Annie

Wild

If the message of a book is trying to convince you on how to solve your problems, what makes you believe that the way the author is saying is right? In Wild by Cheryl Strayed, she tells her story of her long hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. She decides to go on this journey so she can cope with the recent troubles in her life that have to do with her family and drugs. She wants to show the audience her way of dealing with the issues, and how it is successful in the end. This book has effective rhetoric and communicates the message completely because as the communicator the author is useful since it is her own story, and the audience that this book is for can relate easily to her problems.

A big part of rhetoric is the communicator. In this book it is obvious that Strayed is the communicator of the message that she is trying to show through her book. She wants people to see that when life gets you down you have to take it upon yourself to fix it. The author, as the communicator, shows reliability because she was the one who went through the experience. The audience sees that she is successful in the end by finally being able to cope with the tragedies in her life. Some people might disagree and say that the author is not a credible source because she isn’t a professional, and her method of dealing with her problems might not be the greatest idea for everyone else in her position. While this is true, the audience should look at her story as a more general idea and see that when dealing with her problems she had to free her mind and find peace within herself. The audience should not look specifically at hiking the Pacific Crest Trail to overcome their problems. As a person that has gone through this journey, Cheryl Strayed is a great communicator, and makes this book’s message effective.

Another part of rhetoric is the audience. For Strayed’s book the audience are people in their twenties who are going through rough times in their life. These kinds of people would relate to Strayed and the struggle she had in her life. Throughout the book she mentioned she had trouble with drug abuse, a divorce, her mom’s death, and her family getting split apart. Any one with similar problems can agree with how hard it is. The fact that the audience can relate so much to the communicator also makes the book very effective in its job to persuade the audience. They feel the connection with the author which allows them to believe in Strayed and be persuaded by her message.

The communicator and the audience is what makes the rhetoric in this book so effective. The communicator is credible and reliable, and the audience can easily relate to the author. Both these concepts help Strayed show the message she wants to convey through her book, and why it worked so well. Obviously her way is not for everyone, but it definitely can help someone going through hard times find an answer to help solve their personal problems.