Kridi 1

Catherine Kridi
English 115
Professor Spitler-Lawson
10 December 2016
Rhetorical Analysis: Final Draft
Word Count: 652
Rhetorical Response to Being an Other
Throughout Being an Other, by Melissa Algranati, Algranati writes to exploit the dangers
of societies expectations. Society tends to expect an easy answer for anything at hand, whether it
be identity or cultural unacceptance, society finds a way to make civilians feel out of place.
Algranati comes from a background of, Puerto Rican, Egyptian, and Jewish culture yet society
only label her as a Jew for the mere simplicity it provides them. She demonstrates how the world
is a very rejecting place because many cultures are considered and viewed to be unacceptable.
She discusses her parents conflicts as they werent accepted by societys standards in order to
assist her persuasive goal of exposing society as subjective. Through a well-structured,
descriptive, and detailed remanence, Algranati voices the past of her parents struggles of
hardships when encountering difficulties of settling into foreign lands, as a result of being forced
out of their childhood homes. Algranati takes advantage of discussing how her parents set to
build their family, in an attempt at a fresh start, in the United States. Writing about Marias,
Algranatis mother, the difficulty of being physically forced to pronounce words too rigorous for
Marias current speech, considering her Hispanic accent, inflicted sympathetic emotions to arise
within her audience. Using the power of imagery, she explains how her mother developed
difficulties with the pronunciation of the word Run as she continued to struggle by repeating

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Rrrrrrrrrun multiple times (Algranati 146). With the intention to succor the audience into
developing a mentally scarring visual of the scenario, she does so as she incorporates a detailed
story of her mothers struggles. She shares personal experiences to strengthen her claims as she
explains that she grew up running into issues of her own. She explains how her best friends
parents even categorized her as Jewish because they didnt allow any of their daughters to
surround themselves with anyone of Hispanic decent, taking into account that the parents were of
Asian culture (147). She soon came to learn of the worlds harsh expectations that were forced
upon her in order to fit in. In an aim to show her audience the physical and emotional abuse
society caused her family, she successfully degrades society into a pathetic and wretched group
of people by writing her history of confrontations.
Her need to explain to society that she is a Puerto Rican Egyptian Jew drove her to
explain to the world it is justifiable to be different. With her passion of persuasion to end this
categorizing and allowing an accepting environment of people who can personally claim who
they are is the drive point of Algranatis essay. Her position of attempting to help society
understand these tribulations is a goal many should strive to achieve. Her personal touch of
exploring her ability to tell her story throughout the essay aids her aim to demonstrate the
difficulties of people that struggle when it comes to acceptance. Although she fulfils her goal of
explaining her story, I believe it would have been best if she elaborated, using imagery or pathos,
to truly present the unimaginable struggles her father had to face rather than present him as
someone who wasnt fazed by being forced to leave his home because there was nothing left to
stay for (145). She had the ability to recover from that mistake as she utilized strong points,
using imagery, and incorporated pathos to aid her audience to be persuaded of societies
harshness. This world is full of hatred towards culture, sexuality, and most importantly identity

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but overall I acknowledge the great writing of this essay as she comfortably told a difficult story
in such confidence that put societies hatred to shame. Therefore, her ability to successfully
explain her personal hardships encourages me to discuss my story of having onerous
concurrences of not being accepted, as I too, stepped onto foreign lands being judged.

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Works Cited
Algranati, Melissa. Being an Other. Pop Perspectives: Readings to Critique Contemporary
Culture. Ed. Laura Gray-Rosendale. San Francisco: McGraw-Hill, 2008. 144-148. Print.