As selfish and self-centered today’s society solicits, many humans foreshadow no hope left for humanity, but Mr. Richard Lemieux a successful business man that went broke but overcame his problems today lives comfortably proves society wrong. As proof, Mr. Richard in “The lady in Red” provides examples that made him change his mind. He aims to convince his readers that consider themselves negative persons that hope subsists that the bright light remains at the end of the dark tunnel.
By presenting a personal anecdote and emotional events, Mr. Lemieux skillfully uses these techniques to create a convincing passage. Mr. Lemieux begins his story with a flashback to the last Thanksgiving Day in 2002, the day he learned to beg. He explains in detail how he felt that day, so that the reader feels sorry or pity for him. For instance, he makes you feel awful for him when he speaks about spending his last dollar on a hamburger for his dog Willow instead of buying a meal for him, he makes your thoughts and emotions flip towards him 180 degrees.
In other words he “touches the reader’s heart” by using sympathy as one of his rhetorical strategies, by all means he persuades the reader into believing that he defines a man that someone looks up to, not that someone feels pity for. Indeed, the majority of humans connect animals with emotions such as adorable and loving. The author informs us about his puppy to prove that he did not count with anyone else at that time to rely on but his puppy.
Mr. Lemieux knows how to manipulate the reader’s emotions, for this reason he wrote the passage in first person so that the reader juxtaposes himself in Mr. Lemieux’s situation. Eventually after catching the reader’s attention with a touching personal incident he continues his story by comparing how he used to live before that Thanksgiving Day in 2002. He mentioned in his article “My whole life I had been a people person”, to this quote he means that people used to see him as a wealthy man and he did not know what the struggle of not having money to eat feels like.
He too emphasizes that“… , this begging, was far more difficult. ” He grants credibility by speaking his thoughts of when he gave those people on the streets and that they underwent with different stories like ‘I need to buy a bus ticket to Spokane so | can go visit my dying mother”, “I lost my wallet this morning and I need five dollars for gas” he suspected that all these stories seem made-up. Surely for this problem he decided to speak the truth and “Straight up goes and asks for money” without making up a story.
Being naive enough he decided to proceed towards the central-market he used to shop at to ask for someone, in fact he knew that all the people that go there, usually consider themselves superior than others. He went ahead and asked for money after thinking about it for a while, he asked a lady that headed into the store for some money and she responded with a “Sorry, all I have is a credit card”.
On the contrary, he did not give up, he asked a man in a red Porsche that had pulled in, it appeared that this man did not know what courtesy means in his vocabulary to allow Mr. Lemieux finish his sentence and responded “Get a Goddamned job, you bum! ” Mr. Richard shocked by the way the man treated him so disrespectful. He began to lose faith because of all the strangers that would not bother in aiding him When it seemed that he intended on giving up, an unexpected lady approached to him like an angel and said: “I overheard your conversation with that man, I hope you do not mind. I-well, I can help you little bit”.
When he heard these words he got surprised and began to believe again in faith. In that moment he realized that angels existed, a few good hearted people and that we humans and our future generation still convey hope. He learned that if you ever think about giving up, a reason to keep moving forward shall never go extinct nor shall faith. After all, the writer persuades his audience into never giving up by providing credibility and connections with the eader using emotional events as his strongest method in convincing the reader into always believing that faith exists. This passage allows negative people and the ones who do not believe in faith or do not trust positive things wait for us in the future. Ultimately, Mr. Richard’s message provides events that are able to happen to anyone, because of this now we know that the same thing may happen to anyone else.
