Writing a Rhetorical Analysis: Malcolm X
WR 101, Section 4
Due date: October 14, 2016
Date submitted: October 14, 2016
Paper No. 1
Help received: Conferences with Col. Ticen Peer response, and assigned readings
Ryan Drew
Malcolm X’s literary analysis is a sad autobiography with his struggles of writing. He lived in many foster homes as a child, became involved in criminal activity, and went through racism. His story sort of reminds me of how I struggled with writing when I was young and got help.
As a child Malcolm X struggled with writing and as a grown man he still struggled trying to write simple words and he couldn’t write a straight line which is the sad part. “He became frustrated on not being able to express what he wanted to convey in letters that he wrote.” (pg. 120) These are pathos examples of which Malcolm went through throughout his life and even in prison. When he speaks to the audience, people will think he went to school after making it through the eighth grade. It began back in Charlestown Prison when Bimbi tried to help him out with his knowledge. Whenever he picked up a book, he had little idea of what the book said or what he had read. Some books he would often skip some words that would be in Chinese because he didn’t have a translator and that would screw him up.
In order to improve his skills, he came up with the idea of getting a dictionary to study and to learn some words. He spent two days going through the dictionary and was shocked to see so many words and he didn’t know which words to learn. He began to copy the first page of the dictionary and it took him a day to complete it. The pathos part was that Malcolm not only knew how to write a paper but not knowing how to write his own paper. This means he copied out of papers. He woke up the next morning thinking about what he had wrote and began to feel proud to realize that not only he had written so much at one time, but he wrote words that he never knew that were out there. He copied the dictionary’s next page and studied it. He learned of people, places and events from history and eventually began to copy the B section. After that, he copied the entire dictionary and it went a lot faster after so much practice. Between what he wrote in his tablet, writing letters and during the time in prison he estimated he wrote a million words.
For the first time, he picked up a book and read and began to understand what the book was saying. From then until he left prison, if he was not reading in the library, he was reading on his bunk. He was so happy because he never had been free in his life and he read more in his room than in the library.
Malcolm uses ethos to explain the time and how many hours he slept while he was in prison when he started to read when the guards would walk past every room and every time he heard footsteps he jumped into bed and pretended to sleep. “As soon as the guard passed, I got back out of bed onto the floor area of that light-glow, where he I would read for another fifty-eight minutes until the guard approached again.” (pg. 122) “That went on until three or four in the morning and he got three to four hours of sleep a night.” (pg. 122) He also states that in the years in the streets he slept less than that. Malcolm explains to the audience about the teachings taught by a tutor from history books from the 1700s to the 1900s and eventually began to learn about history in the old days.
In conclusion, Malcolm went through many struggles for a long time but got better when he got out of prison and wrote about his life. He went through a difficult life and look at him now he’s a professional writer. If he didn’t learn how to read and write, he would still be the person he was in the past.
Works Cited:
X, Malcolm, “Learning to Read.” [Writing About Writing: A College Reader, 2nd ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Dawns, Boston Bedford St. Martin’s, 2014.] 119-127. Print
