Jake Rudin

Period 6
11/23/10
Ms. Liu On Paul Theroux’s On Being a Man

In Paul Theroux’s essay, On Being a Man the most prevalent rhetorical device is
hyperbole, followed closely by allusion. (Not literary allusions, but references.) The
essay consists very largely of pathos, for this is an issue that Theroux clearly feels
extremely passionate about. It has a logos in its factual references to real examples, but is
primarily pathos in its absolute contempt and scrutiny of the male species. The essay
shows shockingly few rhetoric devices, but the few that it does use are poignant and
effective.
His use of hyperbole is present from the beginning. He suggests that being
masculine is like wearing an “Ill-fitting coat for one’s entire life” in the second
paragraph. He says this to demonstrate his point that the masculine ideal is a false ideal,
which is his point throughout the essay. (Perhaps to justify his own career choices.) Many
of his suggestions concerning the manly ideal are simply absurd. “The manly attitude
towards sports seems to be little more than a recipe for creating bad marriages, social
misfits, moral degenerates, sadists, latent rapists and just plan louts. I regard high school
sports as a drug far worse than marijuana.” Here, Theroux suggests that the result of
pursuing masculinity through sports often results in a life of wretchedness. While there is
a certain appeal to this statement, there is certainly an absurdity to it. He strives to destroy
the masculine ideal to the reader, and he does this by using comparisons like the latter.
“There is no book-hater like a little league coach.” He uses hyperbole because there is
very little statistical evidence for what he is trying to prove. Being that it is a very
personal essay, he doesn’t need statistical evidence for these statements are largely just
his opinion. “How surprised would we be if Joyce Carol Oates were revealed as a sumo
wrester or Joan Didion active in pumping iron.” He uses hyperbole here to demonstrate
that female writers are not held up to the same standards as men.
His use of allusion is very prevalent in the second half of the essay. While he
provides us with his non-factual, highly intensified approach in the first half of the essay,
he responds in the second half by discussing the lives of some famous American writers.
Here he uses allusion to demonstrate that the masculine ideal hindered the writing of
Ernest Hemingway amongst others. “All the bullfighting and arm wrestling and elephant
shooting diminished Hemingway as a writer, bit it is consistent with a prevailing attitude
in American writing: one cannot be a male writer without first proving that one is a man.”
Theroux uses Hemingway, who was an alpha male amongst men, to prove that male
writers are not considered legitimate unless they are also masculine. This claim would be
far more difficult to prove using hyperbole. The most effective method in this
circumstance would be the allusion for there are actual examples to demonstrate his
point, and what better to prove a point than factual information. “[a male writer] kills
lions, Like Hemingway; or he hunts ducks, like Nathanael West…. But even tiny drunken
William Faulkner loved to mount a horse and go fox hunting, and Jack Kerouac roistered
up and down Manhattan in a lumberjack shirt.” Here, he presents the reader with
behaviors that writers actually exemplified, proving that many American writers also
asserted their masculinity, a practice Theroux suggests earlier might have hindered them.
 The bulk of the essay is written in pathos. But much of it is also in logos. The
entire essay suggested a very strong contempt for masculinity. The only parts of the essay
that uses logos are the parts where Theroux cites other authors and their opinions. He
opens the essay with a quote, but his interpretation of the quote is full of scorn; “There is
a pathetic sentence in the chapter ‘Fetishism’ in Dr. Norman Cameron’s book…. It goes,
‘Fetishists are nearly always men; and their commonest fetish is a woman’s shoe.’ I
cannot read that sentence without thinking that it is just one more awful thing about being
a man.” The entire essay follows a similar dynamic; a lot of pathos with a little bit of
factual information to support his opinions. He cites his own life as the primary basis for
his disdain for masculinity, but also the lives and works of others. Still, the vast majority
of the essay is in the ratio of the given quote where feelings of personal disdain
overwhelm any factual information he provides.
The essay is vividly personal, and demonstrates shockingly few rhetoric devices.
Hyperbole and allusion are the most frequently used out of all rhetorical devices he could
have used. The essay was written primarily in pathos, as it was extremely personal and
angry. It was also didactic in that it sought to teach the reader not to fall in love with the
male ideal. While the essay didn’t demonstrate a plethora of poetic devices, Paul Theroux
still managed to get his point across effectively.