RUNNING HEAD: A Deal in Wheat

Rhetorical Analysis of A Deal in Wheat

Marina Chong
University of Texas at El Paso

RUNNING HEAD: A Deal in Wheat

Rhetorical Analysis of A Deal in Wheat

A Deal in Wheat is a story written by Frank Norris. The story starts with the lives of a
farmer and his wife. Sam Lewiston is a wheat farmer that had to move to another city because
the price of wheat dropped and he couldnt get any profit out of his crops anymore. His brother
offered him a job in Chicago that will help him sustain his family. Later on the story, Frank
Norris tells a different situation apart from Sam, the story changes to two stock market operators
called Hornungs and Truslow making a deal. Hornungs sells most of his wheat to Truslow in
order to make him run out of business. Some time passes and Hornungs later realizes that
Truslow is selling him the wheat he sold him at a higher price. When Hornungs realizes this, in
order to get back what he lost, he didnt have another choice but to increase the price of the
wheat. Given that they were stock market operators, by increasing the price it affected everybody
including Sam Lewingston. The story then changes to Sam again, where he is struggling because
he lost his job and the only food he has is old bread a bakery gives to people in need. When the
price of the wheat increased the bakery couldnt afford giving bread to those people. Sam
Lewingston later finds a job as a street cleaner and it helps him sustain himself and his wife for
the moment.

The element of ethos is present on the author because throughout the story he writes
about a problem in the market, capitalism, and poverty and it is very well detailed and accurate
so it means the author is an expert on the topic or is probably based on a personal experience.
The author, Frank Norris, was a novelist in the Progressive Era. During this time the government
made laws mostly for the creation of monopolies causing economy stability, and Frank Norris is
able to create a vivid picture in the readers mind of this era. In the story he was able to describe

RUNNING HEAD: A Deal in Wheat

the lives of the people that worked during this period of time and the struggle they had to live
with. Frank Norris was a writer and journalist for some newspapers during that time and even
though he wasnt a farmer or a social worker that struggled he worked close with them and saw
the struggle they were living and how they were suffering due to the economy stability. This
gives him credibility because he used what he lived to write this story.
Pathos is presented clearly in the first part of the story, where Sam and his wife, Emma,
talk about how they the economy is not helping them. They talk about how they would have to
move to another city and give up their wheat crop in order to live. One can clearly see that Sam
is not happy with that decision and that he doesnt want to give up his crops and it makes him
angry. The author emphasizes on the desperation that Sam feels about losing his crops. The
reader can feel what Sam is feeling for example in this line "And give up!" exclaimed Lewiston,
running the lines through the torets. "Leave the ranch! Give up! After all these years!" The
audience can clearly feel what they are feeling and the despair of having to move to another city
and give up all they had and all they worked on for many years.
The element of logos is the most present throughout the story because the author
describes the events occurring during that time and the economic instability. The author presents
Hornungs and Truslow make a deal that changed the price of the wheat. The author proceeds by
describing the plot of the story and how Traslow had other intenions for the wheat he bought and
scams Hornungs in his own deal. In the story, it explains the plans that Traslow had and how the
economy of that time worked and how the decisions of these men affecter the wheat market even
though they never even saw the wheat but it still affected those who worked on the crops. The
author was able to describe how the monopolies controlled everything and their decisions
affected the working class.

RUNNING HEAD: A Deal in Wheat

Lastly, the element of pathos is used again by the author. The story presents Sam
Lewiston again, by this time during the story Sam had lost almost everything he had including
his job, his wife living in another city and how he had no way to sustain himself. The audience is
appealed to what Sam was feeling during that time. One of the feelings evoked to the audience is
sadness for Sam, for he is seen waiting outside a bakery for some old bread so he can eat for the
day. Another feeling is empathy because the audience since the beginning of the story gets to
know the struggle Sam had faced and can now see at the end that he was a victim of the
instability and lost everything he had since the very start where he had to give up his wheat
crops. The audience can feel anger as well because Sam feels resentment against those managing
the market for making decisions that affected the working class. Logos is present in this
paragraph as well. The author uses a sequence to finish the story, given that he started with
Sams story he uses it to finish the story too.
The story gives the audience a point of view about the economy and capitalism was
during that time. Using the elements of pathos, ethos and logos, the author was able to create a
vivid image in the minds of the readers about how it was living during the Progressive Era and
he helped the reader understand the lives of the working class and their struggles they suffered
given by the decisions of the people controlling the market even though they were not the ones
working the product. The story is a good example of these three elements given that throughout
the whole story these elements are present in all the paragraphs.