Creating my own Rhetorical Choices

My class was assigned the prompt of RIP #2 in order to help elucidate our understandings of a rhetorical analysis. 

I chose to write a continuation of page 165 of The Giver in the perspective of Jonas's parents.

Mother heated the family unit’s dinner portions as she had every evening. Then, precisely at 6:30 pm Lily, Jonas, and Father carrying Gabriel sat at the table anticipating their meal. They distributed the food and as soon as Father took a bite everyone knew it was time to begin eating. Lily was keen on chatting over dinner, but everyone had become accustomed to this. “How was your day?” Mother asked almost instinctively and the young girl began to describe her day and the details of volunteering with Four’s in the afternoon. “Sounds like you’ve had a productive day, it’s good to keep yourself occupied,” Mother replied, to which Father agreed and claimed volunteering with children was very rewarding. “What about you, Jonas? How was your day?” Jonas wasn’t too sure what to say. Father noticed the hesitation in Jonas’s response. “I-” he searched for words, “I didn’t get a lot of homework today.”

I tried to be as detailed as possible to highlight the dystopian qualities in my piece. In class we had learned that dystopian fictions were often critiques of utopian ideals, so I pushed forward with the idea of extreme “perfection” and routine lifestyles. Presenting the relationship between utopias and dystopias was really detrimental in my choice of narrative style, and later choosing an RA topic.

Mother was confused by the short answer but suddenly smiled, “Really? It’s a nice break from all the homework you’ve been having recently.” He had been telling her that schoolwork was engulfing him, but she knew this couldn’t be true. Usually schoolwork thinned-out after receiving an assignment so that Twelve’s could better focus. Jonas nodded with a smile and Lily interrupted, “I don’t know why they give us homework, I mean, the teacher teaches me well and I learn well. I don’t know why they make me do school work outside of school.” She was upset at the idea of less free-time and more responsibility. “Why do you think homework is given?” Father asked in his calm voice. He knew Lily could reason the importance of homework on her own. Mother began to talk about her day, although she focused more on small, insignificant, details and skimmed vaguely on work. She didn’t like mentioning her job because she worked at the Department of Justice and was following investigations against members of the society. It was distasteful when she had to assign punishments to people she was familiar with, as she had this day. Instead, she simply stated she went to work and her group was awarded treats for working so hard. The family congratulated her and then turned at Father. He directed a glance down at the wide-eyed toddler. “Enjoy it, little guy. This is your last night as a visitor,” He gently touched Gabriel's head. He imagined how he’d be injecting that same forehead tomorrow morning and the child would instantly be lifeless. 
Jonas suddenly spoke, “What do you mean?” Father sighed sympathetically. He had long kept a caring image for children although he wasn’t so much caring, but rather patient. He dreaded to see any of his projects fail. Anything he took part of had to be perfect. “Well..” he explained how Gabriel wasn’t sleeping soundly and the committee members voted for release. “Even I voted for release,” he answered truthfully in attempt to persuade the family unit that it was necessary. Mother felt relieved. She couldn’t stand Gabriel’s relentlessness and didn’t know how anyone could. “It’s a shame,” she let out. “Release?” Jonas asked with wide-eyes. Father wondered why Jonas was reacting this way while Lily had an easy time accepting the toddler’s fate. “We certainly gave it our best try,” he answered, curious about Jonas’s knowledge of release. Had it been possible Jonas knew what truly happened in release? Not many had access to that information and Father was unsure about Jonas’s work entitlement. However, Father had no doubt that those who knew would understand. Release was necessary.

Continuing with the prenotion that dystopian societies are self-destructive, I chose to make Jonas’s family a form of propaganda for the society. They are guiding Jonas toward a path of utter conformity and hiding the truths about the system so that Jonas and his sister will not have a reason to rebel. In my version of this story, the parents are suspicious of Jonas but give him the benefit of the doubt to at least preserve the illusion of utopia for Lily.

My tone is subtle tension as I am simply enhancing the story by bringing out the parent’s unspoken thoughts. They are aware Jonas is not being completely truthful and possibly knows more than he should, but they want to protect the image of living in a utopia and not release any unnecessary information. I provided detail to this story’s scene to show what the parents are possibly thinking about while in this situation, and what their motives are. My intended audience is young readers with the purpose of seeing how unreliable Jonas’s parents are. They are not blood-related and do not know enough emotion to truly care for their children. Parents are supposed to dedicate themselves to their children and the family unit is meant to be a safe environment to relay thoughts, but we can clearly see in this scene that even within the family there’s no trust or certain truth. This should be effective because everyone has a family and knows they’re the people who will always support you, but Jonas’s family is a prime example of why The Giver is dystopian literature.