, Stewart slept in the luggage rack. When the bus got to the track, he was dazzled. “The speed and power . . .,” Stewart recalls. “It took me about a minute to realize I wanted to race there one day.”

Stewart, like so many Indiana kids, can tell you the history of Indy by rote. The track was built in 1909 to serve as a testing facility for the automobile industry and given long straightaways and gradual turns to allow the vehicles to achieve and sustain top speeds. The surface was rough—too rough. In the first week of automobile races one driver, two riding mechanics and two spectators were killed; jagged rocks could puncture tires and cause drivers to lose control. The track was resurfaced with bricks, which were carried onto the grounds by horse and cart and would remain part of the speedway’s surface until 1961, when it was repaved with asphalt over all but a three-foot strip at the start-finish line.

“It’s the history that makes Indy so special,” says Sam Hornish Jr., a native of Defiance, Ohio. “So many great stories.”

The story of Indy, in a lot of ways, mirrors the story of America. For 100 years it has been a bastion of innovation, a place where the best and brightest in motor sports have tested new theories, new concepts. What has been developed at Indianapolis Motor Speedway? Turbo engines, energy-deflecting cockpits, aerodynamic downforce and, perhaps most significant, the SAFER barrier wall, which debuted at the speedway in 2002 and is now a fixture at every major racetrack. In short, the innovation that Indy has fostered has been the driving force behind the evolution of motor sports around the globe.

The Indy 500 has also become a cultural touchstone. To generations of fans it has been America’s Roman Colosseum—with an infield so vast that Vatican City, Yankee Stadium, Churchill Downs, the Rose Bowl, the grounds at Wimbledon and the Colosseum could all fit inside at the same time. Indy is a track where danger and death lurk around every turn; a race where, if he or she has enough guts and guile, even the most unlikely underdog can walk away with the big trophy. Just ask Graham Hill, who in 1966 narrowly avoided a 16-car pileup on the first lap to win. Or ask Hornish Jr., who in 2006 made a dramatic late charge and on the last lap passed Marco Andretti to take the second-closest 500 ever (.0635 of a second). It’s also where the greats have flourished, where A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears built and burnished their legacies. All of this is why after 100 years our eyes are still drawn to the Indy 500, truly the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

Rituals have developed at Indy, from Jim Nabors singing Back Home Again in Indiana before each race, which he first did in 1972, to the winner swigging milk in Victory Lane (thanks to Louis Meyer in the ’30s). Indy’s timelessness can make race weekend feel like a county fair. “It’s not just the traditions that make the 500 the best race,” Foyt told me a few years ago. “It’s also that once the race starts, you have the best drivers in the planet going at it for 500 miles driving the best cars. As opposed to NASCAR, we can actually pass. On the last Sunday in May there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.”

Me neither. Because once you head through the tunnel to the infield, you’re overcome with one feeling, a feeling that sums up the allure of Indy: Anything is possible.

Rhetorical Analysis of Paired Texts

Daniela Suarez

In “An Innocent at Rinkside” and “The Sound and the Glory,” William Faulkner and Lars Anderson recall their first time at a big sporting event as if it were a wondrous tale of mystic glory. They turn back the dial to the earlier days of their lives and take the reader on a voyage across a hockey rink and the Indy 500 race track so that we can almost feel the shrill of the wind and the excitement vibrating through every spectator’s bones. These articles convey the significance of the two sporting events through the authors’ creation of vivid images, their peculiar writing structure, and their ability to involve larger ideas.

Indeed, throughout both of these passages, Faulkner and Anderson manage to create a completely different universe in the mind of the reader. They both begin by using strong adjectives to describe seemingly pointless details. For instance, Faulkner refers to motion and speed as being “discorded and inconsequent, bizarre and paradoxical.” Such terms are not what would usually come to mind when watching a hockey match and thus they contribute to the originality of the setting. Furthermore, he refers to the movements of players as “fluid [. . .] fast [. . .] effortless” and then even compares them to the “passionate glittering fatal alien quality of snakes.” Such intense metaphors incite a feeling of fear or anxiety; therefore Faulkner seems to have accomplished his first initiative, which was to arouse emotions inside us readers as well. In the same way, Anderson characterizes the sound of the racecar’s engine as “penetrating [. . .] powerful [. . .] soul-rattling,” which may seem dramatic at first but ultimately succeeds in transferring his own feelings to the reader. Both authors also rely extensively on similes: for example, when Faulkner says that the player Geoffrion was “like an agile ruthless precocious boy” or when Anderson says that he could feel the horsepower of the cars’ engines “like standing on an aircraft carrier next to a fighter jet that is about to blast off.” By creating these comparisons the authors create a link between concrete elements, such as the ice or the cars, to something more abstract and more personal. Nonetheless, their language is also very precise and even scientific. For instance, Faulkner refers to the hockey puck as a “catalyst” and violence as a “byproduct,” while Anderson states that his anticipation was “crackling in the cool morning air like an electrical current.” Such descriptions are very concise and leave little room for interpretation, which leads us to believe that while Faulkner and Anderson wanted readers to feel emotions for themselves, they also wanted to establish their own very clear impressions.

On the other hand, Faulkner and Anderson also organize their pieces in a very unique manner. In fact, both of them begin by telling a story, and the narrative voice not only attracts the audience, but also creates a sense of proximity and trust. Both authors are also very precise in terms of timing. Faulkner, for instance, gives indications such as “a few minutes ago,” “but not for long,” and “then.” Anderson also uses temporal cues such as “five minutes ago” and “a few hours later.” In this way, the sequence of events appears almost like a movie before our eyes, with one event following the other chronologically with smooth transitions in between. In terms of syntax, these authors also have a similar style; they both begin their paragraphs with short declarative sentences. Indeed, every new idea is thrown directly at us and the authors waste no time perfecting their thoughts. On the contrary, their emotions are raw yet perfect, just like the simple beauty of a hockey match or a car race. Unlike Anderson, Faulkner also seems to ensure his sense of authority when he begins his fourth paragraph with “Excitement,” thus putting himself in a position where he can define the term himself. In either case, these elements help create the authors’ strong voices, which are proof not only of their utter passion for the subject, but also of their desire to utterly express their feelings.

Finally, Faulkner and Anderson both find a way to relate their personal experiences to the bigger picture of the whole world. Indeed, throughout these articles we witness a transition from personal and more intimate thoughts and feelings to a larger scope of importance. Faulkner begins by relating the ice to the “Christmas store window” or the “kaleidoscopic whirl like a child’s toy,” or even “the frantic darting of the weightless bugs,” simple things we have all witnessed. Anderson deepens this personal side of the story, as he remembers driving his rental car “[o]n that last Sunday in May [. . .] through the predawn darkness to the corner of 16th and Georgetown.” In Anderson’s case, he mostly restates tiny details which show his relation to the events, but also uses terms such as “that last Sunday,” just like Faulkner says “the innocent” in order to evoke a sense of mystery and vagueness; these imply that the author doesn’t need to add more specifics since the facts remain purely alive in his mind. Nevertheless, both authors slowly begin to separate themselves from their own memories and enter the realm of the whole world. Indeed, Faulkner begins his appeal to a wider audience by stating, “We—Americans.” He is no longer referring to his relatives or even people at the game but to any American like himself. In the same way, Anderson enlarges his scope by claiming, “The story of Indy, in a lot of ways, mirrors the story of America.” Furthermore, both provide a light critique of society in the greater meaning of their own story. Faulkner criticizes this “new era” of sports, where they are no longer for fun, but have instead become like an artificial way for people to gain that “adrenalic discharge of vicarious excitement” in places “beneath lights” and with “spectator tobacco” trapped above their heads. On the contrary, Anderson highlights the more positive aspects of his sport by reminding us that the Indy race track has been a “bastion of innovation.” Indeed, innovations such as “turbo engines, energy-deflecting cockpits, aerodynamic downforce and [. . .] the SAFER barrier wall” were born here. Therefore the track, just like the hockey ring, slowly switches from the authors’ hearts to the screen of the world, available to us all.

William Faulkner and Lars Anderson both paint a canvas with their words as they look back into their memories and remember their first experiences at these different sporting events. Whether alongside an ice rink or in the midst of engine smoke, these authors manage to convince us of the importance of these seemingly simple events. They paint full landscapes, complete with sounds and smells, and pull us into their minds so we can feel what they felt on that one, special day.