BRAINPICKINGS RHETORICAL ANALYSIS
Imagination means everything to young children playing around, but you wouldn’t think it has a place within relationships. In Maria Popova’s “Philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft on the Imagination and Its Seductive Power in Human Relationships”, she explores the idea of imagination meaning more than a way to momentarily leave reality. Ultimately, she demonstrates how imagination can be a helpful tool within relationships and day to day life.
Through appeals to ethos, letters directly from Wollstonecraft, and descriptive imagery, Popova is able to give imagination a new viewpoint for her readers. She begins her piece with an introduction of Mary Wollstonecraft that attests to her credibility as a writer and a believer of “independence of the imagination”. This credits Wollstonecraft as the prodigious thinker and writer that she is. It causes no doubt that the information that is about to be attested to her is reliable. A little further into the brainpicking, Popova presents that Wollstonecraft’s idea of ‘love as the domain in which “the imagination mingles its bewitching colouring’” was expanded upon 25 years later by philosopher Marth Nissbaum. Given more proof that Wollstonecraft was an esteemed thinker and writer.
Popova includes large excerpts from letters written to or by Mary Wollstonecraft. These letters allow the reader to hear straight from the source how important the imagination is in relationships. In the first excerpt from one of Wollstonecraft’s letters, she tells her ex-husband that he has “not sufficient respect for the imagination” suggesting that is the reason why their marriage did not work out. She is also implying that love and relationships are unable to thrive without imagination flowing through them. By including these letters, Popova is not merely talking about Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas, she is giving them right to the reader.
Another important rhetorical device Popova repeatedly uses is imagery. She included phrases such as “let it predominate over reason till experience forces us to see the truth” and “left Wollstonecraft heartbroken and alone with an infant amid a raging revolution” which both give excellent pictures in the mind of the readers. Along with her own imagery, Popova chose excerpts from Mary Wollstonecraft’s letters that include imagery. Some of which include “true fire, stolen from heaven” and “imagination never lends its magic wand” both giving distinguished images in the mind of the readers.
Combining appeals to ethos, letters directly from Wollstonecraft, and descriptive imagery, Popova is able to convince her audience Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas. She effortlessly demonstrates how imagination is essential to relationships and love.
Imagination means everything to young children playing around, but you wouldn’t think it has a place within relationships. In Maria Popova’s “Philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft on the Imagination and Its Seductive Power in Human Relationships”, she explores the idea of imagination meaning more than a way to momentarily leave reality. Ultimately, she demonstrates how imagination can be a helpful tool within relationships and day to day life.
Through appeals to ethos, letters directly from Wollstonecraft, and descriptive imagery, Popova is able to give imagination a new viewpoint for her readers. She begins her piece with an introduction of Mary Wollstonecraft that attests to her credibility as a writer and a believer of “independence of the imagination”. This credits Wollstonecraft as the prodigious thinker and writer that she is. It causes no doubt that the information that is about to be attested to her is reliable. A little further into the brainpicking, Popova presents that Wollstonecraft’s idea of ‘love as the domain in which “the imagination mingles its bewitching colouring’” was expanded upon 25 years later by philosopher Marth Nissbaum. Given more proof that Wollstonecraft was an esteemed thinker and writer.
Popova includes large excerpts from letters written to or by Mary Wollstonecraft. These letters allow the reader to hear straight from the source how important the imagination is in relationships. In the first excerpt from one of Wollstonecraft’s letters, she tells her ex-husband that he has “not sufficient respect for the imagination” suggesting that is the reason why their marriage did not work out. She is also implying that love and relationships are unable to thrive without imagination flowing through them. By including these letters, Popova is not merely talking about Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas, she is giving them right to the reader.
Another important rhetorical device Popova repeatedly uses is imagery. She included phrases such as “let it predominate over reason till experience forces us to see the truth” and “left Wollstonecraft heartbroken and alone with an infant amid a raging revolution” which both give excellent pictures in the mind of the readers. Along with her own imagery, Popova chose excerpts from Mary Wollstonecraft’s letters that include imagery. Some of which include “true fire, stolen from heaven” and “imagination never lends its magic wand” both giving distinguished images in the mind of the readers.
Combining appeals to ethos, letters directly from Wollstonecraft, and descriptive imagery, Popova is able to convince her audience Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas. She effortlessly demonstrates how imagination is essential to relationships and love.