Wallin 1

Tristan Wallin
Mrs. Ludwig
English 101, MW 11:00-12:20
9 March 2016
A Short History of America- Rhetorical Analysis
1. Robert Crumb, born in 1943, is described as the founding father of underground comics
while his comics explored a variety of controversial subjects like sex and repression. The middle
of the twentieth century is a time when much his audience would be seen as having traditional
values. Therefore, I think that much of Crumbs work would have been against the grain and
probably unpopular at the time. Crumbs purpose, although controversial, was to show how the
life that people have grown accustomed to living most likely isnt healthy for the environment.
The comic genre offers Crumb could actually work against him because people often expect
comics to be funny but Crumbs comic is just a very shocking informative transition. In this
piece I feel that Crumbs stance is an old school or back in my day aura that he is trying to
share with the audience in order to show them how beautiful our country once was. Finally,
Crumbs use of a print medium and the use of pictures offers him an advantage because people
can actually see the depletion of nature over time rather than just read an article about it.
2. The main point of the text is to show, not tell, how human presence has affected the once
peaceful environment. Also in the last slide he poses a question to the audience, What Next?
The reader is meant to think about what more do we possibly need that we do not already have.
In addition the reader is meant to begin to weigh the cost of our actions. People must actively
think about how reversible this process is and if this is a benefit and if so what are the
consequences that we could face from this expansion.

Wallin 2
3. Personally, when I read the text I almost felt like it was a question. For example I felt almost
like Crumb was asking me how much is too much? We live in a very materialistic culture and I
fall into the trap of wanting more than I need all too frequently. A viewer could see, frame by
frame, each slide get even more crowded until at the end when its almost jumping off the page
and I personally just wanted to go back to the that first serene and quiet picture. The use of many
pictures over time was a very effective strategy used by Crumb rather than just a before and after.
Crumbs two most effective means of persuasion were the use of pictures and asking questions
for the audience to answer.