Blog Assignment #4 reading Demetria Martinez "Inherit the Earth; The Things They Carried

Blog Assignment #4 reading Demetria Martinez "Inherit the Earth; The Things They Carried

 One of the hardships that persuasive pieces go through is the sense that the work is always filled with heavy debilitating emotion. And while this is a time tested and proven tactic, I’ve always considered the move as cheap and easy. Too forced if the prior seems too harsh. That's not to say that this pathos driven style is a bad one. It just seems that when all of that emotion is shoved down your throat, it is entirely possible the reader might make a conscious decision to reject whatever the author was trying to persuade to them. Because no matter what, no one likes to feel manipulated. Demetria Martinez and her piece “The Things They Carried”  brilliantly finds a way to convey the struggles of Individuals who are trying to cross the border through acute subtlety rather than blaring in your face emotion.

  Of all the persuasive pieces i've read, “the Things they carried” holds a special place in my memory banks due to the fact that it didn't seem to ask anything of me upfront. While it would have been infinitely easier to bombard the reader with heart wrenching sentence after sentence, Martinez decides to instead let the reader figure out how they want to tackle this piece emotionally by simply telling the cold, raw, unedited truth of what is left behind from these immigrants who are trying to get to a new life. She uses the lists technique to bring a sort of arithmetic feel to the plights of these people. She notes thing such as “empty plastic water jugs, a backpack, a baby bottle, soap, Colgate toothpaste, a hairbrush…” and other thing that were found on the desolate sands of the Arizona. While this isn't inherently emotional, it is real. This is the type of writing that doesn't need to rely on manipulative tactics; rather its strength comes from the fact that it seems almost robotic in its explanation. It's not cheerful nor sad, it just is. Another example of her call-it-as-i-see-it-style  comes when she recollects a border patrol worker describing that he one found an abandoned baby stroller to which he adds “We’ve even found a baby’s cowboy boots with silver tips”. This quote leaves the reader with that familiar warm feeling whenever a child is involved. It is then added that “he doesn't know what fate the owner of the stroller or the babies met”. Again Martinez isn't shouting to the reader “isn't this horrible!?”. She simply says “this is what happened”.