Description
Literary journalism fills the pages of The New Yorker and other famous magazines and newspapers such as Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and the features section of the Los Angeles Times. Despite the prevalence of the genre, no prior study directly addresses techniques employed by literary journalists while also investigating the rhetorical effects of each technique discussed. Previous scholarship on literary journalism defines the genre, discusses how the literary journalist persuades readers by establishing ethos, and names techniques used in narratives. Not having a vocabulary to analyze literary journalism texts inhibits readers and scholars from deeply understanding how the articles function. This study aims to fill this gap in the scholarship by exploring the rhetorical effects of an array of literary journalism techniques. Knowing how each technique functions will aid writers in strategically employing techniques to achieve their desired rhetorical effect. Likewise, students will have a means to analyze articles as well as to compose their own prose. By looking to terms typically used to examine fiction, developed and refined by scholars of narrative such as Wayne Booth, Seymour Chatman, and Dorrit Cohn, this study aims to help scholars, literary journalists, readers, teachers, and students discuss how a text of literary journalism functions rhetorically and serves as a springboard for exploring the rhetorical effects of various techniques in a range of literary journalism texts. This essay will discuss the terms commentary, revelation and action plot, privilege, psycho-narration, tagged dialogue, and dramatized narrator, as well as the rhetorical effects of using these techniques. This analysis draws upon Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, and Sonya Nazario's "Orphans of Addiction" to demonstrate the rhetorical effects of each technique discussed.
