Reciprocal Learning: The Lesson of Am I Blue

Everything you do to us will happen to you; we are your teachers, as you are ours. We are one lesson. ” This quote is from the essay, “Am I blue? ” by Alice Walker which is about her expericance on a ranch and the way her relationship with a horse named Blue becomes more than a helpless pet stuck in a small acre ranch, to real strong relationship that animals such as Blue, do have feelings like humans do and she finds her self wondering why we don’t fight to keep these animals alive instead of sitting down to eat dinner with them, which doesn’t mean eating with them but eating them.

During the reading of Walkers essay the rhetoric concepts came up which are three ideas, ethos meaning characters or who has authority figure in the passage, pathos that means the emotional connection, and then logos the logic behind the passage. Walkers, usage of all three concepts pathos, ethos, and logos are clearly used well in her essay.

Get quality help now

KarrieWrites

Verified writer

Proficient in: Rhetoric

5 (339)

“ KarrieWrites did such a phenomenal job on this assignment! He completed it prior to its deadline and was thorough and informative. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

In the essay, the usage of pathos was clearly there with the idea of Alice not being able to eat the dinner on her table at the end of the essay. “I am eating misery, I thought, as I took the first bite. And spit it out. this is usage of pathos is well because it shows Walker emotion to what she is eating.

It shows that her connection to Blue is very strong to her and in her mind the thought of trying to at meat or trying to eat some sort of animal by product will not settle well with her.

She shows that she even spits the food out, that the imagine of her not even willing to swallow it hurts because she realizes that these animals are what we need in life and we need to take care of animals instead of eating them, to stand up for them. Next in the essay, her usage of ethos was used well, as well.

She was able to justify that she had first had experience with Blue and why she turned to become a small little activist of her own. “I first saw our closest neighbor, a large white horse, cropping grass, flipping it’s mane…” it’s her encounter with Blue, where she would see who he is and how it would develop her relationship with him. Her analogy is great because she shows that she is there and she can tell that she knows about her surroundings and how she sees him that he is her neighbor so she would be able to see what Blue does every single day and what other people cross by where she lives.

Another encounter would be her going out and feeding him apples. “There were many apple trees in our yard, and one by the fence Blue could almost reach. ” This is shows that her experience with blue is starting to grow and her usage of ethos is well used because it’s a way to show that she interacts with Blue, and it’s a clear visual statement. Lastly, the way Walker uses logos is used well.

Towards the end of the essay she explains that we are taught about animal rights but yet we still don’t seem to do anything about it. … as small children “love” to be frightened, or women “love” to be mutilated or raped…” she tries and shows that we are all brought of with the idea that children don’t like to be frighten so why should we eat something that is a livening animal because no child ‘”loves” to be frightened” as she explains. As well with the women we are grown up to stand up for women’s rights and to stand up on abuse so that no woman should ever endure a pain of a man being slapped across the face of being pushed down the stairs, so that should go to the same with animals. They don’t want to be treated horrible they want love and care just like humans do.

So why should they endure pain, while we all eat and be happy instead of realizing what these animals really had to go through. In conclusion, Walker seeks out to find help and hope for these animals that we eat every day. Which brings back to the quote in the beginning, “the lesson” is that these animals do have a heart and need someone to help them and it’s a “lesson” that we as humans need to help and protect them. The emotion her gives, the knowledge she has and the way she correlates her life into this horse named Blue is what bring the attention to life.